This One is for All the Coaches

A swimmer from the 1970’s wrote asking for a picture I might have. I looked in a scrap book that had been put together as a gift when I left Marin Aquatic Club for adventures on a Kawasaki 900. I found a couple of photos and also found the enclosed page. I am sharing it with all the coaches for a simple reason. If you are like me, sometimes we wonder if we make any impression on our swimmers, our kids. Intuitively we probably guess we do but still…sometimes we wonder. Thanks to Paul Donohue who was a wonderful young man, then a husband and father and finally an inspiration to me later in my life.

“A really big part of my life has been spent here in the last three years. I’ve had experiences that I’ll probably remember as long as I live. I’ve had some others that will always be there, and come to mind as I need them.

A lot of people have passed through the pit (our affectionate name for San Rafael High School’s pool) in that time, a couple of which, try as I can, I won’t even remember, and a couple of others who I’ll always be in debt to.

I’ve learned a lot in this time span. When I compete or race now, I feel as if I have an incomprehensible storage of tiny and minute details to fall back on. Yet I know this isn’t quite true, and there is still a lot left to learn. However, I often think to when I was told that ninety percent of everything I’ve come to know I’ve learned through swimming – everything from standing up under pressure and withstanding the pain, to learning to lose with dignity, to being courteous with those I come in contact with, such as the little kids and parents.

I’ve changed a lot in three years. And I’ll always feel that if this change didn’t take place here it wouldn’t have been the change that it was.”

The Power of 3

Ken has a very powerful saying: A lot of wonderful, even magical things can happen in 3 weeks.

3 weeks gives all swimmers a chance to raise their game. 3 weeks is long enough to make some changes while being short enough to stay focused entirely on your goal.

Here in Northern California, our high school League Championship meet is 3 weeks away…our Section meet is 4 weeks away…our first ever California State meet is 5 weeks away.

Stay focused for 3 weeks and you get through the League meet…one more week and you are in the Section meet…fast enough?...then one more week for the State meet.

3-1-1…do the first one first. Stay focused on the League meet for 3 weeks and then whatever happens – BE READY!

There will be more than one swimmer who advances to the Section level who right this minute no one thinks can do it. And…this is a guarantee! There is more than one swimmer who will advance to the State meet who today no one is even considering.

Do not bet against us on this concept. It happens every 4 years at the Olympic Trials when someone (often more than one) takes one of those highly coveted 52 spots.

3-1-1

Warriors’ Thompson Excels by Living in Present

By Rusty Simmons

“The only thing that matters is tonight. Klay has it figured out,” Kerr (Coach Steve Kerr) said earlier in the week. “None of the rest of us understands what’s truly important. We all spend our whole lives trying to get into the present. Klay is constantly in the present.

“It’s beautiful.”

Thompson lives in the present, unless his present is a missed shot. Then, he lives in some alternate moment just beyond the now, when he gets to shoot again and the ball goes through the hoop.”

 The comments above appeared in Saturday’s edition of the SFChronicle and once again deliver the message that FLOW happens when an athlete is entirely in the present. If an athlete worries about the outcome before the performance (shot, race, whatever) or after it then the chances of excellence go way down.

We led off today’s workout at the pool with this article. Then we said to the group that our workout today was designed to give them a chance to develop physical, mental and emotional toughness. We asked them to stay in the present and simply do their level best to do what is asked.

After a 2600 yard warmup we began. All the swims were 100 yards long and they all were on the 1:20. The swimmer chose stroke, kick, pull, use of paddles, snorkels, fins so long as each repeat in the group was the same. They were to use the clock for feedback about how well they were doing staying in the present, making each one the same. We regrouped after each set so they had a minute or so to rest up and choose what they wanted to do next. It was pretty interesting to watch them and listen to them. We did a lot of watching and listening and some individual stroke comments. Here’s the work:

2x100 (remember all repeats are on the 1:20)…then 3x100…then 4x100…then 6x100 (you should of heard “No, this is supposed to be 5x100” or “what about 5?”) just to keep them off balance…then 7x100…then 5x100…then 8x100…then 1x100 (“how can I keep this the same?”)…then 9x100…then 11x100…then 4x100 (“I know he’s going to slip in a round of 10 somewhere”)…then 3x100…then we finished with 2x100…

We then had everyone hop out, told them they did a fine job of “rolling with the punches” as it were…then said we just heard from the Admin Ref that each of them was in a swim-off and they had 1 more 100 to do…leaving on the top. The confused looks were worth the price of admission!

