An Example of the Power of Sharing

Jim Sugar is on our Masters team. He is a videographer and photographer who has been captured by the power of the pool. He shared the article below with us this week. It is written by Tony Schwartz on 8-24-10 and found in the Harvard Business Review. We liked it so much that it is the focus of our team meeting this Tuesday. See you at the pool!

Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything

by Tony Schwartz

A Mixed Bag of Tricks

This week's offering is a compilation from three different sources, each with their own piece of wisdom to share. We think one of the most enduring characteristics of coaching is the willingness on the part of most coaches and programs to share their ideas. Some do not take part in this but by and large the coaching family is one of openness. This is a very positive attribute since the thread of improvement gets stronger with each "generation" of an idea. If you have an idea we encourage you to share it with a colleague or with us and we will toss it out there (with your permission of course) for all to see, riff off of and benefit from.

Ken DeMont of North Bay Aquatics delivered a great workout on Saturday.

Warm-up was about 30 minutes of swimming and drills.

6x150 kick spiking the last 50. The interval was 2:45 (I forget, it may have been 2:30 - no matter, it was somewhat challenging but not crippling)

6x100/1:40 progressive (descending) 1-6
5x100/1:30 pro 1-5
4x100/1:20 pro 1-4
On the 6 and the 5 we had stroke specialists mixing in non-free. On the 4 everyone swam free.

A 10 minute sculling set followed, going 25's working on perfect body position. We use snorkels on nearly all sculling sets.

5x100/1:40 pro as above - mix in strokes
4x100/1:30 pro as above - mix in strokes
3x100/1:20 pro - free

10 more minutes of sculling

4x100/1:40 pro as above
3x100/1:30 pro as above
2x100/1:20 pro as above

Cool down with 25's on 5 seconds rest swimming as well as possible working on a few simple drills...

This set was excellent for several reasons. What I liked particularly was how it pushed them stroke wise and then finished up all freestyle on a shorter interval. You can use the template and adjust your intervals accordingly. At the end of each set on the 1:20 you could see who was fully engaged by the immediate exhaustion. We had several breakthrough swimmers. This will make for excellent "coaching ammo" at our Monday team meeting.

I had a nice visit with my 87 year old Mom, Helen Swartz last week. She is absolutely dying from kidney failure. These are her words towards the end of lunch.

"I believe each person should do their best all the way to the end. So that is what I am doing - my best to the end. And only that person really knows if they are doing the best they can."

We will share her wisdom with our team this week, making certain they understand the credibility of the last sentence above.

Coach Mark Stanley at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa, CA asked us to check out hulu.com and search for "Messner". We did and were blown away by the free video. Messner is considered by those in the know to be the most prominent mountain climber of the modern era - perhaps any era. His insights into his abilities are fabulous. He really understands and gives huge credit to his mental toughness. We are figuring out a way to show this film to our team. It will make a big impact on more than one of our swimmers.

So, thanks Ken, Helen and Mark for sharing. Let us know how it goes for you and if you can spare an idea or two please feel free to do so. We are, after all, in this game together!

A Great Idea!

We got an email from Ryan Woodruff at the North Carolina Aquatic Club. Check out his blog. It is filled with stimulating ideas. You can find it at The Swimming Workout Wizard. swimmingwizard.blogspot.com

Here at SwimCoachDirect we take great satisfaction in sharing information and ideas. We believe our sport is somewhat unique in that most coaches around the world are willing to share. Thanks to Ryan for 1 - having excellent ideas and 2 - sharing them!

His idea of Freedom Fridays is explained below. For more challenges go to his link. And then let us and him know what you. Have a great week at the pool!

Freedom Fridays by Ryan Woodruff.

Wisdom Around Every Corner

There appears to be wisdom around just about every corner, or so it seems to us. In yesterday's paper there was a short piece about Amare Stoudemire, the often unbelievably talented, and sometimes injured (which athlete goes through his/her career without injuries?) basketball player for the Phoenix Suns. The writer spoke of how when the Suns acquired Shaquille O'Neal a few years ago that Amare went into a funk, taking the arrival of Shaq as a personal affront to his ability and the organization's faith in him. With Shaq clogging up the middle, Stoudemire went into a shell, offering the Suns no help on defense or the boards.

A club executive said, "If Amare is going to be among the great players, he's going to have to dominate the game in other areas - rebounding, defense, passing. There's going to be a time when he can't jump as high, and he'll have to rely on his mastery of the game, not ability. He'll have to play smarter, not harder."

We are going to read this at our team meeting this week. Too often swimmers rely on more and or harder training to improve forgetting the importance of swimming and racing "smarter."

So, a short list for you this week might look something like this:

For a swimmer...When was the last time you did a set where you:

Actually watched the clock to check and see if your swims got faster as practice progressed?

Counted your strokes to make certain your efficiency was as high as possible?

Did a kicking set that really had your heart rate up into the anaerobic range?

Made sure your head followed your hand on the last stroke into a flip turn?

Got an extra two or three feet off the wall because you were underwater deep enough?

For a coach...When was the last time you:

Wrote a goal for practice, then the workout, and then evaluated your success?

Asked a colleague for an idea for a set?

Made sure you said "Hi" and "Goodbye" to each swimmer at practice?

Told a joke in the middle of workout?

Wrote the team report cards?

We are sure you get the idea here. At some point working as hard as you can will not be enough to keep your game improving. You will need to rely on your intellect. The reason for this is very simple: the people you are chasing have already begun using theirs.

Let us know how we can help. Have a great week in and out of the pool!