Notes From The Coaches

Hi CT Swim Families!

Happy summer! I hope you all have survived the end of the school year and made it through the busy pre- season. As parents and swimmers alike it’s tough to balance and keep up with all of the activities going on. On behalf of the coaches I just wanted to kick off our summer swim season with a quick summary of what we’ve been focusing on and what we’ve got planned at CT for your swimmers this summer.

For these past seven weeks of practice, at all age levels, we have been working really hard on stroke technique and building overall fitness and endurance, although the swimmers may think that we’ve been working on Time bomb, 20 questions and trivia. As coaches we are consciously balancing healthy doses of fun, fitness, team unity, and speed. With our different levels and types of swimmers for this preseason we have been working on stroke development in the water, evidenced by multiple coaches in the water working “hands on” with the younger ones and staring at swimmers’ strokes from on deck like a hawk and then giving visual cues and verbal feed back for the older ones and building muscle stability and strength also verified by our dry land work on the basket ball court and exercise area.

Now that summer is starting we are going to focus more on speed, power and endurance. You will notice that our dry land activities will include more running, more jumping and lots of huffing and puffing. When we’re in the water you’ll see more starts off the blocks, more sprints and some longer yardage in our sets. Every day we will do dry land exercises but only on Wednesdays and Fridays will we be going full throttle on the tennis courts to improve aerobic and anaerobic endurance. It is imperative for the “soles” of our swimmers that they wear shoes (not flip flops) for these activities! We don’t want anyone getting cuts or injuries. This dry land work will greatly enhance their overall fitness and will really pay off when it comes to their swim times. Dry land intensity will peak and then taper off towards the last week in June and the first week of July. As for swimming, our yards will decrease around the end of June and the focus will remain solely on ridiculously fast sprints from then until Championships.

Never fear though, we will be holding to the age old summer CT swim team traditions of solid swimming on Mondays, Time Bomb Tuesdays, 20 Questions and Trivia Wednesdays, Terrific Thursdays and Funday Fridays. That is what the swimmers will hear, but what the coaches are focusing on will be lots of yards and stroke work on Monday, sprint kicks and speed work on Tuesdays, recovery, stroke and light speed work on Wednesdays, distance on Thursdays, and on Fridays we will be playing games that will focus on increasing lung capacity, diving, stroke and turn work, team building, and overall water mobility.

We love our swimmers and our swim families so please help us keep an eye on all the kids at the pool. There are a whole mess of kids so please remind yours and others of the following: walk on deck, no messing around in the bathrooms, “have nice touches” (no hitting, whacking or throwing things at each other) and be respectful towards others. We are a team so let’s treat each other well. Also swimmers are not aloud on the tennis courts unless an adult or coach is with them and they are not aloud in the pool unless a coach or parent is watching them and standing at the edge of the water with them. It’s going to be a busy season so check your emails from Hale daily and please write down in the “vacation book” when your swimmer will be missing a meet. Swim buddies will be posted soon and Saturday Invitational’s are coming up also so keep an eye out for a sign up sheet.

If you need anything or want us to really work on something with your swimmer please come let us know. We love this team and this community, its pretty special. Thanks for letting us be your coaches.

Sincerely,

The Coaches

-Brice, Alex and Devin

Hi CT Swim Families!

Here we are in the middle of the competition season. It is going great so far from the on deck perspective and it is apparent that many of your swimmers are working really hard in the water. Its extremely impressive the dedication and the drive that they have. Plus its nice to see that the kids are having FUN too!

As coaches we’re letting the swimmers know that we are in a three week window of really “hard swimming.” What that means in coach speak is that we are still intensely focusing on individuals’ strokes and technique but as a team we are increasing yards during practices, working at a faster pace in the water, reducing rest on the walls when possible, and developing anaerobic and aerobic lung endurance. We have upped the circuit work on dry land on Wednesdays and Fridays (still bring shoes for those days the ground is really hot and we don’t want your kids to twist an ankle in flip flops). This is a key part of an overall plan to provide the optimal training that will produce the fastest swimming for Championships on July 14th and 15th. By the 1st week of July we will reduce yards, increase the rest and reduce the dry land intensity and focus solely on short fast sprints for the remainder of the season. This in theory will yield some of the fastest swims of the season for your swimmer.

Long story short, your swimmers are going to be whooped for the next two weeks, more so than any other time of the swim season except for maybe those first few days. As a result for the next two weeks your swimmer may not be obtaining personal records and their times may be a bit off from their fastest race times. This is often discouraging for swimmers and parents. Please reassure them that this is normal and they should continue to work hard and have fun in the water because hopefully it will pay off for them later in the summer (a difficult concept to grasp). Let them know that this is part of the plan and that if they don’t give up, come July their times will begin to drop again (get faster) and they will have more energy and will be quicker in the water than they have been all season.

Please help them to get as much rest and sleep as they can, lots of fluids, and healthy carbs, protein and veggies (if your kids will eat those sorts of things) in order to avoid injury and burn out. They may also need extra hugs.

We are having a blast and we hope your swimmers are too!

CTAP swimmers and families,
As we mentioned in earlier emails, we will be in close competition with at least 1 other team for the championships. If we win it will because we have more relays than the other teams. Which means EVERY swimmer signed up for championships must be there ready to swim. Don’t leave the team hanging; don’t leave a relay 1 kid short. If you car won’t start, we will come get you. We have worked too hard to not give it our all on Thursday and Friday.
For the new families, this is a lot of fun, but we are serious about winning. We are a team and expect everyone to participate on these very important two days of swimming.
Everyone should be wearing a CT swim cap or shave their head (kidding, but you will swim faster with a cap; still some available in the office), and everyone should get a good night’s sleep on Wednesday.

Schedule:
Thursday (prelims) 7/14
Start 8:00am

Individual Prelims Fly through FreeFinals Medley Relays

Finals 6 and under 25 backstroke

Friday (finals) 7/15
Warm ups 4:00 pm
Start 5:00pm

Make sure your kid is at practice Monday through Wednesday this week.
Go Marlins!

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