As they left the pool it seemed many had gone places they had not been before. One swimmer part way through the round of 11 had asked “please tell me where this is going”…we said “we know but we cannot tell you”. He was flummoxed to say the least. After workout he apologized for swearing…we smiled and said it hadn’t been the first time.

Swimmers – and all of us – like to know ahead of time what’s “going to happen next”. We think that possibly stifles FLOW.

Ever Wonder Just How We Assign Value?

“Life does not consist mainly of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one’s head.” Mark Twain

Twain was right: Most of what we see is not “out there.” Most of what we see is produced in our own minds. Don’t believe it? Read the following paragraph.

Aoccdrnig to rseearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deons’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are in the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

This scrambled paragraph is a perfect demonstration of how the brain works to create meaning from even the most messed-up circumstances by focusing on some information and ignoring the rest. Do you ignore as much information in the rest of your life? The answer is yes. We’re constantly ignoring parts of the world because our brains have categorized the information as nonessential. But sometimes not seeing this “nonessential” information can trip us up.

To make sense of our world, we need to learn what to pay attention to and what to ignore.

In our swimming world this happens every day we train or race. Some information we discard as nonessential. The question we need to ask ourselves is, “Do I really want to discard or ignore this information?”

This process of selecting or ignoring is an ongoing one. As you become more aware of what is necessary to swim faster and be more competitive you will keep certain things and let others go. Think of some examples, perhaps using things from last season that you now realize were not helpful and ask yourself, “Have I let go of it?”  You can also think of things you wished you had not ignored since they would have helped you in your pursuit of faster swimming. What are some of those things?

About a Third of the Time

We coach a small prep school which has a few swimmers on it who have never been at a swim meet before. You can imagine the trepidation when it comes to learning to dive off the blocks. At a recent meet one of our girls, Emma, said she wanted to go off the blocks, that it was a little embarrassing to use the side of the pool.

So we went to work and she figured out how to launch herself in a reasonably respectful way. Her dive wasn’t the best nor the clumsiest…nicely in between. What was interesting though to us was that near the end of the 15 minute teaching session, after she had mastered the basics we told her, as she climbed up for one more practice start, “You don’t want to use up all your good starts. Save a couple for the meet.” She looked back a little confused. Us again, “You only have so many good dives in your career so be sure not to use them all up early.” More confusion…then we smiled and said, “Emma, only about a third of what we say is actually true. The rest is just noise. Your job is to figure out which third.” We all smiled knowing that we had shared a teaching moment.

We won’t get into a discussion on the actual percentages here. That’s not the point. What is the point is that no source is correct 100% of the time. Some sources are correct all the time about certain points. Gregg Troy comes to mind when he says, “I know of no pursuit where doing less work brings more results.” (Apologies to Gregg if we have butchered the words but the meaning is crystal clear). But we doubt if Gregg – as accomplished as he is – believes he knows everything there is to know about competitive swimming. We bet he is learning nearly every day.

Love the internet; hate the internet; all that information; all that misinformation. Our task is to sift and find what really works and more importantly, what really works in our individual specific situation. Then add in to the mix we are working with people. Each person is different and so…

You get the idea. Figure out what is true for you and let go of the rest. If every good idea sends you scampering off in a new direction you will never stay the course long enough to know whether your path will lead you to your goal.

It makes life interesting and certainly worth living. See you at the pool!

