A Change For Canadian Swimming

Swimswam.com broke the story earlier today that Pierre LaFontaine will step down as CEO and National Team Director of Swimming Canada effective March 1st I had been expecting this news for some time (whenever someone emails me that they have big news, I jokingly ask them if they were appointed the new National Team Director of Swimming Canada) but it still feels like a bit of a shock.

It could feel like a shock because the Canadian Swimming community is rarely met with major news like this and maybe I'm more shocked by the fact that there is news at all than of this particular news. Although, more likely, I think I am shocked of the follow up to this news: that British Coach, John Atkinson, has been hired as SNC's new Director of High Performance. Former Director of High Performance, Ken Radford will take over as interim CEO.

There are a few of small reasons that this shocks me:

• There has been a lot of push to develop Canadian swim coaches over the past little while and the last 2 coaches SNC has hired are British.
• The job of National Team Director was posted online last season and many were expecting a move around Olympic Trials last season. I'm a little shocked that this took so long.
• John Atkinson has been working with the British Para-Athlete system for the past several years which was remarkably successful. He even comes from Britain, which has a large number of World Class (top 8) athletes and is coming to Canada which only has a handful. I can't help but wonder why this job is appealing to him.

One thought I have that stands out as being very positive is this: Atkinson worked with Bill Sweetenham for a long time and Sweetenham was a big believer in developing performing coaches. I think I have said this before on this blog (although I have too many posts now to comb through to find it) that the state of (swim) coaching in Canada is not world leading - it is way to age group - club success oriented and way too much of an "old boys club". Not an "old boys club"? Take a look at the last 4 Olympic Teams and I'll give you a dime for every new name you can spot on that coaching roster. And has our medal count improved drastically in the last 16 years?

Rules exist that you have to be certified as a Level IV coach or a ChPC in order to join an Olympic roster, but in the last few years, there has not been much opportunity to certify yourself any higher than level II or III (which have been discontinued). AND recent changes to the coach of record rule prevented jugling of coaches and athletes in order to get friends and collegues on to National teams. According to the NCCP (National Coaching Certification) website, the highest you can register for is Senior Coach - the equivalent of Level III - thus, there will not likely be any new young, Canadian born coaches on that team in 2016 either... but the sad news is that not every coach works (or lives) forever. Young coaches need international experience so they can pick up where the older ones left off... unless job protection is more important that performance. I am hoping that there is more thought put into developing more young coaches who can pick up where the old ones left off when they retire so we don't have to keep hiring from other countries; and even that the new ones can work with the old ones before they retire.

I am really hoping that new blood pumped into Canadian Swimming by John Atkinson and by Ben Titley will change coaches understanding of the sport outside of their 4 walls and outside of the pages of their books. I know that my work with Ben so far has been amazing for my coach eyes and brain. None of it has been mind blowing, but certainly non-confusing and layman's terms. Also some fresh and new ideas with technology and openness. I embrace this change and wish Pierre the best of luck over at Canadian Inter-University Sport.

*You can hear Pierre speak to me on #coachmikepodcast about swimming philosophies last February  here.

Not All Things Are Equal

A few different random thoughts today:

1.) Attendance Matters: 

Not everyone is built equally and along those lines, life isn't fair. Guy LaFleur used to smoke heavily before hockey games and still had a great lung capacity and played better than most. If EVERYONE smoked before athletic events, I would argue that sports, in general, wouldn't be as good and performances would suffer (as would health). It worked for Guy, so good for him. It's not fair that everyone can't smoke before their event; and just because 1 person could, doesn't mean that everyone should or can.

With "Championship Season" on the horizon, we have to rest assured that we've done the work and that (ideally) we're not trying to scramble to improve with 1 week to go; that work should be done. Attendance is important and you have to be honest about the work you've done. If you've had to miss a large chunk of practice time for a specific reason (injury, illness, etc) or a non specific reason (you're lazy and don't like coming to practices) you'll have to make up that time somewhere. My rule of thumb is that you need to be about 90% attendance to get good results from training - and in my system, our workload is only about 90% of most larger clubs - so we're already working from a 10% disadvantage. Realistically to compete, attendance is a huge factor.

