Follow up to last post.

Sooo.... that went well. Thanks to everyone who visited and checked out my last post. It was VERY popular with over 500 visits on the first day... which kind of confirmed what I thought: This is a big issue and we need to spell out the reasons. Swimming is a great sport and a fantastic character builder. I don't want a single person to miss out on that experience in their lives.

Further to my last post, I think it should be said that being a good team mate is also important. By that I mean, being supportive. In the newest episode of coachmikepodcast (available today), CEO of Swimming Nataion Canada, Pierre Lafontaine talks about the importance of being a good family before we can be a good team. I had never thought of putting it that way, but it totally agree. We need to be just as supportive as a family. If you're brother gets a good mark, you don't talk badly about them or undermine the achievement. You don't make that person more nervous about things to come. You should be happy for them and are supportive of what comes next. That is the role of a family. Be a good family member: be a good team mate. It bothers me to think that athletes can be mean spirited towards the only people that can truly understand and support you. My point: If you're truly supportive, good for you! Keep up the great work. If you're not: get your head on straight. You cannot expect support unless you give it out. This is a learned trait that will add a lot of value to your life. LEARN IT!

Links:

SUPER BOWL: Great GRANTLAND article from Bill Simmons, broken hearted Patriots fan.

coachmikepodcast: New podcast featuring Pierre Lafontaine.

Swimmers in ads: first look at Annamay Pierce in her new Pantene ad. Congrats, Annamay!

Brent Hayden had better be ready: some VERY fast swimming happening in the world. And yet, Richard Weinberger somehow flies under the radar. Why isn't he a bigger name than he is..??

Why Should I Swim If I'm Not The Best?

I think I've already covered this topic on this blog about 7 times already, but it still seems to be a big issue with age group swimmers all over the place. So I'll spend 1200 words covering it again because swimmers are still faced with a few different scenarios. The big ones are:
a.) I used to be a really fast 12 year old but now I'm not winning everything anymore so whats the point?
b.) I'm not the fastest and I'll never be the fastest so whats the point?
c.) The group of swimmers I used to be as fast as are now all national qualifiers and I'm not and I'm embarrassed by that so I don't want to swim.

Swimming means so much more than just winning. But how much value is truly put on amateur sports? For whatever reason, here in Ontario, clubs driven by parent volunteers, really want to see their kids do really well NOW, with very little long term thinking. What is going to keep these athletes involved in the sport long enough to truly succeed? Look around... how many 14-16 year olds were at World Championships this past summer? How many will be swimming at the Olympics this summer?

Sports has changed and athlete & parental mind sets must change as well. 20-30 years ago, it was normal to see a 16 year old girl or a high school aged boy swimming at the Olympics or breaking world records... and there was a reason for this: money. Years ago, amateur sports were truly amateur (loosely translated "for the love of the sport") and athletes could not afford to keep going past a certain age (the physical toll on their bodies was a lot higher as well with limited sports science knowledge). Now, there is lots of money through Universities, grants, endorsements, sponsorships, etc to keep athletes going. So what is YOUR plan to keep swimming after age 22? What is your club's plan to make sure that this will happen?

Here is my final whack at the question "Why should I swim if I'm not the best" (which I'm sure I will recycle a few times in the coming years). The 6 reasons to swim even if you're not the best.

1.) Sports is about role playing. Tobias Oriwol articulated this very well for the Halton Hills Blue Fins at their October Awards Banquet (audio can be found on coachmikepodcast episode 7). Basically, Tobias put it this way: in football the roles are clearly defined: you're a blocker, your job is to stop someone from interfering with a rush or pass play. Very little glory there; but you know that getting into it. In swimming its a little different. Training roles and competing roles exist and its important to figure out what role you play and how you make the TEAM better with you on it. If there was only room for world record holders, there would only be about 6 clubs in the world and those clubs on average would consist of 2 people each.

2.) Average age of champions is on the rise. Aside from USA's Missy Franklin, the top 150 swims in the world are not exactly littered with 18 and unders. Swimming has to exist after high school in order for Canada to succeed in the world... and High School Swimming is not helping. Stephen Clarke (Canada's best freestyler and flyer back in 1996-2000) didn't even qualify for Nationals under age 18. Rick Say didn't even really start swimming seriously until University. If you're 14 and not where you want to be yet: don't sweat it! Your career is very young.

