Great Swimmer Personalities

9 Different Types of Great Swimmers.  

This is proof that there are many different attitudes that can all be successful.

A couple of my swimmers asked me to write about them in my blog so I decided to find a fun way to do it.  All of these types of swimmers have been a pleasure to coach and are all so different in how they get there.  All of these swimmers know how to work hard and reach goals, and they all do it in different ways with both attitude and intensity.  See if you can find any of these qualities in yourself or in your swimmers.  I figured I would name them after some of the swimmers I have coached, as opposed to different qualities.  There are so many more I could have gone with too, but these seemed pretty awesome.  All of these types are ones that you take a lot of pride in coaching, and make it all worth it.

The Anna – A real coaches swimmer.  This swimmer likes to put on a social front until it’s game time.  They love practice, thrives on hard work, and loves to win.  When the interval gets tough, this type of swimmer gets tougher.  This is the type of swimmer that has never backed down from a challenge, and never disappointed their coach, whether it’s practice or meet situation.  This swimmer comes every day with a great attitude and the other swimmers like to follow their lead.  If you have this swimmer at practice, you will have a great group.  All of that hard work goes into the big meet also, as they somehow always get faster and impress, especially at Championships.  This swimmer makes it easy to go to practice and really makes you proud to be their coach.

The Ela – This is the troublemaker, the one who is always vocal, and they keep everyone on their toes.  They like to torment the coach, ask difficult questions, and act like they have a nonchalant attitude about swimming.  All of this couldn’t be further from the truth, as this swimmer cares just as much or more about how they do than anyone else.  They never miss practice, work their butt off, and really secretly loves the sport.  This swimmer will tell you how it is and tell you exactly what they think of everyone else.  This swimmer makes things fun though, and definitely keeps you on your toes.  This swimmer knows how to race and their sense of humor is great at practice.  This is the swimmer that always has friends at the end of her lane, because they know what it means to her to be great.  

The Lindsey – Coaches really love this type of swimmer.  They like working hard, love swimming fast, and quietly does everything the coach asks.  This swimmer also keeps who they are swimming with accountable, and takes it personally when others sit out, take breaks, or make excuses.  This swimmer will tell the coach after practice who sits out, and will move lanes to be with people who don’t annoy them.  They are awesome in meets and they are probably faster than they think.  This type of swimmer will continue to get faster as they get older, and their attitude will propel them to be great. 

The Bryan – This is the go, go, go swimmer.  They have one speed and that’s FAST.  This swimmer sometimes struggles to do different drills and have something against going slow.  Coaches don’t mind as much when they don’t do drills though, because their effort is second to none.  This swimmer will give you everything they have plus some and goes to a different level when others struggle.  They own dryland and makes it their personal goal to not allow others to keep up.  They know their competition when they get to the big meets, and they know exactly what it’ll take to break them. 

The Suzanne – The explosive swimmer with a killer finish.  This swimmer knows how to get to the wall better than any other.  This is the swimmer that will break a finger or two throughout their race career for trying to swim through the wall.  This is the type of swimmer that the other swimmers in the area know, and they all fear this one in a race.  This is the big meet swimmer, the one who always steps up when the lights go on, and performs when the pressure is on.

The Cassidy – The puzzle.  A lot of coaching is figuring out which buttons to push, and this swimmers buttons are not easily found.  When you start figuring this swimmer out, and push the right buttons, you get the right answers.  They are the swimmer you really really want to go fast, because they expect to be great every race.  They don’t take failure or adding times very well, which is what makes them great.  This swimmer can push it and can really go when it comes to meets.  The reward with this type of swimmer is great though, and the hard work of both the coach and swimmer pays off big.

The Brandon – This is the “I’m always cold and shivering” type of swimmer.  The cold all wears off of this swimmer once its go-time though, as this swimmer brings energy that is un-matched.  This swimmer is a beast in practice, always bringing intensity and being a technician with drills.   They love the game day atmosphere and thrive on adrenaline.  This swimmer will get after teammates and carry others to swim fast with their energy.  This swimmer works their butts off and helps the whole practice as a result. 