You can't expect your workload to go down if you're workload was never up to begin with unless your goal is to lose fitness. Will some athletes swim outstandingly well without having done much work? Yes of course anomalies will happen and physical athletic freaks will be there... but if you're not one of them (and in many cases, even if you are) you have to get the work done when it's work time.

Not everyone is created equal in sports. I remember Todd Schmitz (coach of Olympic Champion, Missy Franklin) using the analogy of having 2 cups: A talent cup - filled with the genetic advantages you passively inherited from your parents (height, body shape, eye sight, muscle density, etc). You also have your work cup - the cup that starts empty and you contribute to over time with the amount of practice that you do. The point is this: You cannot change the talent cup! You are always predisposed to certain things; but you can change the work cup and fill it to capacity.  Get your practice hours in when it's time to get them in. Don't complain if you have to don't get the same amount of time off as someone in the lane next to you. Not everyone is created equal*.

*Further reference to this is Dr. Greg Wells' appearance on #coachmikepodcast discussing taper and the individual aspects of it.

2.) Shaving??:
I overheard the Georgetown District High School swim team coach telling his swimmers the magical principles behind the "shave and taper" today and, while he may have overstated it, there is a benefit, although not totally physical. Anyone interested in the concept and the science behind it can read more here.

3.) Best Excuses From Swimmers: 

I started this on Twitter using the #bestnoH2O tag but I had a lot of good Facebook ones too. Facebook below followed by Twitter responses. Please follow everyone who contributed on Twitter.

• My son was too hungry to come to practice 
• My sister is in town and had to take me shopping 
• My son/daughter pulled all the muscles in their stomach and couldn't get out of bed (used for soar abs after dryland) 
• My son/daughter couldn't walk... I had to carry them to the bathroom. They couldn't make it down the stairs (after a hard practice) 
• University swimmer could not do flip turns becuase he tasted cucumber!!! (Strangest & most original excuse I've ever heard!!!! )
• I was making a cd and my computer wasn't working right. (the cd was for another swimmer) #noworkout
• I didn't come back for finals cause my Brother didn't think I needed to... I made my time in prelims!
• My mom doesn't like to wake up early 
• I was still tired from last night's practice

Links of the day with Jocelyn Jay

What kind of value are you adding? Are you "living olympic"? David
Marsh speaks about these and about perserverance in Davis Tarwater's
journey to gold! http://ow.ly/hctHB




A great blog by Sergio Lopez, head coach of the Bolles School, and
prepared swimmers for London 2012, such as gold medalist Charlie
Houchin and finalist Ariana Kukors. - http://ow.ly/hcpsI

A great exercise in racing, making swimmers more conscious of their
underwater elements and get down to the business of time! -
http://ow.ly/h6aK0

Persistence is a tough trait to teach, it really comes down to the
athlete, but you can teach them about toughness...Grit! -
http://ow.ly/h6b5V

A pep talk from a kid president -

Links of the day with Jocelyn Jay

Sports Illustrated Sports kids of the Year - What an amazing (& tearful) story about teamwork, sportsmanship and love of family!! http://ow.ly/gWMsT

Quinoa - why its a superfood! http://ow.ly/gUedX

"What would you do if..." http://ow.ly/h4SQy 

The Top 5 Things Great Athletes Do (When their Coach isn't Standing Over Them, Asking for It):

1. Great athletes complete their strength assignments in full.

They realize that skipping little bits and pieces of their strength/agility assignment may not affect themmuch in their lack of strength/agility, but their skipping will affect them in their daily practice of functioning with focused integrity -- the type of focused integrity one needs to be successful at the highest level of pressurized racing.

2. Great athletes view practice as a chance to perform at a high level.

From 'predicting' performance in practice to applying perfect technique, the best athletes find a way to make practice a mini-competition -- even though it's only in their own mind.

