Swim Hints

The Importance of Rest

Most of you have heard me say it again and again, but here it goes ONE MORE TIME. The greatest asset a swimmer can bring to a race [apart from developed skill and race speed training] is a RESTED/FRESH body ready to swim fast. How many times have we seen a swimmer come back from vacation or even an illness only to swim his/her best race. If you've been around swimming and other forms of athletics you've seen it before. While certainly not "rocket science" it is a fact often overlooked. Sometimes it would appear that kids have endless energy but PEAK performance can only be attained with a physically fresh body.

 

How to apply it (I'll make it simple) FOR OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE:

 

1. DON'T swim or practice the day before a meet. [ B swimmers should not swim a practice the morning of a B-meet, NOR should they spend the day at the pool.

 

2. The practice TWO days before the meet should be a "tune-up" and contain ONLY race specific elements...ahh yes... the muscle memory thing again.

 

3. As you've heard before, the warm up the day of the meet should be BRIEF and to the point [ A TUNE UP ]. General lap swimming is a WASTE of time and often fatigues the swimmer not to mention de-tunes/contaminates her/his "race speed memory". This is the stuff, unfortunately, some have been doing since "dirt was young".

 

These suggestions WILL probably go against the grain of some coaches and team reps, BUT I'm writing this to help the kids ...not to support old training concepts. GIVE IT A TRY and let me know how it works. Over time, I'll bet the kids do better. I'll be waiting for the results.

 

Race Specific Starts Turns Strokes and Finishes

 

These are the “core” elements of summer swimming. Accordingly, they must be the “core” elements of ALL practices. Anything else may be of little use or possibly adding time to a swimmer’s race. If your team is not spending the majority of its practice time working on these race elements, your child may need supplementary help. It is very possible for a parent to provide a measure of help that may fill in some of these gaps.

 

Most pools are fairly quiet in the evening. Using this time to do some work on starts, turns, short race paced swims and finishes can pay off in meets. A couple of nights for an hour or less CAN make a difference. Here are some suggestions on how to practice starts:

 

STARTS: Practicing starts should include the whole routine including simulating the 4-5 beep starting sequence. The swimmer should approach this drill with all the race techniques we stressed in the Clinic in mind. Have your child tell you what we practiced on starts. Does he/she remember what the multiple beeps mean and what to do? How about the first single beep on forward starts and the first and second beep on backstroke. How about the hands on knees? The three breaths to clear the lungs? Eyes and concentration during the starting sequence? On the command “take your mark” is the back heel up to facilitate a strong push? At the start does the swimmer get OUT and UP in the freestyle and butterfly and not try to go too long underwater in the backstroke and breaststroke? The idea is to start swimming when the underwater speed is slower than the swimming speed.

 

Many swimmers equate starting distance with speed. This is often not the case. The only way to quantify this is to time it. Here’s how. Mark a point at the middle of your pool. This will be a timing point. If you are lucky enough to have a half way mark, great…if not, get something dark that you can put on the bottom of the lane to mark the mid point for your swimmer. You are now ready to do some simple timed drills to determine the best start for your swimmer. The stopwatch tells the tale. Simple as that! (-:

 

The beauty of this is that swimming to the middle will NOT fatigue a swimmer but WILL fine-tune and give answers to the first element of the race. Do 3 or 4 of each desired stroke. Give 2 or 3 minutes rest between starts and set some incentives. The swimmer should have some focus time between starts. As the swimmer’s times get faster to the middle, SO WILL the race times. Try it and let me know how it works.

 

A last hint…remind your child to stay in the MIDDLE of the lane and not swim circles. Watch at the next meet to see how many swimmers are STILL swimming practice circles…down one side and up the other.

