Each has its challenges, the first a group of sixteen 9-12 year olds, the second group thirteen 13-15 year olds.
Whiteboard
Daringly I has my first group tell me which time trails we would be doing in a weeks time and their training was shaped around these. There were two groups: one to work on distance to help with their 200m freestyle, the other with a build up to 25m/50m pace over 100m.
Those with a snorkel got to use them.
With the distance swimmers settled I could pick out individual swimmers to correct faults. The instant response and fix was gratifying, in one case arm stroke in fly, in several head position on freestyle or needing to keep the head still in breaststroke.
Both groups did relays, not ‘for fun’ but it is the one guarantee to get them to sprint.
I also used the club ipad to video some of them which provided immediate feedback though an ipad is not the best device to video on.
In the last session we decided to combine three squads to run relays the entire width of the pool.
There are basic prerequisite skills necessary for successful diving.
Traditionally, in club sessions, we may leave these skills to the end of the session as the ‘alternative activity’ for five minutes, however there are many that can be introduced while swimming lengths, such as pushing off deep, streamline glide, somersaults, and surface dives.
Swimmers must be comfortable under the water before introducing a dive.
They need to be able to do the following.
Head under water:
Blowing bubbles
Controlling your breathing
Being comfortable/happy under the water … and at different depths
Pushing off the bottom of the pool ‘like a rocket’
Push and glide in a tight streamlined position on front and back
Jumping in from the side:
Different jumps off the side
Tuck jump
Pencil jump
Star jump
And activities that ‘get the hips higher than the head’:
Somersault
Handstand
Surface dives
Other activities include:
Bounce up the pool (in streamlined position)
Jumping through noodles
Kicking through hoops
And any similar challenge to take their mind off their nerves.
In addition:
Floating
Tuck Float (mushroom/canon ball)
Look for each other, thumbs up.
The steps into a competitive dive are:
Sitting Dive
Kneeling Dive
Crouching Dive
Standing Dive (Lunge)
Standing Dive (Plunge)
Points to consider are :
Stance
Flight
Entry
Transition
Commands might include:
“Keep looking down, or you’re going to get a pink face and a pink chest”
“We want our legs to be together”
“Aim for the upside-down T”
“Chin on the chest, squeeze your ears”.
TIPS:
Always have a noodle to hand. This gives them something to dive over, and can be on the surface of the water, or held up.
Loads and loads of praise. Kids love it 🙂
Build up good relationships so that they can trust you.
Don’t force them into anything.
Things they must remember:
One hand on top
Arms in streamlined position
Chin on the chest
Eyeline looking down
Arms parallel with the water
Kneeling Dive
Sitting Dive from ‘Know the Game: Swimming’ ASA
Good to start from deck level
Push with the back leg
Taken up by the forward leg
Split leg mid-flight
MUST push with your legs
Aim over the upside-down T (REPEAT OFTEN)
Remind them ‘EYES DOWN” or their chin will be off the chest
Crouching Dive
Sitting Dive from ‘Know the Game: Swimming’ ASA
Bend the knees
Arms parallel to the water NOT aimed at where they are going
Eyes Down
Hips still need to be above the knees
Lean forward and knock ourselves off balance
Aim passed the upside-down T
Nice and straight body
Plunge Diver or ‘Full Standing’
Sitting Dive from ‘Know the Game: Swimming’ ASA
As crouch, but slight bend of the knees
High hips
Good for transition into a racing start with hands to the feet
Faults, Causes and Corrective Practices
Faults
Diving too deep:
Fix:
Make sure they have the stance right.
Have a point they are aiming for
Hands Coming Apart: They’ve not got their hands together in a locked position.
Fix:
Set up the streamlined.
Take them back a step with push and glide through hoops if they are splitting their hands.