Taking the Next Step

We are flying home from Orlando after participating in yet another fabulous NCSA Winter Junior Championship. It is an amazing and most stimulating experience to watch so many (1625) swimmers from such a wide diversity of clubs (289 plus Unattached) come together to race.

For our team, North Bay Aquatics, the challenge is very clear. How do we take the next step from qualifying for the meet to earning a spot in the top 40 for a night time final swim? The question is very well defined. The answer is more intriguing.

Swimmers are so inculcated to chase time standards. This awareness on their part begins at a very early age. First there are B standards, or cuts as they are simply called; then A, AA, AAA, AAAA; then Junior Olympic. The list goes on all the way to Olympic Trials cuts. Except for a very few in the population of our sport, most of our swimmers need to “lay it out there” to simply get the cuts to go to the meet.

Then when they go to the meet they face the challenge of moving up from 188 seed to top 40 (in this particular meet) so they can swim at night. In swimming lingo they want to “get back”.

So how do we as coaches assist them in the process of going from getting the cut so they can go to the meet to pushing their way into the top 8 or 16 (in the case of our high school championships or to 24 or 32 at most major senior meets or even top 40 at NCSA? When we know the answer and have the readymade solution we will have a waiting list for our club.

It seems to us that the list of demands includes – but is certainly not limited to the following:

Create challenges in training that mimic the meet

Create stressful environments to simulate the meet

Create awareness on their part that this is actually possible for them

Create time and space for both us coaches and our swimmers to brainstorm this challenge

The key concept here is “Create”…that is what forward thinking, ever expanding coaches do. We create. It is easy to follow someone else’s blueprint but that doesn’t answer the critical component – our swimmer(s); our situation(s).

Each swimmer is unique, each training environment is different. Each team trains at a different time of day. We met one team on this trip who trains from 4-6AM 5 days a week and then swims and lifts on various afternoons.  Those kids are used to getting up early – 3:30 – and performing long before the sun rises. If you cannot swim fast in the morning, you will not get a nighttime swim. Ask any college coach about this; something to think about for sure.

We would love to see a major coaches’ clinic discuss this topic. We think it is critical to keeping our athletes moving forward. If a swimmer makes a cut – say for NCSA for instance – and is seeded top 100. The jump from 100 to 40 is often less than a second in short races, no more than a couple of seconds in 100’s, less than 4 in 200’s…you get the picture. Since kids are used to chasing times, we have them be aware of those top 40 cuts. Then we work at the process of “what do you need to do to make your jump?”

You will know when we have been uber successful. How? You will see lots of NBA swimmers in those finals. That is our goal for the next 12 months. We have communicated this to our team. They have said they are “all in” for the work. See you in a year!

The Power of Cycles

There are all sorts of cycles in life…and in sports. No one ever went straight from the bottom to the top, not ever. The body/brain combo is meant to seek an even keel…homeostasis if you will. We of course, being hard charging athletes, coaches and folks in general do not want any part of the lull between the peaks. Yet this constant self-regulating mechanism is always at work. And that it seems to us is the proverbial “good thing”.

Maddening for sure when it happens but nonetheless predictable. There are nearly always lows following highs. The trick is to let them flow by without attaching ourselves to them. We think the phrase “don’t sweat the small stuff” is a good one. The corollary is “it is all small stuff”. This is trickier since we have so much of our time and personal energy invested in our pursuits.

We keep remembering Steve Bultman from Texas A&M saying that all hard work pays off; we just don’t know exactly when. We have a National level guy on our team who went 15 months without a best time…5 shaves…who then broke through to faster territory. The trick is to maintain your faith in your work and stay in touch with those things over which you have control.

The biggest asset you have is your attitude. When you stay in charge of your attitude all things are possible. When life gets tough and you surrender your attitude to the wind which is always blowing this way or that, that’s when the days get long and the nights get short.

Your greatest power in life is your power to choose. And with this great power comes great responsibility. You are accountable for who you are. You make the choice…even when you surrender your choice that is a choice in and of itself.

See you poolside and bring your smile!

