We had the most honorable pleasure of speaking with Gary Hall, Sr, Head Coach of The Race Club.
Since retiring in 2006 as a physician, and moving with his wife Mary, to Islamorada in the Florida Keys, Dr. Gary Hall has now dedicated his life to swim coaching technique and swim training methods to children, masters, fitness and health swimmers, and triathletes at The Race Club Camps.
He brings his science background, knowledge and experience in swim stroke mechanics and a strong passion for swimming to offer an unsurpassed quality of teaching at The Race Club in both Islamorada and Coronado, California.
Swimmers of all ages and abilities come from around the world to learn from and be inspired by Gary Hall Sr. Mr. Hall is well known in the swimming and Olympic communities. His successes are one for the record books.
Gary holds 10 world swimming records. In both 1969 and 1970, he was named World Swimmer of the Year. In the 1970 NCAA swimming Championship, he alone scored a record 56.5 points. He was a leader as Captain of the Indiana University swim team that in his senior year won its 6th straight NCAA Championship. Gary was elected team co-Captain for the Olympic men’s swim teams of 1972 and 1976. In 1976, he was selected by all of the United States Olympic athletes to carry the American Flag leading the Olympic Team into the Opening Ceremonies in Montreal, Canada. He was the only USA Olympic swimmer ever selected for that honor until Michael Phelps in 2016.
When we asked Mr. Hall about his training techniques and classes at The Race Club Camps, he was happy to share his passion for our StrechCordz® resistance bands.
“These products are extremely well made and durable”, stated Gary. “They hold up in heat, the sun, and being exposed to chlorine. I love instructing and training with these. We use them daily in all our camps.”
“We use several StrechCordz® resistance bands that really assist our athletes to obtain better swimming techniques. We have people attending our classes here at our facility and through online coaching that range from ages 6 to 85 years old,” continued Gary. “A head coach of mine introduced me to the Long Belt Slider years ago. We require our athletes to do several sets with these. It works great for increasing speed with resistance. It’s most commonly used by us for a technique called, Alactic training or conditioning.” Anaerobic alactic conditioning is a form of training primarily utilizing ATP as the body’s source of energy. The “anaerobic” aspect means it does not require oxygen and the ‘“alactic”’ component means it does not result in the accumulation of lactic acid. “The purpose of this is to store energy in the body and the Long Belt Slider does just that for us when used in training,” said Gary.
“Another great product we enjoy using is the Kick Trainer S123,” states Mr. Hall Senior. “Kicking is such a challenge for many of our swimmers. Overbending of the knee is common and we avoid having our athletes do that. The Kick Trainer does not allow for overbending, especially when we are doing dolphin and flutter kicks. It’s one of our favorite NZ Manufacturing products to use.”
“Lastly, we really enjoy using StrechCordz® Dryland Resistance Training gear. In fact, we have several dryland stations set up for our swimmers and incorporate different products to use at each station. A common product we favor is the Breaststroke Machine. The assists strengthen the scapula muscles when our athletes do outward and inward sweep exercises or slow and fast push through motions. It’s called Escentric Training. Another one of our favorites is the Original StrechCordz® with Handles. It allows our campers to work different muscles groups and do curls, tricep extensions, flies and lat pulls to enhance speed, endurance and swim stroke,” explained Mr. Hall.
Our conversation wouldn’t be complete unless we talked more about The Race Club Camps. We asked Gary to discuss a few details regarding his involvement and how these camps are helping swimmers.
“Our camps are private instruction sessions,” said Gary. “We provide different types of swim training, proper nutrition, and recovery. We set up goals with our swimmers and we strive daily to reach those goals. Technology has allowed us to go a long way with our swim community and coaching. We offer video calls where our coaches instruct athletes over the internet. They work on improving swimmer’s weaknesses. The online camps are great for those who can not afford to travel to our facility but want the professional coaching. We do anywhere from 2 to 30 calls a month with our campers. Our motto is, training Olympic swimmers is our passion and our history. Making you a better swimmer is our business. Life is worth swimming!”
It was truly an honor speaking with Gary Hall Senior and we are beyond thankful our StrechCordz® gear is helping such a wonderful organization. You can purchase any of our swimming resistance training bands by visiting our website. To subscribe to The Race Club and Swim Club training programs, visit https://theraceclub.com/membership/raceclub-subscriptions/.
An Excerpt about the Breatstroke
I love watching Adam Peaty and Lilly King do the swimming technique breaststroke . It is the new breaststroke. You might call it a high octane breaststroke, as it is a powerful swimming technique for the 50 and 100, primarily (Adam doesn’t even swim the 200 breast). This new breaststroke should be fast in both tempo and speed.
Having a fast stroke rate in breaststroke does not necessarily equate to having speed. It is pretty easy to spin your wheels in breaststroke and waste a lot of energy without having much to show for that effort in terms of speed. Breaststroke is the most timing-sensitive of all four strokes. It requires a completely different set of tools to do well, which includes hip, ankle, and lumbar spinal flexibility. It is also a stroke where, in order to do well, neither the arms nor the legs ever get to rest. For all of these reasons, breaststroke is the most difficult stroke to teach and learn.