24 August 2021 Worksheet [Teacher: Jonathan Vernon]
Front Crawl & Turns
Drills/ Activities
Focus Points
Introduction
Body position
Streamline / NeutralSide of pool / against wall Draw on white boardShow from book
Warm up
All / most from a dive if the depth is available. Depending on grade:4,3,2,1As FC, BC, BR, Fly kick
Body position
Whole Part Whole
Kick
Kicking front and back with or without board Kicking on side, roll, pull under water every 8 kicks
Kicking on front 1 arm extended 1 by side
Swim F/C, every 6 strokes somersault
Long legs / pointed toes Straight / neutral body position
Continual fast shallow kick
Kick from hips
Maintain rhythm
Streamlining/Distance from wall to turn
Hands/Arm
Swim with fistSwim with correct hand Reducing stroke count – length of strokeHigh Elbow‘Shark Fin’Touch
High ElbowRoll shoulderReachSlide hand inCatch
Breathing
Head remains neutralBreathe in the bow wave3 strokesTry over 100m 3 strokes, 5 strokes, 7 strokes, 9 strokes25m dive, through transition 1 to 3 breaths the entire length
Head neutralControl inhale/exhale
Body Position
‘Dead Swimmer’ game From prone ‘dead swimmer’ straighten legs/arms into streamlineAdd a few fly kicksTransition into FCSwim along black line keeping the stoke even and symmetrical
Streamlining
Turns/Transition
Somersaults against wallPush off and glide drillsApproach drillsX3 each minimum from 10m out to the wall and back againAs much about the approach and the transition out of the turn as the turn itself.
Accelerate into the turnHead down in and out of the ‘red zone’Control breathingQuality/speed of flipQuality/efficiency speed/length of glide and underwater phase
Dive/Transition
Dive and glide – streamlinedDive, glide 6 fly kicks – glideDive, glide, fly kick into transitionAs above 3 strokes min: into full stroke
StreamlingControlling breathingQuality and effectiveness of the fly kick
Drills/Fitness development[Higher grades]
‘Piggy back’ using pull-buoy as a kicker and pull-buoy over 2 lengths.Or kicker/pull-buoy at opposite ends and swim a 3 length cycle: kick, pull, full-stroke and repeat.
Fun
Streamlined bounced from a pencil jump
StreamlinedPower of push of the bottom
‘Sea otter’ i.e. duck-dives
Breath controlHead under waterTuck/pre-somersault
Dive Development
Jump off blockJump with distanceDive progressions from sitting to kneeling to crouch diveCompetitive and track startsNOTE : Flight, not just a plunge
This is the spoken script from an earlier run through of a planned lesson :
“Before we do anything please familiarise yourself with your tools: some crayons, drawing pens and pencils and two paper plates each. Please turn the plates over and on the first draw a smiley face and write your first name – and on the second a sad face.
Done?
Show me your smiley face. Great
If you find yourself in a tv studio …. or a tv crew came in here to interview you in all likelihood you’d be hooked up with a tie mic or be accosted with a boom microphone and asked: « What did you have for breakfast? »
The sound engineer is not interested in what you had for breakfast.
But I am.
Your task is as follows:
You have two minutes to draw what you had for breakfast.
Starting now!
I am not interested in your drawing skills.
Do please annotate your sketch if needs be.
If you find you have time to do some colouring in I have probably given you too long for the task but you can always oblige for homework.
I’m hoping that we’ll get plenty of variety.
If you’re better with observational drawing rather than using your imagination here are some breakfasts.
A full English
A bowl of porridge
Continental Breakfast
A kipper
Hoping for a wide variety here.
The smiley face and sad face are for if you have a constructive contribution to make or a question to do with the task = smiley face or if you’re stuck or just need a bathroom break = the sad face.
We’ve gone for one minute and you have one minute left.
If all you have is a coffee just draw a little coffee cup on your plate.
If you skip breakfast leave the plate blank.
Your chance will come later when you come up with an evening meal 🙂
Five seconds to go
4
3
2
1
Let’s get a photo.
Please show me your plate. Don’t worry it won’t spill.
If you don’t want to appear in my picture hold it over your face – this is for my eyes only.
So what have we got?
Plate 1
Tell me about your plate of food.
Is this something you eat?
Regularly?
