Penguin Brief #3

Jun 15, 2014

Penguins,

Swim meets are upon us and with it comes loads of tri-tip sandwiches and breakfast burritos, no wait I mean lots of fast races and tons of fun. Behind the scenes however is a lot of chaos. The coaches work day and night to develop the entries for the upcoming meet. Now because I am a coach I guess it is my duty to plug this into this article, it is very important to let the coaches know as early as possible if your child is not going to be at the meet, this has a huge impact on entries. A coach uses the number of swimmers to plan on what events to put kids in and more importantly who is on which relay. Now that I have done my duty as a coach I’ll get to the good part.

First we are in one of the best leagues in the area. Why? Is it the fastest? Most fun? While I can’t confirm or deny the last two I can tell you that this league includes everyone and not just the kids that can swim the fastest. If that was how our league operated then our team of 150 penguins would only need about 24 swimmers, because that’s all that would contribute to the scoring right? Instead our league embraces the fact that not everyone is the next Ryan Lochte or Missy Franklin. More importantly our league recognizes its main attribute that should revolve around all cabana swim teams, yes swimming is a competitive sport, but it can also be a very fun sport. A summer league should focus on fun first and foremost and then the competitive aspect after. So what does our league do differently? Our league takes a percentage of placement point and adds them to the percentage of improved swims. So to get technical for a second the placement points are established by taking a team’s total score and dividing it by a “perfect meet” (the total number of points a team can possibly score in an entire meet if they were to win every single event). This means that EVERYONE plays a part in scoring for the team.

So what is the purpose behind me revealing the secrets that go on “behind the scenes”? It’s quite simple, the purpose is to make everyone aware that every race counts. Countless times I have heard “I’m just going to swim slow because I’m not going to win.” Try on every race! Usually improvement points are what determine the end result of each meet.

One last thing swimmers, don’t forget that the coaches put countless hours into creating the events. It takes that long because each and every meet there is a strategy behind it, so yes sometimes you may have to swim your off strokes. I hate backstroke but I didn’t complain when the coaches put me in it.

In the end lets have some fun at our upcoming dual meets and lets swim every race with our all!

Until next week…

Coach Ryan

Penguin Brief #2

Jun 15, 2014

Penguins,

This week’s topic is on head and body position. Before I begin I want everyone to imagine a speed boat in a lake. If that speed boat is parked on a dock the boat sits low, once that boat starts moving to the middle of the lake the boat becomes a little bit higher. After the boat has passed the buoys and the boat is moving quickly the front of the boat rises and there is only a small amount of the boat riding in the water. The same concept somewhat occurs while swimming. The reason why this is important is because at sea level air is 784 times less dense than water. For all of the six year olds think of it this way, which one can you move through faster, water or air? Air of course that’s why we can run faster than we can swim.

Back to the boat now, in order for the boat to move faster it rises out of the water so that more of its hull is pushing against air. Swimming is the same way, the higher in the water you are, the faster you will go. So you may be thinking to yourself what does this have to do with head and body position? If your head is too high your feet will sink, if your head is too low your shoulders will start to bury. Getting your head in the right body position is one of the easiest most overlooked piece of swimming. The most important thing to keep in mind is that while changing something in the water it is going to feel weird. Since swimming is a repetitive sport your muscles develop a memory, so if you change something your muscles aren’t going to like it until they develop a new memory. So in the end embrace the weird!

Until next week…

Coach Ryan

Penguin Brief #1

Jun 15, 2014

Penguins,

It is an exciting time of the year, a time I have looked forward to for many years. I am very happy to have all of our families, new and old. We will be having an eventful year, as always, we have already welcomed 29 new penguins. However challenging it may seem, the coaches are very excited to have all of these brand new swimmers. I joined the team when I was five and didn’t make my first lap across the pool until my very first swim meet, ever since then I have been hooked to the wonderful sport of swimming. I joined my first year round team when I was eight and have swam in a number of meets around the nation.

Over the years I have accumulated a broad knowledge of the sport of swimming. In the past the coaches used to write little briefs to the team on various topics (i.e. team performance, the importance of tapering, stroke technique, etc.). With the start of the year I would like to bring this back, with the limited amount of pool time we have I would like to extend a resource outside of the pool. Each week I will be writing on various technique tips, what I encourage each family to do is read the brief and then try the tips the next time they’re in the pool. Swimming is not just a physical sport, for any who may think that will be left in the wake of the swimmers who use both their muscles and their brains. A swimmer’s greatest resource is his/her brain, without it a swimmer’s muscles will just go for the easiest route. So for this week the first tip is to always think while swimming, this is my biggest philosophy as a coach. Things just become easier when you use your head.

Until next week….

Coach Ryan