Sunday, May 5, 2013

Opinii .....


Is Your Athleticism Holding You Back In The Water?

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----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Swim Smooth
To: adi
Sent: Friday, May 3, 2013 2:34 PM
Subject: Is Your Athleticism Holding You Back In The Water?

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Last week on the blog we discussed swimmers who have low drag but poor propulsion. Not surprisingly we received a lot of emails and tweets asking us to take a look at the opposite situation, where your drag is high but your propulsion is relatively good.

To that end let's look at a case study involving just such a swimmer who has made some big strides forwards by reducing his drag:



If you've attended one of our clinics or talks in the UK recently you might have seen some video footage of Charles showing his legs lying low in the water when he swims:


This footage was taken in 2011 and we show it to highlight how your perception of your stroke might be very different from reality. Charles felt that his legs were quite low but estimated they were "4-5cm" lower than they should be. Watching back the video footage of his stroke, he was quite shocked to see that his legs were sinking by as much as 60cm (2 ft) beneath the surface.

Charles is a strongly built triathlete with lots of lean muscle mass. He's a strong cyclist and runner but finds swimming frustrating and looking at the shot above it's easy to see why with his legs sinking low in the water, creating a huge amount of drag. This a classic trait of our Arnie Swim Type, together with their strong tendency to fight the water with a crossover of the centre line in front of the head, as we see Charles doing here:


Just prior to taking this footage Charles swam 42 minutes for 1500m which (with his competitive mindset) he called "a disaster". Unfortunately it doesn't matter how fit Charles is, dragging his legs through the water like that is going to slow him down dramatically.

During our initial video analysis and stroke correction session with Charles we worked on:

- His exhalation technique into the water, ridding his lungs of excess buoyancy which otherwise lifts him up at the front and sinks the legs
- Improving his swimming posture to remove his crossover in front of the head
- Keeping his head low when he breathes
- Improving his kicking technique to avoid bending from the knee and scissor kicking the legs wide apart
- Slowing down his stroke rate a touch to help him straighten out the stroke

Charles found that immediately following this session he dropped his 1500m time to 35 minutes, which was a nice improvement in a very short period of time.

(Follow this stroke correction process yourself, or the one appropriate for your Swim Type, in our Swim Type Guides here.)

Is Your Athleticism Holding You Back When You Swim?

If you are an Arnie yourself, you will know how difficult and frustrating swimming can be despite your natural athleticism. Ironically it's actually this athleticism that is making swimming harder for you as your lean muscular legs sink downwards in the water.

If you have low-lying legs when you swim unfortunately there's no silver bullet to lifting your legs high, it's going to take diligent and consistent work on all of the areas of your stroke we mentioned above. However, be persistent and disciplined, and the improvements will come:

Two Years Later

Since that initial consultation in 2011 we hadn't seen Charles until he came back for a follow-up session with us last week. We were very impressed with how much his body position had improved since 2011:


Although he's not yet perfectly horizontal in the water, his body position is drastically improved and although there's still a slight tendency to cross over the centre line with the right arm, this is much improved too:


These stroke improvements are giving him some very large speed gains. In fact he recently swam 28½ minutes for 1500m, a full 13½ minutes faster than two years ago!

As well as consistently working on all the areas we mentioned above, Charles has found that swimming with a light flutter kick results in a lower effort than trying to use a minimal two-beat kick. Although some additional energy is being used in the faster kick, this is more than offset by his legs sitting higher in the water.

Some swimmers are naturally suited to a 2-beat kick, particularly those with good natural buoyancy and shorter punchier stroke styles. But with such a dense muscle mass, Charles will always be best served with a light flutter to help bring his legs higher. This a classic example of why you must always think of yourself as an individual and not follow a "one size fits all" approach to swimming.

Persistence And Chipping Away

After further refining his stroke technique in our follow up session, we are excited about the improvements Charles will now experience as he continues to improve his stroke technique. Getting into the 25-26 minute 1500m speed range is a realistic short term goal for him and he's also aware he will gain another minute or two when he dons his wetsuit for open water events. This means he should now exit the swim towards the front of his age-group rather than coming out at the rear and having to play catch-up on the bike.

So a big congratulations from us to Charles on the large improvements he's made with his swimming, it's not been an easy journey but your persistence and hard work is really starting to pay dividends. Thanks also for allowing us to share your experiences with the wider world.

Swim Smooth!
Something to add or have a question? Reply to this post here.


Swim Smooth, 12 Davies Road, Claremont Swimming Pool, Davies Road, Claremont, WA 6010, AUSTRALIA

Saturday, May 4, 2013

USA Swimming informed ......



President's Message May 2013

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
The “President’s Message” is a continuing effort on my part to keep the members of USA Swimming informed about current happenings in our sport and our organization. Please feel free to share the message with others.

The year 2013 promises to be another great year for USA Swimming.  Through April, our year-round athlete membership numbers are up 13.8 percent over last year, and 2013 promises to be our single largest annual increase in recent history.  Much of this can be attributed to the success of our Olympic Team in London and to the character displayed by our athletes in and out of the pool. 

The USA Swimming Board of Directors had its most recent meeting in Colorado Springs, Colo., on April 27, and the following are items I thought may be of interest to you.


Executive Director Update
As reported in the past, Chuck Wielgus has been battling cancer for the past several months.  He is now back in the headquarters office on a full-time basis, and it was great to have him back in attendance at the Board meeting.  His fight with cancer is not over, but he is now back to being fully engaged and expects to continue at least through the end of his current contract in 2016.

Chuck also provides a general update to our Board of Directors that you will find informative and interesting.  Please click here to see the entire report, as well as a recent Q&A with Chuck since returning to the office.

