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6/22/2010
Hi everybody
I wanted to remind everyone how important it is to hang your equipment bags up at the end of practice. You know that black spotty stuff that gets on your fins, kick bard, pull buoy, and paddles? It is mold, the bad kind. One way to keep your stuff mold free is to hang it up. When you hang your equipment up it lets it air out and dry off, which will keep the mold away. If you just throw you stuff on the floor of the cabinet all the other bags will drip water on your stuff keeping it wet and that is when the mold will start to show up. It may be easier to throw your stuff on the floor but then it will get nasty, so hang it up and keep your equipment in good shape!
On 6/5/2010 I went to a Saturday night blast with some of you swimmers. You guys did good, I know that 50 meters is a long way, especially when you guys are used to 25 yards. I saw a lot of good butterfly swims, and some good freestyle. One of the keys to swimming a good race in a 50 meter pool is to not go out to hard at the beginning of your race. I am not saying to start out slow, just don’t use all of you r energy during the first part of your race.
Keep up the good practices and tell your friends about the swim team, you already know it’s a great way to stay cool during the summer and spend time with your friends so don’t keep it a secret!
I will see you all soon ~ coach Michael
4/27/2010
Hello swimmers,
I wanted to remind you that stretching can be very helpful before and after a workout. Stretching will help prepare your body for the rigorous workout and reduce the risk of muscular injury during a workout. After a workout stretching will help your muscles recover, reduce how sore they are, and keep them from becoming sore several days after the workout is done.
Everyone that swam in the Tulip Festival Meet did a great job. I was very pleased with the results. I would like to see each swimmer keeping up the hard work and coming to practice, without practice you will “back slide” losing ground in you training. Every practice you miss it takes at least two for your body to make up. Missing practice and showing up but not pushing your self will result in close to the same results, bad. Show up to practice and work as hard as you can, and let’s do some great swims at our next meet!
April 23, 2010
Just a little note to let all of my swimmers know that they had fantastic swims at our Tulip Festival Meet at the begining of the month! We had some very courageous swimmers who stepped up to the plate and swam some longer events. Keep up the good work at practice and you'll continue to see your times imporve and your enduracne and stamina continue to get better.
Coach Jamie
February 26, 2010
Great job to all of my Silver Group. You guys did a great job at that Last Chance Meet at the begining of the month. There were MANY DQ's that could have easily been prevented by smarter swimming in practice. I have noticed a change in my swimmers since that meet and their strokes are looks much better! I'm very proud of Jonah LaDuca, Sarah Carr, and Edan Donaldson for their wonderful swims at 10&Under State Championships last weekend. I'm leaving tomorrow to go home to Massachuestts for the week; I expect my kids to keep practicing hard and be well behaved for Coach Zell, Coach Michael and Coach Cami. Keep up the good work!
-Coach Jamie
2/24/2010
I wanted to let everybody that they are doing a great job at practice; but that does not mean you should get complacent and become lazy. I don’t want any swimmer getting into a comfort zone, this will stall us in your process to become a better and faster swimmer. Something we all forget is that there is always room for improvement. Just when you think you are working as hard as you can just remember you can always put out just a little more, even when you sore and tired. I expect 100% effort from ever swimmer at every practice, with that being said I’ll see you guys at the pool! ~coach Michael
Everyone has been doing a great job at practices. With our Last Chance meet just a week away, I would like to see my swimmers work on fine tunning their strokes. We need to work hard on our breast stroke kick and keeping our feet on top of the water in back stroke. I have seen improvement in my swimmers being able to swim longer without stopping, but we will keep working on that. I am seeing all your hard work paying off. Great job swimmers!
Coach Cami
Great job to all of our swimmers at our Thanksgiving Invitational! As a new coach to the team I was very pleased with the first meet of the season. My group as a whole had many best times and great swims. Swimming is a sport where there is always room for improvement; lets start working harder in practice on our turns and finishes. Smart and LEGAL swimming comes by focusing in practice and swimming correctly. We had great swims last weekend and I hope to see more improvement at our next meet. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and we will see you all next week at practice.
-Coach Jamie
I just want to let all our new swimmers know that they did an excellent job at their first meet (Thanksgiving Invitational) last weekend. You have all improved over the past few months and it was very exciting for me to see you swim in your first meet. Now I look forward to working on your strokes and get you even more prepared for the next meet. Again, good job, you all did excellent.