The McKenna – This swimmer gets after it when it’s time.  They have a lot of ability and they are extremely powerful, the trick is finding what makes them go.  This swimmer is technically great, focuses on the little things, and can make any interval you give them.  They are the type of swimmer that the other coaches are a little scared of, as they are very intense at times, but the more you coach them the more you love to coach them.  You like taking ownership of this swimmer as they are always fun to watch.  The sky is the limit for this type of swimmer, as they haven't yet realized everything they can do in practice.  They continue to get better in doing all things, and are always at practice.  

The Elise - This is the swimmer that has been with you forever.  The one that you've had since they were 8 and know everything about what makes them go.  You've seen them grow and figure out what it means to work hard.  This swimmer is the one with great ability, great size, and an awesome attitude.  They have worked hard when they were great, worked hard when they were growing, and stayed with it.  This swimmer has awesome skill sets and doesn't miss practice for anything.  They are the swimmer who is at every social event, every meet, and really puts everything they have into it.  This is the swimmer that you know will stick with it, because they really love it.

If you have all of these at practice you are a lucky coach, and probably mentally tired haha.  They all keep you at it, and the more they put into it the more you as a coach want them to do great.  It was fun coaching all of these types, and is great seeing the different types I have now and will have in the future.  What type are you?

5 things coaches always tell you

5 Ways to be a better swimmer.  Your coaches probably tell you these every day:

1. Streamline!  Seriously, just streamline.  This is the easiest way for a coach to see if you're focusing.  Streamlines are something that everyone can do, but it takes practice.  The more you do, the better you'll be.  This is my most used word at practice by far, and something that I'm OCD about.  The best swimmers in the world have the best streamlines in the world.  Its not a coincidence.  Lock it out, squeeze it, own it, and........STREAMLINE!!!
2. Wear warm clothing at meets!  This is easy, you warm up to get your body ready to perform.  Don't let your warm up go to waste by sitting around in your towel and letting go all of your heat.  Listen to your coaches, we don't tell you to get warm clothes on because we like saying it.  A warm muscle is a fast muscle.  Coach Rod's famous saying of "something on your shoulders, something on your feet" is a constant of a Machine swim meet.  The Olympians all wear clothes, warm ups, and always shoes.  It is important enough for them to do, easy for you to do.
   
3. Work on your turns every wall.  The biggest question that annoys coaches at practice is "can we work on turns".  Guess what, you do hundreds of turns a week.  Hopefully you are working on them every time you hit the wall.  That's how you'll get better.  This won't come from practicing 4 turns at the end of practice taking 20 minutes to do.  Create good habits and practice them at EVERY WALL.  
4. Make the intervals.  Sometimes they're hard, sometimes they're impossible.  Coaches test you with intervals, and want to see where you're at.  Sometimes coaches give you impossible intervals to see how you react and respond. We want to see if you have the ability to go outside of your comfort zone.  Go after it and challenge yourself.  Out of all of these 5 things to do, this is the hardest, but is something I think you can benefit from knowing.  
5. Have Fun!!
   
   This one is key if you ask me.  Swimming is a tough sport, some will say it's the hardest sport out there.  It takes determination, hard work, mental toughness, physical toughness, and sacrifice.  To make it all worth it you need to love it and you need to have fun with it.  Whether that's finding a group you love, finding parts of practice you love, or just finding ways to make this what you love to do.  You have to enjoy it.  It's easy to see as a coach who is working and having fun, who is into it, and who is really embracing the team.  Be a part of the team and do the team functions.  This goes a long way, this is where you build friends, and relationships with people from other groups.  We do things throughout the year and the more you do the more you will feel part of the team and really start swimming not just for yourself, but for your happiness and something you care about.  Things that we have done or will do are:

• team building activity
• bowling
• ice skating
• travel meets - this is HUGE
• putt putt
• boot camp
• group breakfasts
• There will be more, join in and have fun.  The same people go to all functions and they love the team, it really does help!

A Great Practice

Friday's practice was the best practice of the year!  We had a full group and the lanes were set up for Regional's to be swum at night, so the pool was perfect to do some racing.  It was a test set day where the kids were challenged to make goals and go for them.  We talked about the set after warm up, they picked their stroke, and went for it.


