Fall 2024 Week 1 Technical and Conditioning Focus
Fall 2024 Week 1
Technical Focus: Body Position
Conditioning Focus: General Aerobic
Macrocycle: Fall 2024; Mesocycle: General Preparation; Microcycle: Body Position
Hello Swim Families!
WELCOME BACK!!!
The 2024-2025 swim season is upon us, and it is glorious! This is my fourth season as head coach, and I intend it to be the best one yet. We have an incredible coaching staff this year. I will provide more information on each of these incredible individuals over the coming weeks, though in quick summation:
- Reid Carlson, Head Coach (just read the article in the Mercury, I’m not going to post about myself).
- Myles Torneden, Lead Assistant Coach
- Kaidnce Woellhof, Assistant Coach
- Liberty Posey, Assistant Coach
- Maurie Tyree, Assistant Coach
- Emily Morris, Assistant Coach
This week’s technical focus will be on body position. Without good body position it is impossible to swim efficiently. We will achieve great body position through targeted drills and streamlined kicking as well as core strength. A good head position is also important, and that will be emphasized this week as well.
Spoiler alert: “Fall 2024 Week 2 Technical Focus” is also Body Position. Furthermore, Week 2’s Conditioning Focus is also “General Aerobic.” That does not mean week two will be a carbon copy of week one; rather, it will build upon the foundations laid out in our first five days of the season.
Generally speaking, each day of the week has a stroke theme:
- Monday = Freestyle
- Tuesday = Butterfly
- Wednesday = Breaststroke
- Thursday = Backstroke
- Friday = Starts & Turns
- Saturday = Starts & Turns
For the White and Minnows groups which do not practice five to six days per week, they will have a slightly different rotation to ensure well-rounded training and apprehension of all strokes. That said, Saturday’s technical focuses will almost always be dedicated to starts and turns for White and Minnows—this also creates a great opportunity for older Marlins swimmers to group up with and mentor younger Marlins on their technique—with coach supervision.
Teamwork makes the dream work!
I’m pretty sure William Shakespeare said that, though I haven’t done the fact checking. I also heard a rumor that he invented the word elbow, and you’re going to hear lots of talk about “high elbow” and “early vertical forearm” (EVF) as this season goes on, but I digress.
As we have a shortened week, this week’s technical focuses will center on the following:
- Tuesday: Freestyle Body Position, Catch, and Pull
- Wednesday: Butterfly Breath Timing
- Thursday: Breaststroke Body Position and Recovery
- Friday: Backstroke Body Position and Recovery
- Saturday: Flipturns
Now let’s get into a little more high-level discussion… season planning.
As stated above, the “header,” as it were, reads the following:
Macrocycle: Fall 2024; Mesocycle: General Preparation; Microcycle: Body Position
Let’s break this down.
The Macrocycle encompasses our entire fall season, which is “Fall 2024.” Sounds basic, as a macrocycle should.
The Mesocycle, which is “General Preparation,” speaks to the first four weeks of our fall season. In this instance, as the root word here is meso it will change as the season goes on; meso derives from the Greek for middle, and while that’s not exactly accurate as there are four mesocycles in this fall season, it does its part to convey the message—and this is the verbiage used across all season plans by high-level coaches in the United States and abroad. Let me not ramble on this any further.
A microcycle is what each week’s specific technical and conditioning focuses draws from. This gets into the nitty-gritty of each day’s technical focuses and the general conditioning focus. Each day from Tuesday, September 3 through Saturday, December 7 has already been scripted out with specific emphases and skills that will be worked on. Same goes for the conditioning side of things. Needless to say, this level of planning takes a while.
You will receive these emails weekly as I think it is important to keep the entire team--that includes y'all parents--in the loop regarding what we're doing and why we're doing it. Of course, I am available for any further questions, though I do want to lay out some basic ground rules regarding communication.
Coaches are available for questions before and after practice; during practice times our attention needs to be on your swimmers, therefore, unless something is extremely urgent, please hold all questions for before or after practice. Also, as you know, I am available via email, and quite a few of the parents on the team have my phone number (texting is best).
I am so excited to see all of the swimmers and coaches at the pool tomorrow! It's going to be a great 2024-2025 season!
See you at the pool!
-Coach Reid
