F.Y.E. (For Your Entertainment)

Over my lunch hour today, I was watching some of the race videos from the recent 2017 Men's NCAA Swimming Championships. This is the fastest swim meet in the world. Why not the Olympics? Let me tell you a few reasons:

1. Fastest swimming country in the world=USA. USA only gets two entries into the Olympics for each event and only one relay. At NCAAs you see ALL of the fastest swimmers in the world.
2. Short course yards baby! What beats it!? Jam packed with starts and turns combined with guys towering over 6'5" they make the pool look like a bathtub.
3. Swimmers from all over the world come to train and go to college in the USA. That makes for an even more special event (take Joe Schooling for example, Singapore's 2016 Rio Olympic Gold Medalist in the 100 fly...he swims for Texas).
4. Last and most important: Swimmers are competing for their team. Their school colors. Whether it be burnt orange, maize and blue, or crimson and gray. These guys absolutely 100% love their school, love their program, and love their teammates. 

So I decided to put together a short video list of my favorite NCAA swimming moments that I have seen (on YouTube, not in person. Sorry I don't have that kind of bank, and I'm not that old!) So without further adieu...I present to you....Chris's top 5 NCAA races.

(I do not take credit for these videos. Please visit YouTube.com to watch these videos and more from the users that have uploaded them.)

1. I'm going to start you off with a long one. 2016 Men's 1650 freestyle. No you don't need to watch the whole thing...skip to 2:49. At this moment, you can see the leader (Akaram Mahmoud - South Carolina) has just flipped with 75yds to go. Chris Swanson of Penn is just getting ready to flip.

Chris Swanson is 2 body lengths behind going into the FINAL 25 YARDS and hammers it home to pull off the win by 0.12 seconds. Not only is it the closest 1650 race in NCAA championship history, but take a look at the difference in final splits. 

Chris Swanson 24.38

Akaram Mahmoud 27.17

That means with a 50 to go, Mahmoud had a 2.77 second lead. 

DON'T EVER COUNT YOURSELF OUT!

2. Caeleb Dressel 100 freestyle - 2017. Don't blink or you'll miss it. This video provides us not only the fastest 100 on record (it's not even close: 40.00), it provides Rowdy Gaines commentary. Feast your eyes on SCY swimming's superman as he annihilates this 100 free. (You can skip ahead to 2:30 for the start of the race).

In his post race interview, you can tell he really wanted the 39.99. And just being 0.01 off hurts. But who couldn't be happy with a 40.00. The 2nd best time on record is 40.92 from Cesar Cielo (of note, Michael Chadwick also breaks 41 in this race with a 40.97).

3. Women's 2014 800 Freestyle Relay. (Skip to 5:00). This video features Georgia and Stanford battling it out for the lead. But WATCH OUT! Because who jumps in for Cal's anchor leg? Two scary words for any Bulldog or Cardinal to hear: Missy. Franklin.

Missy splits one of the fastest 200s of all time (1:40.08) and runs down two OLYMPIANS (Brittany MacLean - Canadian Olympian, Lia Neal - American Olympian) to give her team the victory. There aren't many people in the world who swim for their team more than Missy Franklin. And this video is exciting proof of that.

4. Men's 2015 400 Medley Relay. This video provides a whole list of things that make it spectacular. For one thing, the meet is in Iowa City. Nice and close to home. Then watch Cal swim. Led off by history's all-time greatest backstroker, Ryan Murphy. Murphy jumps out to a HUGE lead for Cal, who follows him up with Olympic breaststroker Josh Prenot. Note Prenot's underwater pullouts. I don't think there is anyone in the world with as fast and efficient pullouts as his. Unreal. You'll have to watch the rest of the video for yourself...

This was a major coming out race for the Texas Longhorns. Joe Schooling smokes a massive 43.95 fly split, followed by Jack Conger's 40.96 to come back on Cal and take the victory in 3:01.23. After a first have performance that had Cal out to a cushy 2 second lead, the Texas boys came back with an emphatic, "THIS IS OUR TIME".... and they haven't let up since - this year winning 11 events and 4 out of 5 relays at the NCAA Championships while also establishing 8 NCAA, American, and US Open Records in the process to claim their 3rd consecutive title.