3.) Its about the journey, not the end result: "Swimming produces some of the best and most well rounded people." ~ Dean Boles, Ontario Provincial Mentor Coach. Swimming can teach you so many things, amongst them, time management. Not many other sports demand as much training at inconvenient hours... as a result, swimmers have the opportunity to learn how to balance a busy and important school schedule with a long training schedule. I say the opportunity because it is very tempting to not train during exams or busy school time... and thus is the challenge and the lesson. I'll say (and be accountable for) the following statement: Swimmers are better people... but its a learned attribute. Rise to the challenges ahead of you.

4.) Self reliance:I swam for (what feels like) a life time. In that time I really learned a lot about myself. At age 15, I realized that I was a big wuss and it embarrassed me. Upon that realization, I decided I wanted to become more self reliant (in charge of my attendance, swimming, travel, etc). There were several times when my family was going away for a weekend and I stayed behind to train. There were many times when my mom would put me on a team bus or with another swimmer's family and wish me luck for the weekend. I was (with the exception of my coaches and team mates) on my own. At 19 I was still not very adventurous (I decided to stay in Ontario for University rather than scholarship) but I really feel that swimming kept me on track in University and made me University ready. Those opportunities are there for everyone in the sport. Here is a good read by Dick Hannula. EVERY swimmer should have it printed out and sitting next to their bed.

5.) Fitness: I have 2 children under the age of 4 and its very easy to let fitness slip when you have children. However, I had done so much in the past that I was still able to fake general fitness for years... and when I got back into a gym, it didn't take me very long to get back into shape... AND I knew what I was going to do to get me there. This is my round about way of saying that the benefits of childhood fitness pay off. Trust me! Also, swimming is a life skill. You should always want to pass that skill to your kids... and then beat them in a race and gloat about it.

6.) What if you ARE the best and just don't know it? Above, I referenced Rick Say and Stephen Clarke, obvious late bloomers... but how would they know if they backed out at 13? You owe it to yourself to answer that question. Train and practice as if you already know the answer is "yes".


Far too many athletes give up too early because no one can give them an answer to that question. I've given you 6. See you at morning workout, right?

If you liked this post, please follow me on twitter @coachmikeswim and check out coachmikepodcast and Off the Deck.

Links of the Day:

- I came across this document on line yesterday and I really like the wording of the roles of parents, coaches and athletes at swim meets. Its a good read.

- Todd Schmitz interview on The Morning Swim Show. I had the pleasure of chatting with Todd about a variety of topics from being a young coach, to club structure and politics, to nightmare stories. He also appears on my latest podcast. He's a great guy. This is a good interview:

- Exclusive video from the Austin Grand Prix: Michael Phelps winning 100Fly. Notice the timing of the breathing from all of the top 8 (Elite, Platinum and Regional development swimmers spent a lot of time on this lately).

- I have been asked about nutrition a lot since I returned from Texas. Here is a list of some good starting articles to read:
High Performance Nutrition For Swimmers
What Should My Swimmers Eat Before Their Next Meet?
Nutrition Between Prelims and Finals
Child and Teen Swimmer Nutrition
Dr. Greg Well's Take on Nutrition

- Top 10 doping scandals... I'm a little embarrassed that swimming has 2 on the top 10.

- Incase you haven't heard: Provincials have moved to Ottawa.

Q and A

Q. If "B" times are regionals then what are the A times?

A. Regional times used to be "C" standards and were changed a few years ago (up graded to "B" standards). Outside of the Central Region, they are pretty insignificant (other regions, nationally, inter-nationally). The standards were developed around the provincial standards and worked backwards, basically as goal setting and identifying proximity to provincial level performances. An A standard quite simply mean that you're closer to a provincial performance, although, some meets (AGI in June, for example) will use these standards as entry times for their invitational meet.

Changes are coming to the provincial structure for next season which will kind of turn this on its head. More on that to come...


Q. If I finished 4th in preliminaries and 6th at finals, what was my final placing?

A. Final results come from FINALS so your placing there is your final placing. If you placed 6th at night, you finish 6th regardless if you went faster or placed better in the morning. However, times in the morning are still official... so if you had a best time in the morning, it still counts... just not towards your placing at that meet.