See you at the pool - Coach Cami
Attention all swimmers and parents,
At the Thanksgiving Invitational Swim Meet I saw a lot of the hard work the swimmers have been doing really paying off. There were some fast swim times and every swimmer showed improvement. The areas that really showed were all the butterfly and individual medley events. The new swimmers had great swims also and should be proud of themselves. Many returning swimmers swam events for the first time. Over all I was pleased with the races I saw. That doesn’t mean you are all perfect swimmers, we still have stuff to work on, and swimming to improve. See you all at the pool ~ Coach Michael
Pre-Senior & Senior Groups:
We are geared up and have been having some super workouts. With our goals set on getting swimmers to all the Championship meets this season the swimmers are focused on getting in shape and learning the important parts of racing.
Coach Zell
November News Letter, 2009
Hello Swimmers
I wanted to talk about the importance of “drills” in workouts. First of all, what is a “drill”? Drill or Drilling singles out one or more parts of the stroke you are working on. By singling out and working on one part of the stroke a swimmer is able to work on developing better technique. Only with better technique will a swimmer be able to swim faster and with more endurance.
As many of you know I am a volunteer firefighter, we drill every Monday night. Firefighter’s have many skills that we use and we can’t go over all of them every Monday. We drill on the skills in the areas that we are weak in and need to practice. Every time we drill, we we strive for perfection. We go over every part of a skill, over and over until we have it down. Between drills our officers give us instruction on how to perform better. By listening and practicing in areas we are weak in not only do we get a better grasp on skills, but we are able to perform them right under stress. The bottom line is with enough drilling and practice we are able to perform our life and death skills right the first time and with out any hesitation.
Like firefighters, you swimmers drill to work on the areas that need improvement. Not every swimmer is weak in the same area, but by everybody working on the same drill those weak in that area become stronger, and those who are already strong keep working toward the ultimate goals of speed and endurance through perfect technique.
Every drill works toward perfect technique. Here are some examples of the things drills work on:
-The three-two-one breaststroke drill by kick works on the timing of the kick but also adds power to the kick.
-The sixes kicks and one pull drill whether doing freestyle or backstroke works on balance, body rotation, and getting the most out of each stroke.
-In butterfly four kicks one stroke helps the swimmer time their kick in accordance with pull and breathing while building up the muscles used for dolphin kick.
-By swimming freestyle with high elbows your body is forced swim right, by not dragging your finger tips through the water, it also forces your legs to kick harder so you can get those elbows up.
These are just a few of the drills we work on everyday at practice. Each drill is important for each stroke.
We have a swim meet here at the Woodburn pool later this month, keep drinking water, doing drills right, and coming to practice and you will all do fine.-coach Michael
Hi swimmers,
I have learned several new butterfly drills from Misty Hyman (set 200m butterfly Olypic record in 2000). She is a very fast swimmer. I have already learned a lot about butterfly that I did not know before, and this will help all you butterfly srokes as well. Here are several things that help Misty swim fast, and they will help you also.
1. Two dolphin Kicks per one butterlfly stroke. The first kick comes when the swimmer starts their pull, the swimmers hands will still be infront of them. As the swimmers hands pull past their shoulders the down portion of that first kick will push the swimmers hips toward the top of the water. On the up portion of the kick, the bottom of the swimmers feet should come out of the water. This will give the second kick maxium power. The second kick starts as the swimmers hands pass their hips. The second kick allows the swimmer’s hands to recover over the top of water without dragging their hands or arms though the water. If the kicks are not timed right your rythme will be off and your butterfly will be slow.
2. Palm up recovery. When your hands exit the water after the pull portion of the stroke, the palms of the swimmers hands will be facing the ceiling. The swimmer needs to keep their palms facing up as long as possible during the recovery untill they reach streamline. When a swimmers palms are up it keeps their hands and fingers from dragging through the water and slowing them down. It also keeps your body in a natural position, and keeps your arms moving so they dont slow down or stop.