5. Is there a swimming list in the world that is not complete without Katie Ledecky? Deferring her collegiate career for one year in order to train for the Rio Games, Ledecky entered Stanford as a freshman for the 2016-2017 season. Here's the problem for everybody else: Katie Ledecky does not swim like a freshman. In this video you get to watch Katie Ledecky doing Katie Ledecky things while tearing up the 500 free. One small note: Leah Smith (2nd place in this race) was the 2nd woman to ever break 4:30 in the 500. She get's a little upstaged, but when you are beating Smith (Olympic Bronze medalist) by this much, you deserve the entire stage.

Freeze the picture at 4:35 to see just how much she wins by. Setting an new NCAA, US Open, and American record. Katie. Ledecky. Swimming's number one swimmer....EVER? 

This is why NCAA swimming is so exciting. Get on YouTube and watch these and more. They are a lot of fun to watch.

Parents in Youth Sports - Too Much Pressure?

        Let me preface this by saying that I am not a parent - yet. My first child (a girl) is due in 3 months. Since I found out my wife was pregnant, I have paid closer attention to the way parents treat their kids. What I have paid attention to most is how parents of athletes act during and out of season.

Not being a parent myself, I cannot speak of personal parenting experience. However, as a coach I can give first hand accounts of what I believe to be successful and unsuccessful parenting from the coach’s point of view. Outside of having my own children, my student-athletes are the closest thing. I take pride in taking care of them, looking out for what is best for them, treating them as if they were my own, and always sticking up for them and believing in them. 

There is already plenty of pressure in youth sports. Whether you believe that statement or not, I am sure that your kid does. Take a little league baseball game for instance. At the end of the season, everyone gets a trophy. No pressure, right? But how does that kid feel when they go to school the next day after one of their best friends struck them out 4 times the night before? You don’t think there is pressure to perform even at the youngest age?

Now take that pressure and add in the pressure of the coach who has high expectations for his team (made up of three kids with experience, five who might be able to manage, and four kids who don’t know how to hold a ball). Every time a kid goes to bat, the coach is gauging his success. With every fielding error, the boy gets a detailed report on what he did wrong and how he should fix it next time.

Without the added pressure of the parents, this young boy is likely already in tears. The role of the parent at this point should simply be to ask the youngster, “Did you do your best?” and, “Did you have fun?” This seems wishy-washy, but what more could we want from a young athlete? 

The parents of one of the most successful young swimmers of all time famously reported wanting nothing of their daughter but her best effort. No pressure for winning, best times, records, time standards, or gold medals. They figured that their daughter would put enough pressure on herself that it didn’t need to come from them. They didn’t even wake her up in the morning and insist on perfect practice attendance! Can you believe that? Without this pressure from the most influential two people in her life, Missy Franklin went on to achieve remarkable things. After every race she asked herself, “Did I do everything I could in that race?” If the answer was no, she allowed herself to be disappointed. If the answer was yes, then she knew if she got beat that the other girl was just better than her. No big deal. What are you going to do between this loss and the next time you race to make yourself better?

One mantra I preach to my swimmers is this: 

“If they beat us, make sure it is because they were better than us. Not because they tried harder.” 

This is all I can ask of my kids. Do 100% your best work, 100% of the time and you can’t come away disappointed. We have all been there. Thinking after a race or a game, “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda.” Having these regrets may be one of the worst things in sports. You remember the line from the coach of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team? “They may beat us, but they will NEVER out hustle us.” When you coach athletes 3-4 hours a day every day, and then watch them compete you can tell when they are giving their all. When a swimmer of mine gets out of the pool I can look them in the eye and tell them honestly whether I thought they swam with everything they had. And that is something I will let them know. As high school kids, this is something they should strive for. As a coach, I feel it is my job to hold them at that standard of always doing their best. That goes double - or even triple - for parents. All a parent can ask of their child is all they can give. Back to those two questions that Dick and D.A. Franklin used to (and still) ask their daughter Missy after a race, “Did you do your best? And did you have fun?” If the answer to both is yes, the day was successful and everyone can go home happy.

Like a balloon being sat on, the additional pressure from the parent can lead to the kid “popping”. I have seen this is kids who have been burnt out of a sport before they even hit high school. So much early pressure and the kid is sick of their childhood passion. As tough as it might be, I think that when my daughter grows up I would be much happier if she was happy doing something that she wasn’t great at than if she hated it and was great at it. I have also seen when parents hit the jackpot. Their kid is successful and they are loving what they are doing. It does go to show you that if they truly love the sport, they will put in more time and dedication. All of this makes the kid, parents, and coach happy. A dream world, right?

