WEST Weekly - Stay at Home Update
Happy End of the Month WEST Folk,
We want to reach out to everyone to give an update during this unprecedented time. WEST, like everyone else in our community and beyond, are in uncharted waters. We are unsure of how long this will last or what the long term ramifications will mean for us, our families, and our community as a whole, but we are prepared to move forward.
We will plan to reopen as soon as we are allowed and based on the current stay-at-home order, we are hopeful to be operating again next week, on April 7th. We are skeptical but refuse to make assumptions until we have concrete answers from our various governing bodies. USA Swimming has cancelled all swim meets through the end of April and with the Olympics being postponed for one year, Olympic Trials will also be postponed. This cancellation will impact the Dick LaFave meet at the end of April and PNS is currently working on the LCM Meet Assignments. Planning for the Summer Championship meets (Sectionals, Futures, Nationals, etc) is moving forward at this time. We will follow the lead from PNS and USA Swimming and update everyone as soon as we hear more.
As an organization built by and for its community, we will remain dedicated to connecting with our members as best as possible. In our eyes, now more than ever, community comes first.
Online Resources
There are many options for online workouts and it can be hard to sift through. Here are a few credible sources:
Engineered Sports App for Senior & Senior Elite swimmers. Search for "Swimmer's Performance" from the app store and follow the log-on instructions that were sent out.
GoSwim.tv - they post swimming technique videos and are usually pretty consistent with our approach at WEST. You might even recognize some drills!
SwimSwam Daily Dryland Workouts - Want to mix things up a bit? SwimSwam has been posting daily dryland workouts that are geared for swimmers specifically and can be done at home.
Video Conferences for Athletes
This week, we are going to start holding short video conferences using the Zoom app with small groups of athletes. The goal is to bring the kids together and focus on a short list of questions that we have come up with. Each swimmer should be prepared to answer and briefly discuss the following:
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What are you doing to stay active?
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What are your goals for during the shutdown (life goals, general fitness, etc)?
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What are your swimming goals for once we return?
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What positive changes from this shutdown do you want to take back into “normal” life?
Coaches will set up conference times for the afternoon and evening of Thursday and Friday this week. We have broken our training groups into groups of 5-6 swimmers and assigned times for each conference. The conferences will plan to be 20min long so each swimmer will talk for 4-5min. If this works out well, we will try to do them again (especially if the shutdown is extended past 4/7).
Facility Updates
During the shutdown, coaches have continued to go to the pool and work on physical projects around the pool. With the mandatory stay-at-home order coming into effect, we started a rotation so only 1-2 coaches are at the pool at the same time (plenty of room to social distance appropriately) and we have to maintain the pool equipment that has to stay running. Here is a list of stuff we have been working on: pressure washing parking lot & pool deck, cleaning the roof & gutters, siding repairs, touch-up painting, locker rooms tile repair, cleaning and organization of equipment on deck, and many other little miscellaneous tasks that get overlooked when we are busy.
Our coaches and office staff are working diligently to answer any and all questions that are coming in and we thank you for your continued patience and support. We hope everyone stays safe and healthy.
Best,
WEST Coaching Staff
