These are the “core” elements of summer swimming. Accordingly, they must be the “core” elements of ALL practices. Anything else may be of little use or possibly adding time to a swimmer’s race. If your team is not spending the majority of its practice time working on these race elements, your child may need supplementary help. It is very possible for a parent to provide a measure of help that may fill in some of these gaps.
Most pools are fairly quiet in the evening. Using this time to do some work on starts, turns, short race paced swims and finishes can pay off in meets. A couple of nights for an hour or less CAN make a difference. Here are some suggestions on how to practice starts:
STARTS: Practicing starts should include the whole routine including simulating the 4-5 beep starting sequence. The swimmer should approach this drill with all the race techniques we stressed in the Clinic in mind. Have your child tell you what we practiced on starts. Does he/she remember what the multiple beeps mean and what to do? How about the first single beep on forward starts and the first and second beep on backstroke. How about the hands on knees? The three breaths to clear the lungs? Eyes and concentration during the starting sequence? On the command “take your mark” is the back heel up to facilitate a strong push? At the start does the swimmer get OUT and UP in the freestyle and butterfly and not try to go too long underwater in the backstroke and breaststroke? The idea is to start swimming when the underwater speed is slower than the swimming speed.
Many swimmers equate starting distance with speed. This is often not the case. The only way to quantify this is to time it. Here’s how. Mark a point at the middle of your pool. This will be a timing point. If you are lucky enough to have a half way mark, great…if not, get something dark that you can put on the bottom of the lane to mark the mid point for your swimmer. You are now ready to do some simple timed drills to determine the best start for your swimmer. The stopwatch tells the tale. Simple as that! (-:
The beauty of this is that swimming to the middle will NOT fatigue a swimmer but WILL fine-tune and give answers to the first element of the race. Do 3 or 4 of each desired stroke. Give 2 or 3 minutes rest between starts and set some incentives. The swimmer should have some focus time between starts. As the swimmer’s times get faster to the middle, SO WILL the race times. Try it and let me know how it works.
A last hint…remind your child to stay in the MIDDLE of the lane and not swim circles. Watch at the next meet to see how many swimmers are STILL swimming practice circles…down one side and up the other.
-Lou Sharp, Clinic Director