All of this being said, parents are one of a child’s most valuable assets. The countless rides to practice, filling water bottles, snacks, money, and support is beyond measure when it comes to a parent’s dedication. A child athlete needs someone to look after them, let’s just make sure that we are doing it with the best intentions of the CHILD in mind (and I will try and do the same when my daughter is born :))

2016-2017 Decompress (Girls Season)

Wow...it has been a long time since I have posted anything on here. I figured it was about time to write something, and I figured a little "decompress" from this past year of swimming would be good for me.

GIRLS SEASON

Size of Team/Numbers

What I Liked About The Girls Season

What I Will Miss About the Seniors

What I Look Forward To and Expect for 2017

By the numbers...

324 Personal Bests

35-8 Overall Record

27 Athletes

19 New "Top 10" Performances

10-0 Dual Meet Record

6 State Events

4 New School Records

3rd Place at Regionals

2nd Place at Conference

1 Conference Coaching Staff of the Year

1 Regional Coaching Staff of the Year

Finishing Strong

Let's take a look at the 200 freestyle splits at the recent (2014) Pan-Pacific Championships:

Katie Ledecky - current USA freestyle phenom

1. 27.49
2. 29.12
3. 29.49
4. 29.64

Conor Dwyer - up-and-coming USA freestyler

1. 24.83
2. 26.93
3. 27.36
4. 27.33

Ledecky's last three splits were within 0.52 seconds of each other. Dwyer's last three splits were within 0.40 seconds of each other. Is this a coincidence? It almost makes them seem like machines. Well, let's face it. They are. 

Now feast your eyes on something even more mind-blowing...Ledecky's 400 free splits at the same meet in which she set a World Record:

1. 27.85
2. 30.02 (57.87)
3. 30.04
4. 30.39 (1:00.43)
5. 30.07
6. 30.37 (1:00.40)
7. 30.33
8. 29.30 (59.63)

Can you believe that!? That's probably why she is (not so arguably) the best women's freestyler in the history of swimming. She knows how to finish a race. After 300 meters of freestyle holding under world-record pace, she shifted gears and picked it up! She dropped a full second in her last 100. That's determination and a willingness to succeed. She didn't say to herself, "I have a 6 second lead, I'm just going to shut it down and coast to the finish." Good athletes never say that. When there isn't anyone to race, they race the clock.

Negative splitting is a common term in endurance sports like swimming, running, and cycling. It means that if you cut your race in half, the second half is faster than the first half. This is a very tough thing to do because as the race goes on, you get more and more tired and your form starts to turn to garbage.

This week, I have really been working on my girls to finish their races HARD. We get way to caught up in getting out to a fast start, that we forget the end is even more important than the beginning. In a 200 freestyle, no one cares who had the fastest first 50. 

For example...one of my boys swam the 200 free at the state meet in 2013. He went out like a bullet. Out of the 24 swimmers, his firsts 50 was the 2nd fastest. His last 50 was the slowest. He ended up 18th out of 24. Then in 2014 he turned it around. His splits were 24, 26, 27, 27. He ended up 11th and was 2.5 seconds faster than in 2013.

So we have been doing some tough sets that challenge the girls in the SECOND half of their swimming. A lot of negative split 200s and 300s. Last night we did some 50s. The goal of each 50 was to be fast from the turn to the finish. We had a lot of good swims. I am sick of getting passed in the last 10 yards of a race. If you practice swimming fast at the end of your races, and being mentally tough to push through that "brick wall" that is inevitably waiting for you at the 85 yard mark...YOU WILL GET FASTER.

Let's work on figuratively running through a brick wall, not actually running through a brick wall :)

The Swimmer's Drive

The Swimmer's Drive

There are certain things in life that require motivation. Perhaps going on a diet requires you to give up a food that you love (maybe a little too much...). Maybe finishing your work, homework, or a big project before the weekend requires you to skip your lunch break or your free period. These things often require an extra push. They are things that we don't want to do, but we know that it will be worth it once completed. Waking up at 5:30am and diving into a cold pool before the sun comes up is one of those things.

Morning practices can be a bear to get up for.



There are two different types of motivation. The more common of the two is extrinsic motivation. Our society today is becoming more and more reliant on extrinsic motivators. These are usually material items.