The set:
6 times 100 stroke (no freestyle) on 6 minutes (lots of rest)
All the same stroke
Go for best time
Hold the pace and find ways to get faster!

The kids started off the first one and really had great effort.  They hit some goals, and were close with others.  Their times were getting written on the board and they could see where they stood.  I think throughout the practice almost a quarter of them had swam all time best times, and the rest were within 1-2 seconds.  I had swimmers holding all 6 within 2 seconds of each other, and other swimmers telling me the next day they were ready to get sick by the end (a good thing I think).

What made this the best practice of the year wasn't the fact that they gave great effort or hit goal times.  It wasn't about the streamlines, which were great, the turns, or the stroke technique.  The reason this practice was great was because by number 3, all of the swimmers started moving toward the end of their lanes as the other groups were in.  They were cheering, screaming, and waving for their teammates to go faster.  They were holding each other accountable and helping them get to their goals.  They would get excited when they went best times, and even more excited when their teammates did.  The kids got into the practice, gave it everything they had, and pushed each other in a way we haven't seen this year.  They became a team and a group that supports each other today, something that goes a really long way in loving swimming.  That's why this was the best practice of the year!!

As a side note Coach JD and Leah said their ears were ringing afterwards.  This was from the energy and cheering from the swimmers, and a lot of help from Coach Jordan and his peircing whistle and energetic cheers.  Great stuff!

swimming nutrition

The secret to success is nutrition.  This is both with your sport and with building your body the way you want it to grow.  What is crazy to me is that I think everyone knows this secret, but have a really hard time actually buying into what needs to be done with it.  Big time athletes always say the time that they really figured it out is when they figured out what was best for their bodies in relation to what they were eating.  I'ts hard to eat right, it's a little more expensive, and it takes planning.  What you put into your body is what you will get out of your body.  The three main macro-nutrients that give your body energy are:

Protein - good for building muscles
Carbohydrates - good for long energy and when you have big workouts
Fat - very fast energy, but the calories build up.  It is needed, make sure to eat the right kinds (oils, nuts, etc.)

Swimming is a sport that burns a lot of calories and nutrition is very important.  This is the case before workouts, after workouts, AND during workouts.  I'm going to try and keep this short and hit on a couple of important parts.  There are many more facts out there, but I think these are really important.

If you are doing a morning workout you need to eat something before you swim.  You burn most of your calories and food that you had in your body during sleep, so you want your body to run on something during your workout.  This something can be different for each person, a piece of fruit, a half a bagel, or a full breakfast depends on what you're body tells you it wants before you swim.  Your body will burn those calories as you're swimming and will use that as fuel.

The part that everyone seems to miss out on is what to eat and drink during their workout.  The fluids are the most important part, as you should be drinking throughout your swim workout.  Take sips between sets, during rest times for long intervals, and when the coach is talking.  You should be drinking mainly water, but if you are in a high intense workout and feel like you need it, a Gatorade will help also.  Gatorade is something that is high in sugar though, so you need to be careful when drinking it, and only drink it during or after workouts (you should never drink it just hanging out or sitting on your couch at home).  Gatorade is specially designed to replace electrolytes after you lose them and has a very good formula.  So that means don't mix it with water, keep it the way it is.  I like it if you have a lot of water in addition to a little bit of Gatorade and switch off during workout.  A small snack is important during workout also, meaning some sort of bar.  This should be something like a granola bar or cliff bar.  A snack is only really needed for workouts that burn a lot of energy and workouts over 1 hour and 30 minutes in length (eat the snack the same as you would drink your drinks, during breaks).

Finally what you eat after a workout is paramount in the timing and amount.  You need to have something within 30 minutes of working out that is helping feed your body.  Studies show that the best thing post-workout is chocolate milk.  This replenishes what you lost and has a great ratio of protein and fat to help your muscles.  This should help you get through those 30 minutes of changing, shower, driving home, and eating food.  Once it's time to eat your meal remember that you want a balance in everything.  You need to have at least 5 natural colors on your plate, which should come from fruits and vegetables.  Protein is also a key element, which is great when you get it from fish or chicken.  Some sort of carbohydrates are important as well (no white bread or starches, they do nothing for you).