It’s all in how you use the words

We were watching Leo swim yesterday. He is a fairly new swimmer to our group. Like many younger swimmers he swims with his head way up, water line near his eyebrows, looking pretty much straight ahead.

We asked him how fast his 100 free is. He responded saying 52.3. We said back to him, “If you put your head down you would go 49 high”. Of course his eyebrows went up.

Then we said, “You don’t have to get in any better shape to do that, you just need to have a better shape in the water.” The whole pool got kinda quiet as that thought turned over in their minds. Then the smiles as they recognized how the same words meant different things.

Gotta love this coaching gig…see you pool side.

One Sharp Guy

On Monday at the meet Don asked Victor and me a very simple question, "What race do you think will be your white cap swim?" In no time at all I would have told you my first white cap swim will most likely be in the 50 Free, it is the race I am the most comfortable with and the fastest at.

And then my brain started to think. And after two days of thought I have come up with my answer. I have no clue. I have absolutely no clue what or when that race will be and frankly I don't want to. Racing is still something I am trying to figure out; it is like a secret formula with each ingredient being just as important as the last and no more important than the next.

And although I have not cracked the full formula I have figured just a few small parts; Sleep well before, Eat well, Warm up, don't breath, kick hard and many more. And here is my problem, what does every one of those things listed have in common? None of them are mental. Such a crucial part of my race has gone unnoticed. Much of my thought has been consumed in what mentally needs to take place during a fast race.

With help from Rebecca I have learned that in order to have a fast race you need to make your mind believe that you will/are having a fast race, mental conditioning of sorts. And this is something I have struggled with in the past year, getting into the race I am swimming. This weekend may not have been the best meet of my life but I learned two very important things about my swimming, first: if I believe I am not going to swim well I will not swim well. Second: if I truly believe I will have a great race, guess what, I have a great race. Getting a best time with pneumonia unshaved was primarily due to the fact that I was tired of two lousy days of swimming and I wanted to do well and believed that I could do well. I knew I put in lots of work over that past few months and that my body was ready to swim fast, all I needed to do was lean into it.

Because after all is said and done, training, speed camp and taper, it all depends on how you swim at the last meet. How you swim on that one race. It could be the 50 free or the 1650 which ever race I am ready to swim both mentally and physically when I truly believe that I will swim fast will be the one I will walk away from with a white cap. This could be next week or in 4 years; I have to decide.

TK is one sharp guy…and of course he will get his white National Team cap since he is unlocking the secrets…thanks for sharing big guy!

Do You Actually Have What It Takes? Or Do You Have What It Actually Takes?

The three major sports are in a special time convergence these days. The NFL is holding its annual combine where young prospects, in the words of a writer “are dressed in their underwear and pushed, pulled, poked, timed, jumped, measured in all sorts of ways and this includes a battery of psychological testing.” This is all done to see if scouts and teams can find that one or more special player who will transform their team into a Super Bowl contender.

MLB – Major League Baseball – has opened all training camps and all sorts of analysis have begun. The Oakland Athletics pioneered an evaluation system a decade or so ago (chronicled in “Money Ball”). It is fascinating that of the major sports baseball has no game clock. Once you have used up your 27 outs the game is over. So the A’s went looking for people who could get on base – any way possible including walks. Now there are a multitude of statistics kept that never used to be considered. Again, this is analysis to the enth degree.

Meanwhile the NBA has just had its All Star Game and the push is on to the playoffs for many teams. Trade deadlines are approaching and teams are positioning themselves. One of the things teams look at is how certain players respond in specific game situations. With video of every minute of every game available team executives can get down to the minutiae of a player’s abilities in a wide variety of situations.

In all three of these sports the data are there for review. The same holds true for our sport of swimming. Go on “Meet Mobile” and you can see extreme detail of the college conference meets being held now. The NCAA’s for all three Divisions are next up. Splits, reaction times, including relay takeoffs will be available to all of us. Then watch YouTube and you can check tempos and stroke counts. It is all there.