• Mom telling her son, "If you clean your room I'll give you a cookie."
• Teacher telling his students, "If you guys are quiet I will give you candy."
• Coach telling his swimmers, "If you get a personal best you earn a piece of candy

We are becoming so reliant on rewards, that we demand them. Construction companies are given a deadline and they only finish on time if there are extra incentives. Kids only behave in class if there is candy at the end of the period. Athletes only perform their bests if they receive something in return. What ever happened to intrinsic motivation?

Intrinsic motivation is motivation from within oneself. The desire to be better for the sole reason that you will be better because of it.

• A kid cleaning his room because he likes the feeling of living in a clean environment.
• A student paying attention in class because it is what they are supposed to do and it will make them a better student.
• A swimmer shooting for personal best times because that means they are becoming a better swimmer.

There is no money in swimming. There are hardly even any scholarships in swimming. The best athletes in the world still receive only partial scholarships. The biggest pay day in swimming was when Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He received $1 million from Speedo. Compare that to the newest big football contract. JJ Watts signed a contract for 6 years and $100 million.

Unless it is an Olympic year, swimming is hardly even recognized as a sport. World records go unnoticed. National champions are not recognized on the street. Sometimes even swimmers' best friends don't realize what their swimmer friend has accomplished. Swimmers generally go unseen. Especially at 5:00am.

Therefore, swimmers MUST rely on intrinsic factors of motivation. They have to want to be better. They have to want to beat their rival. They have to want to drop their time by even a hundredth of a second. They must live and die on improving their times by the smallest of margins. They must recognize these improvements to reassure themselves that they are getting better. That they are getting faster. That all of the hard work is worth it.

Staring at a black line back and forth for hours and hours can be boring. Not being able to talk to the people around you, not being able to hear anything, not being able to listen to music, and not being able to breathe for the majority of your workout - this is what dampens the mood of swimming for most. But swimmers thrive in these conditions. When you are left alone with your thoughts, there is a lot of battling going on in your brain whether to give in to the pain or to push through it.

Those that possess the intrinsic motivation push through the pain because they want to be better.

Those that require extrinsic motivation are not likely to find it.

And those that require no motivation...well...they probably just aren't cut out to be swimmers.

Michael Phelps and Garret Weber-Gale celebrate after the greatest come-from-behind race in history.
The men's 4x100 freestyle relay at the 2008 Olympics. Want to see inspiring? Search YouTube for the video.

WHICH WILL YOU BE?



How to split a race

Recently I had a boring day at work, so I decided to nerd out a little bit. Ok a lotta bit. I wanted to know the relationship between different splits in a race. For example...if Swimmer A is swimming a 100 freestyle, what percentage of their race is spent swimming the first 50, and what percentage of the race is spent swimming the second 50. In a perfect world, it would be 50% for each. But when you factor in the start, and the extra energy the swimmer has at the beginning of the race things get a little more complex.

Before I dive in, you might be thinking, "Why in the world would you want to know this information?" It can come in very useful in practice and in meet situations. Say I have a swimmer (we'll call her Erin) that wants to qualify for the state meet in the 100 breaststroke. Erin needs to swim a 1:10 to have a good shot at qualifying. As her coach, I can use the data I found and have Erin practice swimming the pace she needs to go to get her goal time. In a meet, I can look at her first split and know if she is on track, below her pace, or going to slow to get her goal time.

So in my initial research, I found someone had done this sort of thing for NCAA swimmers. This gave me a good start, but I wanted to know how splits were related in high school swimmers being that high school swimmers are generally less physically mature and less experienced. So to expand on this research, I recorded splits of high school swimmers at the Iowa High School State Championship meet from 2009-2012. Here is a sample of the data from the girls 100 breaststroke:

Total Time          First 50 (%)          Second 50 (%) 
1:01.18              28.59 (46.7)           32.59 (53.3)
1:04.97              30.99 (47.7)           33.98 (52.3)
1:05.30              31.00 (47.5)           34.30 (52.5)

I did this for four years of times totaling 96 different times. I took the average percentages found each year and compared them. Here is what the averages look like:

Year     1st 50 %          2nd 50 %
2009      46.6                 53.4
2010      46.6                 53.4
2011      46.7                 53.3
2012      46.5                 53.5

I was taken aback by how similar these averages were! So I had to test them out for myself. I took the split percentages and applied them to several of the 100 breaststroke races I have coached over the last couple years. Almost every swim was dead on these same split percentages! I decided that this is no coincidence. 

From this data, I have created split cards for my swimmers. That way if they have a goal time, they know what they need to swim for a split from a start and from a push to achieve that goal.

