1) I noticed that some of our team members are bound by their work situation to be a little late all the time for the 7.30pm swim. To help you all, I decided I should post up the training program on Wednesday Morning if I can get access to my laptop. That way, you can take down whatever is to be done and get started no matter what time you reach. If you're late, you can always reduce the warmup reasonably to catch up with the team, or just join in and do until majority of the team has stopped and you stop together and the team can continue the flow of training.
If anyone has any Violent Objection to the above recommendation, let me know personally and I will think of something else. =)
2) The group is getting larger, yes some of us are not very consistently joining (As in EVERY SINGLE WEEK WITHOUT FAIL) but at ANY ONE time, there are still more than 8 swimmers... I am very happy that we got the circular lap swimming etiquette dialed in... as a coach, I'm very relieved as I am very much afraid that we'd disrupt other's classes as much as our own training. As we can see from the few sessions we do, as long as we move as a team and in an orderly manner, people will tend to give us the way because they don't want to get hurt too. However, I have to mention that we are still public users of the public pool so let's not take it overboard no matter what happens yup. Nothing has happened so far but IF something is to happen like a quarrel or arguement, give and take la huh. =)
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For tonite's training, the main idea is to just spice things up a little as the year nears the end and also to introduce more training concept (yes, AGAIN).
First thing is our warmup will be at least a 500m-1km swim from now on. I'd like to move on from stroke practices to full fledge swim training. If anyone of you have ever read a swim training book writing about competitive swimming, their swim training almost never go below 3km. So our swim training will gradually take on the following characteristics.
- Longer warmup (minimum of 500m), unless pressed for time.
- Drills after warmup (optional/reminder work if i find some slacking brains)
- Main set options:
- speed skill sets (sets of 50s at fast effort but focus is on moving arms quickly and efficiently and not power output)
- endurance sets (4x500 etc..)
- strength building sets (drag pants/paddles/zoomer fins)
- Anaerobic endurance sets (3x200 hard.... etc)
- etc that i can find is beneficial to all of us
Enough of previews.. now, for the real thing...
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Here we go, PRE CHRISTMAS SWIM:
Warmup: 1000m fs easy/moderate
Drills: 500m fist swim with pull buoy (focus: body balance in rotation and EVF, catching water with forearm)
M/S: 4x50 (25m Flat out FS, 25m head up)
1x team FS relay.
Cool down: 200m as 2x(fs, breast)
Quite little, but people cramp from the sprints and relays... so i think it is Enough la huh. =)
Note: The head up swim is strength building but also a way to let you realize the difficulty of swimming with your head up so you will learn to put your head back down when you do your normal swim. If you understood the rational behind, people who swim with very high head position like benjamin will benefit from it a lot because of the realization of body position in water.
Individual Swim Review:
Hong Jun
- Your hand tend to flip upside down when you finish your entry. Keep it flat when you enter!
- Sometimes, its not a matter of how you do it, whatever I can impart to you as your coach for free style, I've taught you. What you lack now is practice and strength which takes months to build up like I've mentioned in our sunday lesson last week. Be patient and keep working at it, you'll become a very very fast swimmer with your long body. =D
Marianne, Samantha, Teck Beng and Gen
- Very streamline and very relaxed. Fantastic overall body position except the legs tend to become lazy and open up wide to do a kick (lower legs instead of from hip).
- Too much gliding. Pull should start once the pulling arm ends pushing. From now on, you have to VISUALIZE yourself become a very FAST moving and AGILE athlete. Imagine Bruce lee type agile.
- Teck Beng still not activating core correctly, working on the kick DON'T HELP. We should visit the gym soon. =)
- Need to work on start off, no immediate power.
Wilson and Calvin
- Good absolute strength/power but technique and body weight are the limiters.
- Pretty straight arm pull, root of problem is inflexible shoulder. Please google for shoulder stretches, do them religiously and watch your swim time drop. =)
- Droppy chin, need to maintain that "proud" chin up posture
Benjamin
- Your head is WAY TOO HIGH. Water level is at forehead. Because your head is so high out of water, you're literally swimming in a diagonally sinking position and you have to kick SO hard to enable yourself to move forward. Imagine you were doing the head up swim ALL the time you know.. I'm sure you know what I mean. So please, ask jaslyn what I've shared with her about keeping the head submerged... Don't let your power go to waste...
Jaslyn
- There is a lot of improvement since your swim with me. However, your pull is still very short (ending at your stomach) and it should end pass your thigh.
- Also, your breathing is still not from rotation, it is still from your left arm pushing down on the water. As I've shared with you, by doing that, your body comes up high for a breathe but your hips sink... and after breathing, it sinks DEEPER back in because of the previous height gained.
Ebnu
- You are not lifting your head up high but your hips are sinking because you're not pressing your chest down (leaning inside) enough. You have not been able to feel what is it like to be doing the pressing your chest down technique thus you couldn't activate that part of your swim.
- We need a swim session together even if it is just 15minutes before the team swim squad. Can you spare that for me next wednesday? I assure that you will improve leaps and bounds once you get what I'm trying to make you feel. Lawrence experienced that sudden improvement leaps too.. I hope for you to do the same and now is still early enough to take that step. =)
Take
- Arm pull tend to start straight instead of the bent elbow EVF- When doing long swim, head tend to become too high. I believe it is because you know that when you look in front slightly, your body tend to become straighter, but it is indeed a little overdone. =)
- Good to know you're able to pace yourself very well indeed! Don't worry about being slower than the group you're in.. Only when you have someone in front of us then we can improve yup!
Yukari
- I've said this time and again, YOU ARE FAST.
- Don't worry about the relay swim, it is all in the name of fun! To cramp up means you've pushed to your limit and you've done your best and thus nobody can take anything away from you. I'm proud to be in your group! :)
- Only grudge I have with your swim is you like to open up your fingers (teckbeng used to do that and he told me he was counting strokes... hmm...) when you pull. You need to keep them closed to form a solid paddle!
Saori
- Like Mummy and Daddy, like daughter. Everything they have, you also have, Problems included. :P
- Still, you're one student I am very proud to say I've taught you from scratch... Jiayou! Gambatte! =)
- Work on your run and you'll definitely top the rest of the kids in triathlons and biathlons once you grow up a little more.
Vincent
I find that when you sprint, you can really put your mind behind and just chiong all out. It resulted in a pretty bad pacing when the effort goes up.
For example, when you're doing moderate effort, you pace very well. However when you go fast with me just now, the first 1 is VERY very fast but the subsequent ones you became slower and slower. And in the relay, you even cramped up.
Even though I kept telling the whole team to go flat out... I feel that you have to hold it back a little bit even for a flat out swim. Learn to see the whole set as a goal and not just 1 lap. It is very important that no matter what the effort, you must have a game plan to finish very very strongly... that's how you win in a race.
My principle of racing is always Practice like you're racing even in the slowest effort swim the mental aspect of pacing and strategy must be there. Then in you race, do it like you're Practicing and it'll definitely turn out good unless you have an off day. =)
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Hope you guys had fun in the relay swim. Merry Christmas! =)
Cheers
KK
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