3. Keep moving foward. The stroke needs to keep the swimmer moving in a foward direction. While swimming the pull and kick should not stop at all, it needs to be smooth and rhythmic. The two kicks will propel the body foward as well as help the arms recover for the next pull. When swimming the butterfly the swimmer should focus on getting their arms foward into the streamline position. This will allow the swimmer to get more strokes in and will speed their butterfly up. It is better to swim a perfect 100 yards of butterfly, then swimming 500 yards of sloppy butterfly.
Here are 2 drills to help work on the principals above:
-4 kicks, 1 stroke. The swimmer will take 4 dolphin kicks then 1 full butterfly stroke(including the 2 kicks done in normal butterfly). This will help get the timing of butterfly down.The swimmer has 4 dolphin kicks to think about working on the perfect butterfly stroke and the right timing.
-1 arm butterfly. This will help the swimmer use their whole body to swim butterfly and work on keeping their palms up for as long as possible during recovery. This wont help the swimmer if they are swimming "freestyle" during the drill. This means no bent elbows, no flutter kicking, no side breathing, and no diving down under the water. While swimming butterfly the swimmers arms will stay near the surface of the water, while their head and chest dip below their arms. This does not mean it is ok to "dive" under the water.
We will be doing lot of drills and sprinting to help improve everyones butterfly, as well as working on the other strokes. I hope to see you all soon- coach michael.
Hello everyone,
I want all you swimmers to know how impressed I was at the swim meet in Molalla. Each group did a great job, and I was pleased with the results. I don’t think there was a swimmer who did not drop time off of at least one of their personal records. Manny of the new swimmers did great at their first meet.
All the bronze kids have come so far. I remember when they first started, barley being able to swim 25yards on their fronts and backs. Now each swimmer can not only swim 50 and 100 yards, but have also learned breaststroke and butterfly. I think coach Becca and Rene are doing a great job and it definitely showed at the meet. Keep working on you endurance so you can swim the longer races. Keep learning all about each stroke so that you not only become faster but you get disqualified less, remembering the goal is not to be disqualified at all.
Swimmers your hard work is starting to pay off. Remember you guys are never done working hard; there is always a new goal to work toward. At the meet you all did well. Here are some things to keep in mind; when swimming backstroke keep your head still, in a fixed position. Also your kicking needs to be constant and next to the surface of the water. If your legs sink so will your hips, and you will swim slower. There were a lot of good swims at the meet, a lot of fast freestyle. Kick, kick, and more kick is one way to improve your speed while swimming freestyle. The other way is to drop time is to improve your technique. How you swim is a factor in how fast you swim.
Congratulations to everyone who competed in the mile. You guys did great. It’s hard to just keep swimming. Setting a pace can be difficult; your next mile will be a little easier. If this was your first mile this was a good learning experience. The more experience the easier it will be.
My goal for the spring is to incorporate more calisthenics to your swimming workouts. This means that you will the opportunity to learn and practice pushups, sit ups, crunches, leg lifts, dry flutter kicks, and bridges. I hope to see you all soon! ~coach Michael 2/24/09
Hello everyone,
I hope everybody got a chance to play in the snow and stayed safe during this holiday season. I know all you swimmers got a break from swimming due to the weather and I hope you didn’t miss it too much. I hope to be seeing you all soon.
With 2009 I hope to set some goals for those of you I coach. I want to see each swimmer become faster at kicking….. which means we will have to kick a lot more! By increasing your kicking speed you will be able to swim faster and set new personal records for yourselves.
When you swimmers are tired you swim different than when you are not tired. Your strokes become short, you breathe too often, and you flop around in the water(your head, arms, and legs).This being said we will work on swimming while you are tired and do more drilling so that during your race while you are getting tired you can still swim in an effective manner. This will also help your raciing performance.
I hope in 2009 that you all stay safe, have fun, and learn a lot about swimming and life in general.~coach Michael
John has been asking me to turn in my article each month since I have been coaching. I finally got it done. I want to say that I have enjoyed coaching the barracudas and my lane of swimmers for the past three months. The weather has changed the way we do things, but I hope you are all doing some dry land at home to stay in shape. I heard one time that the difference between swimming and other sports is that an athlete in other sports gets into shape to play the game and in swimming as well as running getting into shape is the sport. So I hope you are staying in shape playing in the snow and I will see you next week????? Coach David
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