3. Great athletes have their best practices after their worst practices.

To do this, an athlete must first actually judge their own practice performance -- and then issue a grade for themselves (or a score of some sort).  Great athletes enjoy leaving a practice knowing that they have improved -- and so if in the mind of the athlete improvement hasn't occured during a particular practice, the best make sure big improvement gains happen the next time out.

4. Great athletes are optimistic as they approach a performance.  

It's easy to look for reasons that we think may lead to inferior performance (poor practice performances, meet warmup 'feeling' isn't 'right', amount of rest achieved the night before competition isn't adequete), but the best athletes don't think along these lines.  The top athletes at any competition are in a mind state that is centered around controlling their environment -- and are optimistic in their excitemnent to 'let it go'.

5. Great athletes tell themselves the truth.

Athletes will always view themselves in an honest light.  The mirror they look through shows the true reality of their own situation (as it pertains to training effort in and out of the athletic forum).  There is no room for shortcuts in a top athlete's preparation, and the best athletes will recoginize a potential short cut -- and take the alternative (tougher, more detailed) 

option.

Catching Up With Old Friends

+Brian Keats and I were friends and competitors as teenagers. He since has moved to the US where he studied and worked for a number of years. He's now back as an Age Group Coach in Etobicoke. Below is an episode of #OFFTHEDECK and a rare inside look at what the top Age Group Coach at ESWIM is doing. - Note that I have switched from SKYPE to Google Hangouts for this format. Let me know which one you like better.

Links of the day with Jocelyn Jay

The Greatest Come Back EVER!!! http://ow.ly/gRk8J

Doesn't matter who you are, what sport or instrument you play, it is a process! http://ow.ly/gRLfm

How do help your child-athlete deal with failure? Making it a positive experience helps the learning process. "Failure is simply feedback, and feedback is the Breakfast of Champions." http://ow.ly/gRUql

No one wants to listen to complaining. Choose to find the smile in every instance or circumstance!

My Love/Hate relationship with the 60min workout

I both hate and love 60min practices. 

I hate them because it takes me almost 60min (and several drafts) to plan an effective, time efficient and quality 60min practice. There is little time for explanation, no time to start something again and no time for garbage metres. Every metre has to count in my workouts and even more so when I am pressed into 60min on Wednesday morning*. 

*We can only get 60min that morning because the high school team has the pool from 6:30-8am and I don't want my athletes in the water earlier than 5:25am. Some mornings, they will let us drift a few minutes into their pool time (as a favour to me) if we need an extra couple of min.

The success of the 60min workout on Wednesday morning is largely dependant on the athletes. They need to be awake and ready to go. If I can get things explained quickly (a set that we have "rehearsed" before or a very basic concept that they are familiar with) there is very little for me to do other than bark commands,  call out reminders, minimal stroke correction, refresh the focus points of the set and deal with issues as they arise. If athletes are not awake, not able to focus on a complicated set or drag themselves in late, the whole thing falls to crap. Which is a long way of explaining the second reason I hate 60min practices: I am not in control - its all up to teenagers to be on the ball at 5:30am.

But when things are done well, I love them! This morning my senior group did a pretty tough speed set of 25s. The concept was not complicated but the effort was there.  One of the things I am noticing with this particular group of seniors is the level of personal growth they are showing. 8 months ago, many of these athletes would be sprinting 25s at 16 or 17 seconds, where as this morning, the slowest was 15.8 or 16.2 (BR& FLY). True effort was given to the full 60min of work and I couldn't be happier to see it.

I often wonder if my athletes resent me for making them do work while not doing it myself. I am trying to remember if I felt that towards any of my coaches during my 16 year career. I don't believe that I did... however, I knew how much time Dean Boles, Alan Swanston, Bud McAllister and the others spent numerous hours planning and re-planning in order to get the best results (and Bud worked out, himself, on a bike and in the weight room for about 5 hours/day between workouts). Anyone interested, start asking me for the pages and pages of drafts for next Wednesday's workout; I'll be working on it this afternoon.