Life Time Oregon Swim Team Weekly Update: 2/4/2024
Hello Swim Team!
I hope that you are having a nice weekend! Here is your weekly swim team update. Please reach out with any questions that you may have.
Developmental Team
We appreciate your willingness to adapt as maintenance was being performed on the pools. I know practices were a bit crowded in one lane. I am excited that we will be back to two lanes this week.
We anticipate some new swimmers joining our developmental team this month! It’s likely that we will adopt more of a developmental 1, developmental 2 split as we get these new swimmers up to speed!
We do have a developmental meet on Friday, February 16th. We hope that you all will attend. To sign-up please log-in to Swimmingly Clubhouse and follow the steps: https://support.swimmingly.app/complete-meet-declarations
If you have not swum in a developmental swim meet with Life Time please let me know so I can help get your account in Swimmingly set up.
USA Team
I know that some of you might be excited to return to our indoor practices. It’s good timing too, with some temperature drops and rain forecasted for this week.
Our focus for the week will be getting ready for the Canby meet on February 11th. I will send out more information about Canby as I receive it. For updated information, please visit the event page of our website.
USA team members are encouraged to swim our developmental meets. However, I strongly encourage USA swimmers to pick some new events. We are offering 100 Free, 200 Free, 100 IM, 200 IM, 100 Back, 100 Breast and 100 Fly at this next meet. Developmental meets are great opportunities for USA swimmers to try an event for the first time in a more low-key setting.
Additional Notes for USA Team
- Equipment- As we develop as a team, I want to start introducing different equipment to enhance our training.
- Fins- I mentioned this in practice, but our team has gotten to the point where Life Time does not have enough fins for every swimmer. Many pairs are also starting to break because of the constant wear from swim team. I would like all swimmers on the USA team to purchase their own. I do recommend the Kiefer Elite Power Fins. These are shorter than the fins at Life Time and swimmers will not go quite as fast. However, the kicking motion with these fins translates better to the correct motion and movement that is optimal without fins.
- Swim Snorkel- The swim snorkel is my favorite piece of equipment. When swimmers can remove the breathing aspect from freestyle, and butterfly strokes they can pay closer attention to their arm pulls beneath the surface. The snorkel is great for technique work. I recommend the Finis Snorkel or Finis Junior Snorkel. The junior snorkel is recommended for swimmers under the age of 12 because it’s smaller and easier to “clear.”
- Mesh bag- With swimmers needing more equipment, they will need a mesh bag to stow their gear. In addition, to the snorkel and fins, swimmers can also keep a water bottle, extra goggles and caps in the bag. Swimmers are welcome to bring their own kickboards and pull buoys but I am not requiring those pieces of equipment to be purchased at this time.
- Upcoming USA meets- I am looking for a meet for March but it has been difficult. Late February and March are known as “championship” periods for USA swimmers. This is when qualification meets such as Oregon 10&U State Champs, Oregon 11-14 State Champs, Oregon Senior Champs, and other important USA meets take place. With these championship meets on the schedule there are not many teams willing to host meets for the non-qualifiers. April tends to be the beginning of the “long course” season for USA swimmers. All this means is that many of the meets will be swum in a long course 50-meter pool as opposed to a 25 yard pool during the “short course” season.
That’s it for now. See you at the pool!
Coach Danny