Every event has different percentages for different reasons. It seems that breaststroke has the highest drop off from the first to the second 50. This could be because the start plays a bigger factor, or that breaststroke requires a large amount of power and wears the athlete out more than other strokes.  Backstroke has the smallest drop off from first to second split for the simple fact that the swimmer is not diving from the blocks for the first split.

Here are the breakdowns for percent of time spent on each split for different races. This data was compiled from NCAA athletes by Doug Huestis (the head coach for the Bay Masters program) and then added to by myself featuring Iowa high school athletes.

Event          Men          Women
50 Free       .4791         .4807
                   .5209         .5193

100 Free     .4715         .4752
                   .5285         .5248

200 Free     .2328        .2387
                   .2535        .2542
                   .2584        .2567
                   .2553        .2504

100 Back    .4831        .4834
                   .5169        .5166

100 Breast .4659        .4666
                   .5341       .5334

100 Fly       .4698       .4756
                   .5302       .5244
    
If you take these decimals and multiply by 100 you will get the percentage of time ideally spent on each split for any particular races. I stuck to these times because these are the races we see in a high school meet and races that are most common. The 50 percentages are per 25.

Hopefully this concept makes sense. If you understand it, it can be extremely useful in practicing at race pace and training for a specific goal. Keep in mind that the splits taken in a race in backstroke and freestyle were taken when the feet hit the wall on the turn. So if you are comparing times, that is something you might want to think about.

Flip it over, and start again.

In my experiences with swimming in public pools, I have learned that the easiest way you can tell a "swim team raised swimmer" and a "non swim team raised swimmer" is whether or not they are doing flip-turns during their pool workouts. Now, let me give some context here so that you don't go closing this page because you are offended.  People have many different reasons for not doing flip-turns.  Whether it hurts their ears or their back, makes them dizzy, or they get water up their nose are all common (and reasonable!) excuses.  However, you would be hard pressed to find someone who competed on a swim team and did not do flip-turns. And it probably wasn't because it made them faster.  It was probably mostly because of threats from their coach! I know many swimmers that have been threatened by their coach about missing flip-turns.  As a coach myself, I am guilty of threatening my swimmers with extra lengths, massive amounts of butterfly, and longer practice times for missing flip-turns.  For those people who know how to do flip-turns, and are not physically hurt by doing them it should be common practice to do them at the end of each length. Kind of like washing your hands after going to the bathroom.  It is just a good habit.

There are many things to think about during a flip-turn that can make it confusing.

• Beginning the somersault at the right distance away from the wall
• Planting your feet firmly on the wall
• Pushing off straight
• Ending up on your stomach

All of these things can seem tricky (especially when you are first learning how to do flip-turns) but they all seem really simple once you have enough practice. Remember: muscle memory is very important in swimming.

Step 1: Beginning the somersault at the proper spot

No doubt, if you have swam in a pool you recognize the famous black "T" painted on the bottom of the pool.  How can you not notice something when it is all you stare at for hours on end? Back and forth. Back and forth. Anyway...back to the point. This "T" is on the bottom of the pool for a reason.  It is so that when you are looking at the floor of the pool, you have an idea of when the pool stops.  Comes in pretty handy when you want to avoid running head first into the wall! This is a good reference to use for your flip-turns.  If you flip a little too early and your feet barely make contact with the wall, remember where you were in relation to the black "T" and get a little closer when you flip.  Same thing goes if you flip too close to the wall.  How close do you want to be when you flip? Ideally, your knees and hips will be at about a 90 degree angle (below)

This will likely give you the most force on your push off.  More force=more distance=faster swimming.

Step 2: Planting your feet firmly on the wall
After you flip over, you want to get a nice solid base to push off of. This starts with the correct feet placement.  The best spot for your feet is about shoulder width apart and slightly above your core (like the picture above). This is anatomically the best base for your muscles to push off of.

Step 3: Pushing off
Now that your feet are planted on the wall, it is time to push off and start swimming the other way.  You want to push off facing the surface of the water (aka on your back).  This is because when you flip over, you naturally end up on your back. So why waste the time rolling over on to your stomach? You want to push off on your back and then roll like a torpedo on to your stomach.  As you are rolling, you can begin your dolphin/flutter kick.  The number of kicks and the type of kicks you do is solely based on the individual.  Personally, I do about 3 dolphin kicks and then flutter kick right before I take my break-out stroke.
 

Thanks for reading! 
It's no fun to get FAST, just fun to be FAST!