Q. Why didn't the Oakville Meet appear on our meet schedule? What happened to Ontario Cup and the AB Meet?

A. Our coaching staff is small and we're stretched fairly thin when meets come up. Sending me to Ontario Cup with a select number of athletes, sending Shannan to Brantford with her groups, leaves Chris in Etobicoke running a double ended meet all day on his own... obviously not ideal. Oakville offered a great environment for competitive racing (there were very few Blue Fin blow out races) and allowed for many of our athletes to gain valuable experience at Finals so they're not completely overwhelmed by the experience when they make it at Central Regions, Provincials, Easterns, Nationals, or even Divisions. There seemed to be some confusion and concern over this decision, but, as I planned, it worked out GREAT! We had more regional qualifiers added, a few more qualifiers for other meets, a ton of PBs and EVERYONE who showed up at finals had more fun than I can put into words. This was the best decision, by far; rather than splitting up the club and being severely under manned. Trust me; I know what I'm doing ;)

I'm Back

Recently returned from my trip to Austin, TX with the Swim Ontario High Performance Team. My report from the trip (and newest podcast with interviews from the trip) can be found HERE.

This article was sent to me from Andrew Craven (Head Coach of LAC). It was originally published in the American Swim Coaches Association newsletter, but since the question has come up countless times in the past 7 years, I figured this would be a good read.

Attention to all who have read the Central Region SC Championships meet package: The Meet package qualification times appear incorrect, as they are inconsistent with the entry file and the agreement with the Central Region coaches made in September of 2010. As per the agreement, qualifications for Central Region Championships are a "B" standard. It appears that the package was recycled from an earlier version and the standards not changed. I have expressed my confusion and concerns to the region. Any further concerns from parents should be voiced to the Central Region Board.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Christmas Training 2011-2012

For most families, Christmas is time off and relaxation. For swimming families (and coaches families) its one of the busiest times of the year... In fact, any time there is no school, typically its a busy time because coaches can flood the swimmers schedule with training time. Ideally, its nice to get away during this time frame to some place warm and leave your regular life behind. Since I do not feel that we're quite there yet, I decided to try to keep it as interesting at home as possible. Similar to last year, I was able to get the Elite group out of GHIP and travel to a few other teams across Ontario (Brantford, Brock & ROW) to expose them to different training partners, different coaches and some long course meters. The changes this year included Elite, Platinum and Regional Development adding a bit of Yoga inspired flexibility and core training. Gold, Silver and Bronze were lucky enough to experience some dryland training/team building with Swim Ontario's Steve Topham as well as a guest speaking and skills session with former National team member (and great coach) Kristy Lyon.

Christmas Training has been really successful for most! Speaking about Regional Development, Platinum and Elite, specifically, I think that this season's domestic training was hugely successful and will prove to have been effective for those who made good use of it. Major success of note: attendance was up about 100%. Last season we would average about 17 people showing up for workouts. On Monday January 3rd, we had 35. It doesn't get much better than that for attendance. The swimmers that were able to participate, were run through some gruelling workouts which served to better a lot of habits and demanded focus and attention to the tasks. I believe that we have a lot of better swimmers as a result of the past 4 weeks of training. One thing that drastically needs improvement is season long attendance. Some swimmers were really struggling to complete the sets because they're attendance previous to the mini-camp was lower than it should have been and they were not in the shape that they were expected to be in. Even those swimmers. however, got major gains from attending and are now far superior than they were only weeks ago.


Gold Silver and Bronze all got to work with Steve Topham (Swim Ontario's strength and conditioning consultant) and had lots of fun doing it! Watching the session was a lot of fun for me as well. Not only is Steve extremely knowledgeable of human strength and kinetics, he is also masterful at bringing together kids for team building. Those athletes had a ton of fun there. We were also able to procure Kristie Lyon (former head coach of the Sarnia Rapids Swim Club) to work with these groups on dives turns and strokes. Elite, Regional Development and Platinum got to work with a former team mate of mine, Sara Havekes, doing some Yoga inspired strength and flexibility training.

The objective was to make sure that we were training effectively as well as having fun. Had we been away on a training camp, we would not have just done 1 or 2 practices per day: we would have had a day planned out. I wanted to make this as much like a training camp as possible; when you're away at a camp, the day doesn't stop at a couple of practices. I wanted to help the team do as many activities as possible to assist in team bonding and betterment in our key areas (a surprising 16 people showed up to toboggan and have fun in -20 degree weather). I am pleased with what we were able to put together and am sure that we're going to see some great things for 2012.

And now for a little fun...

Come and join us for HHBF's family fun day. Details below.