Friday, September 28, 2012

Answering Your Questions About Canadian Time Standards



#coachmikepodcast episode 28

With the release of Swimming Natation Canada's new National Standards yesterday and their support document, I speak with Swimming Natation Canada's High Performance Director, Ken Radford about the need for the changes and some of the finer points. This one is a little bit longer, but definitly worth the listen... a MUST HEAR for all coaches, age group swimmers and their parents. Good info and explanations for Easterns/Western Championships and Canadian Age Group Championships.
As always, you should check out my web series OFF THE DECK and follow me on Twitter(@coachmikeswim). Check out my archived past episodes as well.





My friends over at Swim Swam has also covered the changes to Canadian Standards. Their coverage can be found HERE.


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Thursday, September 27, 2012

Links of the Day with Jocelyn Jay


At the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Team's Celebration of Excellence, following the London 2012 Games, athletes teamed up again and rocked out to Canadian superstar Carly Rae Jepsen's hit song Call Me Maybe.




















Motivation vs Commitment - http://ow.ly/dSl5Y

It's not what you have to say, it's how you say it. http://ow.ly/dSlaQ

This article contributed by Sean Baker of the Oakville Aquatic Club: Quite Sean: "It gives me alot to think about with my children but it makes alot of sense to me why Coaches have such an impact on the developmet of character in our swimmers." Why Kids Need to Fail to Succeed. 



Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Its time to review some stuff...

Okay swimmers; I am constantly told that your generation learns better from a computer screen than by a person; here is me catering to that adage. Below, are some of last season's best episodes of my web series, OFF THE DECK, that can be found on the Swim Ontario website. The episodes below highlight some very important aspects of swimming that you should be incorporating into your swimming right now, as you are reforming habits and getting into shape. This info usually costs hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars and I bring it to you for FREE; all it costs is a little bit of your free time.

Parents; these videos should help your general understanding of the sport, why coaches are always telling your kid to do the same things (streamline, dryland, etc) and are pretty entertaining. By watching these, you should get a better understanding of the sport, as a whole, and not just what is happening between the 4 walls of your pool.

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Dean Boles: Dean Boles of Swim Ontario invited Canadian National Team Bio-Mechanist, Alan Wrigley, was invited to Toronto during Canada Cup to analyze dives, starts and turns. HHBF's Kyle Haas was there and I bring the advice he received from Dr. Wrigley to you.


Off The Deck with Dean Boles from Swim Ontario on Vimeo.



Steve Topham: Swim Ontario's strength and conditioning consultant, Steve Topham, talks with Ontario's Canada Games Hopefuls regarding posture in and out of the water.


Off the Deck with Dean Boles and Steve Topham from Swim Ontario on Vimeo.



Steve Topham on Shoulder Health: Dean Boles interviews Steve Topham about shoulder health and swimming.


Dean Boles and Steve Topham on Shoulder Health from Swim Ontario on Vimeo.



University Swimming: Ken Fitzpatrick of Western University addresses the Swim Ontario Train to Compete Camp about staying in Canada for University. Some helpful info for swimmers about to make decisions and a compelling argument, nonetheless.


Off The Deck - A Compelling Argument about University Swimming from Swim Ontario on Vimeo.


Tara Van Beilen's Success: Many of you watched Tara's nail biting swim-off for 8th in an Olympic Final this summer, but how many of you know how much work went into getting her that far?


Off The Deck with Team Tera Van Beilen from Swim Ontario on Vimeo.

Friday, September 21, 2012

HHBF Top Performances

This is an update to a previous post with current ranking information.

I thought it would be fun to examine the top times in HHBF history, as of today, to start the season. As club records become harder and harder to break (not a bad thing at all!), I think it is a good time to measure depth; more specifically, are our current swimmers the fastest that this club has ever had? Check out the following events. Note the following:
i.) This info is pulled from the SNC database. All meets from last season should be uploaded - this is about as good of a snapshot as you're going to get. It'll get harder once we start competing and results start posting.
ii.) A name can only appear once. For example, Kyle Haas has gone 58.8 for 100BK 5 times, but only his best time of 57.81 appears, not all of the other times done. This is depth of athletes and their best times only.
iii.) Where do you stand? I challenge you to make the top 10 in 3 events before your career is over. Already have 3? See how many you can rack up and how high you can be. Competition is what makes this sport great, and what makes our club better!



Something that I notice right away is that HHBF swimmers never used to swim the "hard" events. 200FLY, 1500FR, 400IM are all very short lists. Our current coaching staff is one that will stay around for the long events and prepare swimmers for the "harder" events. No reason why that cannot be filled up this season.

This list is a good measuring stick of performance and depth. Since the database is automatically updated by SNC, bookmark this entry and check back every so often to see how our depth improves... more importantly, how YOU help our depth improve.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Welcome to the 2012-2013 Season

Welcome to the 2012-2013 season. Ontario Provincial Mentor Coach, Dean Boles, joins me today to wrap up Ontario's contribution to the Olympic Team, changes to the Toronto Training Centre (Now the National Swim Centre Ontario), the addition of Ben Titley as the Head Coach of said centre as well as the upcoming season.

Podcasts are now shorter due to popular demand and they're still FREE, so no excuse not to listen.

As always, you should check out my blog and follow me on Twitter(@coachmikeswim). Check out my archived past episodes as well.


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Thursday, September 13, 2012

#coachmikepodcast episode 26


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Today my good friend, Dave Clarke, (ex OUA and CIS rival) is a Post Doctoral Research Associate at M.I.T and I'm a coach... ... clearly Dave won in the long run, but he is currently researching peak performance and figuring out how to avoid "over-training"... and his concept of over training is very interesting.
Podcasts are now shorter due to popular demand and they're still FREE, so no excuse not to listen.
As always, you should check out my blog and follow me on Twitter(@coachmikeswim). Check out my archived past episodes as well.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Links of the Day With Jocelyn Jay

She's Back, everyone...

A great resource for dryland... Coach Michelmore from DACA (a California based swim club) posts his dryland.  He also owns a crossfit studio.
Coach Dale Porter from the Bolles School (Arianna Kukors swim club) presented "Practice planning" at the conference.  He recommends all coaches keep a resource page that you can constantly visit for practices. www.bollesswimming.org under "Clinic Notes"

Nobody likes conflict.  It is an important part of being a team.  Believe it or not, it is positive!  A great article on "Feeling Comfortable with Conflict" - http://ow.ly/dDODJ

How to decode slang kids use online - http://ow.ly/dDQqo

A great blog...Paul Yetter & T2 Aquatics... http://createperformance.blogspot.ca/