U.S. Olympic Team Trials
For more than a year, USA Swimming has been working diligently on choosing a site for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for 2016.  The process started with a selection committee, consisting of staff members Mike Unger, Matt Farrell, Dean Ekeren, Amanda Bryant, and Sandra Griffith, and Jim Wood, our immediate past-president.  There were 16 initial cities that expressed interest in hosting the trials.  This group was reduced to six cities and eventually narrowed down to three finalists: Omaha, Neb., St. Louis and San Antonio.  All cities had outstanding bids, and because of the quality of those bids, making a decision was one of the most difficult choices we had to make. 

Ultimately, the committee recommended the city of Omaha, Neb., to Executive Director Chuck Wielgus, who accepted their choice and made the same recommendation to our Board of Directors.  The Board unanimously accepted the recommendation and the formal announcement broadcasted via webcast the same day.  For the complete story and to view an archive of the live announcement, click here.


Safe Sport
The USA Swimming Safe Sport Program raises awareness about athlete protection, promotes open dialogue and provides training and resources for all our members.  It continues to be, and will always be, one of our highest priorities.  Our program at USA Swimming is recognized as one of the best among youth-serving organizations.  Education is the cornerstone of our program, and in addition to the online training program for our non-athlete members and for parents, a new online program designed specifically for our athlete members was launched on April 9.

Both the parent and athlete programs are voluntary and are critical pieces of our overall program.  Although the programs have received high marks, there have been disappointingly few parents who have taken the course.  As of April 12, only 2,002 people had taken it, and with our athlete membership at almost 330,000, this is a very small number.  I ask all of you to work proactively in your clubs and LSCs to encourage all parents to take the online course and to have their children take the athlete course as well.  Click here to access the Safe Sport page of our website.

Due Increase
The current structure for membership dues is that there is a $1/year increase; this program terminates in 2014. The Board of Directors agreed to recommend to the House of Delegates that effective in the 2015 membership year, dues increase by $2/year for the ensuing 10 years in order to continue to invest in growing the sport at the grassroots level, enhance services to clubs and increase promotional exposure for the sport. Some of the Board meeting discussions focused on key metrics for the organization, such as membership growth, success of the Olympic Trials, increased TV ratings, greater camp and club program participation, international competition success and more. We want to continue to invest in our future.
Athlete Participation at Convention and Committee Meetings 
One of the things that make our organization strong and successful is the participation of athletes on our committees and at our annual meeting, which is held in conjunction with the United States Aquatics Sports Convention.  While a large number of our athlete representatives are college age or older, there are also many athlete representatives who are under the age of 18.  In the past, many of these athletes have traveled to conventions or committee meetings unsupervised.  While we have had no real problems thus far, there is increasing concern over the safety and welfare of our under-aged athletes while attending out-of-town meetings.

In an effort to address this, our Athletes’ Executive Committee developed policies and procedures, which will govern the travel and conduct of all athletes attending committee meetings or our annual convention.  These will be sent to all LSCs and will be available on our website in the very near future.  The most important aspect of these policies and procedures is ensuring there is a designated adult chaperone for every traveling athlete.  Both the athlete and the responsible chaperone will be required to acknowledge, via written representations, their respective responsibilities prior to any travel.

More detailed information will be forthcoming in the near future, but you should be aware of these new requirements, especially as you make your athlete travel plans for conventions.

Online Membership Registration

Last year, a task force was appointed to look at the feasibility of developing an online registration system.  There were a number of important issues to address, including, but not limited to:

1. Being able to accommodate various membership registration processes currently in place;
2. System-wide standardization of the process;
3. Existing third party vendors providing some aspects of registration;
4. Allowing new athletes to join USA Swimming online, but still allowing clubs to maintain control of membership in their individual clubs; and
5. Whether or not to require the online system to be mandatory.

The task force submitted its recommendations to the Board of Directors.  These recommendations were unanimously endorsed, and our staff will begin work on developing the system.  The recommendations were as follows:

1. Provide for a standardized system-wide registration process;
2. Include features that will allow new athlete members to join USA Swimming online and help them locate a club, but allow clubs to make their own decisions about club membership; and
3. Allow for initial optional use of the system, but ultimately its use would be mandatory.

The task force did a considerable amount of hard work, and I want to express my appreciation for its efforts. The next step will be a discovery project to find all potential solutions to implement this program. This will involve working with key constituents within the Registration Committee, LSCs, clubs and staff who will eventually work with this program.

Closing
The future of USA Swimming is exciting and has never been brighter. We are very fortunate to have an excellent staff, as well as devoted and dedicated volunteers.

It is important to me, as your president, to provide open and transparent communication to all our members. I am always available, and you should never hesitate to call or e-mail me. If you have any topics or questions you would like covered in a future edition, please contact me at
president@usaswimming.org.


Bruce Stratton
USA Swimming President

Thursday, May 2, 2013

PROGRES....? !


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Editor, Peak Performance


Tuesday, April 30, 2013

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Monday, April 29, 2013

Brentford ne scrie...:

Effortless Swimming] Are you taking time out to do this?

On the 9-hour drive to Sydney (from Melbourne) last weekend I listened to a really good book that made me stop and think.

I was heading to Sydney for the Master's National Championships, the main event we target for the season. We train our butts off for 12 months of the year, but sometimes we end up missing this one thing.

This book wasn't on the topic of swimming but the concept it talked about still applies.

Discover what it is HERE

It was great event and I got to meet a lot of Effortless Swimming customers and viewers which was AWESOME! Thank you for coming and saying 'hello'.

Regards,

Brenton Ford
Effortless Swimming

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Sfaturi pt marathonistii nostri...

Start training for your next marathon


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