Lou Sharp, Clinic Director

 

Avoiding Swimmers Ear

 

Without trying to give a medical definition of "Swimmer's Ear" I will give some suggestions on how to avoid it. "Swimmers Ear" is usually caused by small amounts of water standing in the ear canal for long periods of time causing fungal and other types of painful problems. This is pretty hard to avoid as a competitive swimmer can spend, on average, between 2 and 4 hours in the water with the ears under water at least 1/2 hour of this time. Most of us who spent time at our pools during our youth remember experiencing the frequent "glush" when we turned our head from side to side after a day at the pool. This annoyance continued long after we left the pool. We tried shaking our heads, pounding with our palms while holding our head on the side, resting our heads on warm stones, and Q-tips. Most of the time these things didn't offer much relief.

 

The problem with water is its tendency to form little droplets due to its surface tension. Once in the ear, it is reluctant to come out. The obvious solution is to remove these droplets after leaving the pool, eliminating the breeding ground for ear problems.

 

Let me start by warning you away from Q-tip devices. They are not only dangerous if inserted too deeply but often remove too much of the natural protective coating in the canal (ear wax).

People used to use Hydrogen Peroxide to treat Swimmers Ear...DON'T!

 

When I coached a team years ago, we virtually eliminated "swimmers ear" as a problem. HERE'S WHAT WE DID AND IT WAS VERY SIMPLE. Principal: Breaking the surface tension of water allows water to escape the canal. Alcohol (91% isopropyl preferably) does the trick and does it very nicely. It makes water wetter and allows it to run freely. We purchased a bottle of alcohol and USP boric acid (it has anti-fungal properties). We mixed the boric acid in with the alcohol until it would hold no more in suspension (a saturated solution). We knew this when we could see boric acid crystals still on the bottom of the alcohol container. We poured some of the solution contents into a smaller ear dropper bottle...this was our "Swim Ear" solution. Every day parents would administer this ear canal drying solution to their children's ears. This was done at the completion of practice and after a day's swimming. Use three to five drops per ear with the head on the side, waiting until the little "glush" is heard indicating the solution has mixed with all the water. After turning the head over to drain the canal, a warm sensation was often felt as the solution drained. A trace amount of Boric acid is left behind, providing additional fungal protection. We did this for years and it worked. I have passed this information on to people from time to time and it still seems to work better than other things.

 

For obvious reasons you apply this information at your own risk. I will say that of the many hundreds of parents who have used this solution, I have NEVER heard of a problem associated with its application. If in doubt check with your doctor.

 

OK. That's it. Remember, it's easier to AVOID "Swimmers Ear" than to cure it. Pass these hints on to your other team parents and PLEASE TELL THEM ABOUT OUR PROGRAM.

 

Divisional Hints

 

Many of your children will be participating in NVSL Divisional meets this coming Saturday, July 30. This year the order of events will be backstroke, breaststoke, butterfly, I.M., and freestyle. There will be two heats (sometimes three) in each event. Normally there will be a warm-up break between each event. The events are usually run on a clock schedule...meaning each specific event will begin at a specified time. This allows parents to arrive on time for their child’s particular event.

 

Planning arrival times and what to do before and between events is paramount to a swimmer’s success. Divisionals, as most of you know, is a LONG event. Add to this a hot day, and it can spell disaster for an otherwise successful season. My suggestions are:

 

1. Plan out your meet...arrive in time for your child’s first event warm-up but DON'T try to watch the whole meet.

 

2. Plan on a LOT of sun...wherever possible try to find shade or someplace cool if your child is swimming more than one event. Some teams actually rent air-conditioned busses. Some parents have their children stay in an air-conditioned car between events. Anything to KEEP COOL.

 

3. Have the children drink water...lots of it if it is hot. Stay away from too many "sports drinks".

 

4. If possible, find a quiet spot away from the 'hussle and bussle' of the meet. This ties up a lot of your child's needed emotional energy. Your child will need it for "the race".

 

5. Keep the pre-divisional visit to the pool very brief. Again, the day before the meet must be a quiet day to store up energy. Swimming should be kept to a minimum.

 

6. If your child wears a cap, be sure to take TWO. Also TWO pair of FITTED goggles.

 

7. Swimmers SHOULD wear something on their feet at the meet...they should NOT run around in their bare feet.