Summer 2024: Week 3 Technical and Conditioning Focus
Week 3: June 17 – June 21
Technical Focus: Underwaters, Distance Per Stroke, Breath Timing, Starts & Turns
Conditioning Focus: Aerobic Tolerance
Hello Swim Families!
Our home meet the 2024 Little Apple Invitational is now behind us and holy cow was it fun!
We are now two meets into Summer 2024* and our third week of long course training is upon us! Time really is flying by, isn’t it?
This week, our technical focuses will be on underwaters, distance per stroke, and the ole stalwarts, breath timing and starts and turns.
Underwater dolphin kick, commonly called “the fifth stroke,” is a vital part of swimming. Distance per stroke, also known as efficiency, refers to the ability of a swimmer to increase their reach and progress across the pool with every stroke/stroke cycle**. Fast and well-timed breathing contributes to an effective distance per stroke (DPS), while sharp starts and turns are the “devils in the details” that differentiate good swimmers and great swimmers.
So often, starts and especially turns and underwaters are an afterthought on swim teams. This is unfortunate because, all other things being equal, having better turns than your competitor can decide the outcome of a race.
Imagine swimming a 500 yard freestyle. That is 1 start, 19 flipturns, and 20 lengths of the pool. If two swimmers both average 15 seconds per length, but the Marlins swimmer completes their turns in 0.5 seconds whereas the swimmer from the Smallville Sea Wolves takes 0.65 seconds to turn, that adds up to a total of 9.5 seconds versus 12.35 seconds, respectively, meanings the Marlins swimmer takes the victory by 2.85 seconds, assuming each swimmer has a reaction time*** of, say, 0.75 seconds, which is fairly average.
Our Platinum and Blue groups will shift their conditioning focus to aerobic tolerance. Like last week, this will mean a 5 to 10 percent increase in training volume with an emphasis on swimming farther distances at faster speeds.
A great coach once told me, “if you want to swim faster, you have to swim faster.” This means picking up the pace in practice.
Does this mean practices are going to be grueling?
No.
Are they gradually getting tougher as the season progresses?
Yes, and they will continue to do so until Districts and/or Champs, depending on your swimmer’s end-of-season meet.
If your swimmer is using the Sunflower Games as their last meet of the season, no reason to taper, it's all go-go-go!
Please let me know if you have any questions, and I’ll see you at the pool!
-Coach Reid
*Technically, the summer season started in March, therefore, our first Summer 2024 meet was the Voorhees-Maxfield Invitational, hosted by the Topeka Swim Association. That was followed by the Rose Memorial Swim meet, hosted by Empire Aquatic Club though also held in Topeka, though only attended by two Marlins athletes. However, for all intents and purposes, now that we are in true summer, I am referring to our first meet of Summer 2024 as the Blaisdell Beach Bash.
**A “stroke” is the motion completed by one arm, from the furthest a swimmer can extend their arm forward to the furthest extent they can pull it back towards the hips before bringing it out of the water. This applies to all four a strokes, though a cycle is slightly different as it differentiates and differently quantifies the arm pulls taken between the long-axis strokes and the short-axis strokes.
Freestyle and backstroke are long-axis strokes whereas butterfly and breaststroke are short-axis strokes. Therefore, for a cycle to be completed in freestyle and backstroke, both arms must come from furthest extension—an eccentric motion—to the furthest point of retrogression—a concentric motion—in the stroke cycle. For butterfly and freestyle, since both arms complete this motion at the same time, what may be called a stroke constitutes a full cycle in the terms of the short-axis strokes.
***Reaction time refers to the time it takes a swimmer’s feet to leave the blocks (or touchpad if swimming backstroke) at the start of a race.
