This is a ‘Learning to Train’ group, ideally of 9-11 year olds but currently 9-12 year olds with one 13 year old. This is an historic issue as we move swimmers through coming out of Covid. Taking a para group the hour before I had to note the arriving swimmers and encourage them to do a poolside warm up in my absence: I put some notes on a small whiteboard and had one of the established swimmers to take the others through it. With 16, then 18, then 20 swimmers poolside and arriving late and only 3 lanes I had to given some thought over the lanes they’d be in and adjust once I saw them perform.
| Phase | Activity | TRT | Dist: | Dur: | Total |
| Introduction to the session : Ball Name Game Streamlining = head and hips. Kick = flutter kick up and down mostly from the hip | 4 | 4 | |||
| W/U WITH FINS | 2 x 100m FC: Eyes look DOWN. Hips at the same level as the head. Steady flutter kick. 2 x 100m BC: Eyes look straight UP. Hips up. Steady flutter kick. 1 x 100m FLY KICK | 2:302:45 | 500 | 12 | 16 |
| TECHWITH FINS | NO KICKER FLOATS. Tight, flat streamlined. 2 x 50m FC Kick 2 x 50m BC Kick2 x 50m FLY Kick | 1:30/1:45 | 300/800 | 10 | 26 |
| MAIN | Demo: Zip Up (have someone do it) | 3 | 29 | ||
| NO FINS | 2 x 25m FC Drill : Zip it up in slo mo. Swim up the centre of the lane. Use the line. Leading arm forward and underwater draws the recovering arm along the body like a zip as close to the centre line as possible. Lane Clear.1 x 50m FC Drill1 x 100m FC Drill | 1:001:302:30 | 200/1000 | 7 | 36 |
| 2 x 100m FCHigh Elbow. Head low. Feel the difference and the benefit. Count strokes for consistency. Increase pace each 100m. | 2:30 | 400/1400 | 5 | 41 | |
| 1 x 100m IM LC on FLY | 3:00 | 100/1500 | 3 | 44 | |
| 6 x 50m as (FLY/BC, BC/BR, BR/FC) TWICE | 1:15/1:30 | 300/1800 | 9 | 53 | |
| S/D | 150m as BC/BR/FC DPS (TWICE) | 5:00 | 300/2100 | 7 | 60+ |
| Totals | 2100m | 1 hour |
I’d love to do more challenges, more skills work and “Starts, Turns and Finishes’ with the big floats from the centre of the pool but for this I need to be down to 4 or 5 swimmers per lane, not 6 or 7. This is how the plan looked by the end of the evening.
The ‘ball name game’ is a classic icebreaker from corporate training (and youth theatre) designed to ensure the kids know each other’s names. They mostly swim their own swim, but ought to acknowledge their co-swimmers, especially as they could be swimming with them for another 6-8 years.
Swimmers got the ‘Zip Up’ drill immediately, probably because all or most have done it before in PC2 or Academy – they will certainly have done it with me coming up through teaching groups. I therefore went straight in with 100s on the Drill once I saw they had ‘got it’. A few (usual suspects) rushed it, always wanting to race a swimmer in front to get to the front of the lane 😦
Swimming myself for the first time in many years I tried some of the drills and found the ‘head down’ in FC the hardest! You do prefer to be able to see where you are going. I need to be less demanding on them on this one?
Kicking without kicker floats is fine, but few scull when they need to breathe. It can soon end up with some repeating a single army FC to breathe, or doing a BR arm stroke. Sculling, for this and other benefits, needs to be done and developed as a skill.
I had a lane allocation on the back of the white board and adjusted this several times until I felt, more or less, that I had the faster/more able swimmers in lane 3, and the new comers, less fast in lane 1. Over the term I will be juggling this, sometimes having the faster swimmers leading out in each lane instead, but quickly getting a sense of who has the taken on board the training and is ready to move on.
We had time to get through the 50s, and the entire swim down.
20 swimmers. Some arrived as at 7.00pm, two after the swim had begun.
Coaching and Teaching Swimming 