Does it keep you going ?
Would you have a second helping of anything?
Does the family eat the same thing?
Plate 2
Tell me about your plate of food.
Plate 3
Tell me about your plate of food.
These are the two extremes:
1: No breakfast at all.
I’ve asked this question to young and mid teens and got: ‘nowt’ which isn’t much for a sound level so I’d ask what about lunch and I’d get “chips” I’d ask is that all and be told at best “cheesy chips”
2: A tea-tray sized plate of ham, eggs and hash browns that could have fed six.
The teenager is most relevant to us because I now want you to role play as the parents or guardians of a group of performance and competitive swimmers.
Here they are:
14 to 17 year olds girls and boys who have been with the club since the age of seven or eight and they have been competing since the age of 9 or 10. Outside lockdown they train 12 to 16 hours in the pool a week plus 2 or 3 hours in the gym and they may have school sports too.
What do you think their breakfast looks like?
Will it differ if they had early morning training?
Or rather, what should it look like?
Into groups: Barracudas, Sharks, Dolphins to discuss (but not today).
Instead I want you to think about the ideal breakfast for an age group performance swimmer. I’m going to provide some ideas.
Optimal nutrition and hydration.
Healthy meals and snack choices that enable them to train hard, restore muscles quickly, keeps them alert during the day and helps them sleep at night – and much more besides.
Personal Best Times
In training and competition these swimmers live for PBS. They have seasonal goals for Counties, Regionals and Nationals. The discipline they show poolside does not always translate to what goes on the rest of the day.
There are issues amongst our swimmers of them eating too much of the wrong thing, the draw of the vending machine and its contents, cheesy chips at college and takeaways of fish and chips, pizza and or Chinese – one swimmer is asthmatic and reacts to monosodium glutamate, another diabetic, a third food allergies.
All these must be taken into consideration: as in training what they eat will be individual to them.
Swim coaching is very much about training and pushing their bodies to adapt to the challenges of the stroke and distances and races that they’re doing
Like choreographing a dance.
It’s like having gymnasts and one of the things that are really important is their hands.
I’d like you to take your hands and place them on your cheeks and chin – show me your hand.
So you now have the cupped hand. This is the best position for the ‘catch’ – to grab a column of water. Maybe you think it’s slightly splayed for swimming but we’re going to use this to help indicate the size of portions of key ingredients for our meal.
A cupped hand of carbohydrates: grains, pasta and bread. These are important because …
Not your cupped hand – but their cupped hand. So the handful is going to be smaller or larger.
Now create is a fist.
So once again, this is carbohydrates and here we’re thinking of fruit and veggies:
So fruit and veg is important because …
The thumb for fat because …
we’re talking about nuts and seeds and oils
Palm of the hand.
So this is how we get our protein in the palm of the hand such as a piece of fish, because …
Vitamins and minerals
As p art of these healthy choices.
They should not be taking supplements at all under 18 year with exception being made for medical reasons with medical advice.
So again amongst our group of swimmers:
Type 2 diabetes
Asthma
Allergies
Eat too little
Eat the wrong things.
So now we’re moving on to the second opportunity to draw a plate of food.
So given the ideas.
Cupped hand of carbohydrate grains,
Fist of carbohydrates : fruit and veg.
The fat is the thumb
The palm protein.
You chose: another go at breakfast, or a lunch or their evening meal – which is likely to be the main meal of the day.
Your two minutes start now!
We’re thinking more Grayson Perry having some fun … you may annotate or explain yourself in an email later.
So as you draw:
May I remind you:
You are the parent of a performance swimmer
They might be 11 to 17, male or female.
They might be five foot five or six foot five, but try and stick with one person in mind for this plate of food in the family
The individual might be vegan or vegetarian.
You need to think of a plate of food that they’re going to find nutritious and appetising.
Does it fit in with what the rest of the family are eating?
So keep on drawing. Once again, this isn’t meant to be a fancy piece of artwork.
If you can draw I’m going to indicate some indication of what it is fine.
So another 30 seconds to go I think and then we’ll be done.