In swimming we look at stroke rates – tempos – and numbers of strokes taken in each lap of a race – distance per stroke. We look at times from “broken” swims in workouts and how they are tied to actual race times…and for some swimmers they are remarkably accurate race predictors while for others, not so much.

And college coaches look at potential recruits with an ever widening view while simultaneously narrowing their focus on specific traits. The analysis goes on and on.

The question is, at some point we may be best served to ask ourselves, “Ok, but what does it all mean?” We read a recent article in which NBA Houston Rockets Coach Kevin McHale was asked about all the analytic tools available and how important they were. He had this observation. “It’s just another tool in the toolbox, and very useful. But the toughest thing in this business is how much does a guy love to play? How much does he love to compete? How tough is he? How is he going to play when someone kicks his ass? What’s he going to do the next day?”

So as a coach or swimmer you might want to ask yourself the same questions. You can master all the technical tools but at the end of the day those questions posed by McHale mean an awful lot. And of course, as your career unfolds if you have the technical tools and can answer Coach McHale’s questions in the affirmative you may just find yourself at the top of the mountain…like Tom Brady and Madison Bumgarner recently did…like Stephen Curry hopes to do soon…like you maybe…

One Way Things Get Done

There is definitely more than one “right” way to achieve a goal. We find it interesting to ask our swimmers how they achieve success to see what we learn from their various paths.

Last weekend Lucy captured her first NCSA Junior Nationals cut. She swam a 24.20 in her 50 free in the finals of a local senior circuit meet. We asked her about the pathway to that swim. To paraphrase her it went something like this:

Last summer at the Clovis meet (Western Zones) when I swam my 50 free long course and made my Sectional cut I thought that Orlando was a possibility. Then this weekend in prelims I felt that maybe I was getting close. During warmups for finals I knew I was going to swim my qualifying time of 24.39.

So an idea is born. Then work is done. Then the belief system enters, first a “maybe” and then finally a “yes I am” mentality.

Coaches and leaders of any group or community need to keep the targets in view. Then we show our swimmers “how” to get there while continuously encouraging them to provide the “why I want it”. This is a never ending conversation.

It is the crux of what we do. We show them possibilities and get them to step up. When they “own” the process they will get their reward. They must for that is how the universe works…pretty much all the time.

Sleep and Wellness

This just in…if you are well rested, you have a much less likelihood of getting sick. We wish we could give you complete scientific data to support this assertion but we don’t have such at our fingertips – though we are certain there is such data available everywhere.

At our swim meet this weekend several coaches, us included, commented on the flurry of illness running through portions of each of our teams. No one seemed untouched. And of course kids are in school which is basically a petri dish so…

We also talked with Theo this weekend. Some of you know Theo or know about him. If you are curious simply Google Theo St. Francis and you can see more of his story.

For today’s purposes you need to know that Theo spends 4 hours a day, 4 days a week at SCI FIT in Pleasanton, CA. This is a very specific gym/rehab center for Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) clients. He works diligently pretty much all the time, every day regaining the use of his entire body.

He asked “How’s the team doing?” and we gave him the latest while mentioning the sickness some are experiencing. He said, “For the last 100 days I have been monitoring my sleep. I have been in bed averaging 8.75 hours a night; occasionally a little less, and then making up for it the next night. I wash my hands and face normally since at SCI FIT I am in contact with countless other folks from all walks of life, in all sorts of condition, using equipment that they are using as well. I have been free from illness for 100 days and I believe it has to do with the amount of rest I am getting.”

He says that even if he is awake he stays in bed resting. We ask our student/athletes to set their alarms for 9 PM and go to bed then. If they need to do more school work, get up early and do it in the morning when you are fresh. We know several, though not all are making this happen with a fair amount of regularity. We have many on our team who do not get sick when others do.

We think rest makes a huge difference. We know that humans adapt to stress (get stronger) during recovery. Sleep is a daily dose of recovery. Make sure you are getting all you need. Organize your day so you can sleep at night. Do it…