As we enter the winter season for the swimming season, many athletes need to remember a few key items. Right now, as a swim coach for a high school team, I am preaching to my athletes the fundamentals of the sport. The fundamentals that I am preaching include: technique, form, strength and flexibility. Whether we are in the water or on dry land, I am constantly reminding the athletes these four key words.
During our dry land program, we are using the StrechCordz to help the athletes become more flexible in their shoulders. A key concept that I try to remind the swimmers is when we are doing a simple exercise we are working on flexibility and form that coincides with strength. The swimmers that I work with have great technique and I would rather have the kids do less right now as far as repetitions go so they have proper technique. My hope is that this will translate into the water.
One of the other key pieces of equipment that I will use in the training of the swimmers is the short belt. I use this piece of equipment by having the students push off from the end of the pool and perform 8-10 quick dolphin kicks. I give them an objective and the great thing about this is that if they do not push off in streamline, they quickly are not able to meet their objective. Again, this simple exercise incorporates technique, form, flexibility and strength. This is also used so that we have a baseline for the athlete. Taking this to the next level, the student-athletes will have this as a benchmark and are reminded that if they work on the simple things it will pay off in the end. After all, the key to swimming in my mind is figuring out what everyone else isn’t doing and capitalizing on it. Keeping it simple and making it work.