A recording of this session will be available online for you to follow afterwards and it will cover things we have been able to talk about today.
So as the two minutes comes up – keep on drawing.
Let’s take a look at what you’ve got.
Okay.
So once again, if you could just hold up your plates to show me what you have in mind. Hide behind your plate if you’d don’t want your picture taken.
Plate 1,2,3 (time dependent)
Can you tell me about this plate of food.
And what do you have in mind?
And who is your swimmer?
And do you think it’s giving them the things they need?
Are we getting towards our goal of ‘optimal nutrition’?
And is this going to be sustainable across seven days a week?
And this one – what do you think you have here?
Do you think that will do the job?
The cupped hand full of grains.
It has the fist of fruit and veg.
We’ve made a start, next:
How often do they need to fuel up?
Why do they need these foods?
How far do we need to take it?
Portions
Weights
Hydration
Links to the slides and script
Additional reading for you and for them
Feedback quiz
Could you give me an indication of how it has gone ?
The club came out of Covid lockdown at the beginning of September only to close again at the beginning of November. During this time I was poolside teaching a couple of times a week: four groups in all.
The organisation was fantastic. We had only six swimmers per lane, rather than the usual maximum of nine. It was regimented and efficient – meeting swimmers by the fire exits off the side of the pool, allocating them to lanes by Grade and teacher, then taking them in to a designated spot taped off to socially distance right around our 8 x 25m pool.
In the first weeks diving was not permitted. Once allowed we were asked to slosh down the block and handles between swimmers. So we went into the learn to swim kit and grabbed ourselves a plastic watering can each 🙂
And so we progressed, with swimmers using blocks in alternate lanes.
Sadly, with the latest lockdown the Triangle Leisure Centre has once again closed – despite everyone’s best efforts. The allocation per lane was just about full every time – so there has certainly been the demand and willingness of parents to bring their children to the pool. And for them, to then sit outside in their car waiting for the session to finish.
We now should think about what the swimmers can do while the are away from the pool and if online classes in things like nutrition, hydration, time management, psychology and flexibility exercises would be worth doing.
Working to set times over three lanes at @800m, @400m and @200m Pace. To establish the differences PBs from a swimmer in each lane were used to set targets. It took some running around but I then got the times, to the nearest second, that were being achieved.
It is taken a good decade longer than I expected to take on a Head Coach role, or even at substantial coaching role with a swimming club. This is entirely down to the need to keep my other interests and activities going, not least a day job. Swimming Coaching is not kind to the working day with the likelihood of early morning training, evening training and weekends at galas.
The opportunity at Hailsham suits because the club swims out of a private pool and so has hours that are far more favourable to the working day: I can hold down a day job, take coaching and still get to bed in good time.
My philosophy for teaching & coaching swimmers comes down to one organisation, two people, two books and an academic sports science paper.
Swim England (formerly the Amateur Swimming Association) has been my guide and source of all training since 2002. Through the ASA, and then Swim England I have taken Level I & II Teaching and Coaching qualifications, and completed 10/11 parts of the Senior Club Coach Level III certificate too. And many other CPD days: coaching swimmers with a disability, transition to competitive swimming, Child Safety and Diving come to mind.
The books I swear by are The Swimming Drill Book by Ruben Guzman for swim teaching.
And Championship Swim Training by Bill Sweetenham.
My biggest influencers as a coach are the former Head Coach at Marlins SC. Beth Ross, and the current Head Coach Stephen Murphy.
It was Steve who introduced me to ‘A Swimming Technique Macrocycle’ by Brent S Rushall Ph.D. This paper, his Ph.D dissertation I believe, put sports science and human bio-mechanics first. This is how to nuance a swimmer’s technique towards perfection. We are always a long, long way short of this.
This translates into my sessions as an emphasis on basics such as streamline, on perfecting technique and then swimming at speed – as it is corrections to technique at speed that counts in competition, rather than overdoing swimming slowly doing drills which are best kept for learning levels.
Coaching and Teaching Swimming 