These are all my suggestions and little things that I have learned over the years.  Treat your body right and be consistent with good food choices.  But remember, you have to have a little fun every once in a while too, so I'm not saying cut out everything all the time.  The key to being healthy is being happy about it, so cheating every once in a while is probably important too.  Once it's time for a big meet, have your body prepared, and know what it needs.

Blair

practice attendance and an email to parents

I thought about starting this blog because of an email I wrote to Parents this past week about practice habits and attendance, and the importance of them.  We are in the middle part of the season, the weather has been bad, and we were at a weekend where there was no school for 4 days.  I have always had the practice with full attendance no matter what, and all of a sudden found myself with 14 swimmers out of the 40 that were supposed to be there.  Yes there were excuses such as the fact that it was a teacher work day, a four day weekend, and the day after the super bowl.  But my practice is from 6:30 am-8:00 am and the Super Bowl ended at 10 pm.  I decided that if I want the swimmers to really buy into what I'm selling then I had to get on the parents about this one.  The day after the Super Bowl is more than likely an excuse that came from them (sorry parents, you're the best, I know you get them there every morning by 6:30 and it's not easy).  

We are at a time of year now where we are gearing up toward championship season.  My group is awesome, which is probably something I will say every year, and they are very focused.  This year has been an interesting year because it's the youngest my group has been in probably six or seven years.  I had a steady flow of really incredible swimmers who were 11-12 and I was really lucky to coach them (maybe I'll post about some of them at a later time because they have helped me become who I am as a coach, they're awesome).  This year my practice is a little bit younger, but I have some really impressive swimmers who are about to make their mark on Potomac Valley in a year or two.  The improvement has been huge and everyone has bought into the greatness that is morning practice.  The beauty of it is that there are no conflicts, or so I thought.  There are no homework conflicts, no "I wanna play with my friends" conflicts, or even traffic conflicts.  You wake up, swim, eat breakfast, then go to school.  That becomes habit and is something that they are consistent in.  This was all the case until we decided to switch to a new schedule in Fairfax County and now had 4 day weekends everywhere and vacation time for swimmers to go skiing, friends houses for sleepovers, etc.  The new puzzle began and the challenge of practice attendance has reared its head.  

The email went something like this: I wanted to email everyone to go over a couple of things and to let them know that I have been very dissapointed at the practice attendance the past week.  We as coaches are working towards goals for the swimmers and have a plan as far as what we expect.  Aside from the technique part and physical part of swimming, the mental part plays a huge role in the development and eventual success of a swimmer.  It isn't a coincidence that all of the great swimmers and athletes are the ones who are committed to being great.  In my opinion that starts at a young age in the mental training and teaching that we try to do.  Swimming is all about the preparation and the process, things that we teach them that they can control, and their longtime success depends on this.  We try and teach them to not miss practice, ever, unless they are actually sick or are out of town for some reason, and when they're older they will be expected to swim while out of town a lot of the time.  I don't want the swimmers to start making excuses or taking days off just to take a day off.  For some context, missing days doesn't mean the swimmers are practicing every day of the week, but they need to be at practice for what they signed up for (2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, etc).

When the swimmers are at practice we have so much to work on in the pool that it is really important to be there every day.  Every day has a focus, and every swimmer has things they need to work on, if they miss practice they may miss something important that we did that day.  Today we had a very small number of people, which i'm guessing had to do with the Super Bowl and the fact that there is no school (everyone that was at practice watched the super bowl as well).  One thing my college coach always told us was no matter what we did the night before we were expected at practice and 100 percent engaged the next morning.  While these kids aren't in college, we want to teach them how to be responsible with their choices and if they make a commitment then they need to keep it.  The best thing about going to practice on a day with no school is that you get up and get your day started right, then you get to go home, have a great breakfast, and even take a nap if you want.  We have even gone to group breakfasts, or have done group activities after practice, which are always fun.  I don't want this to be a lecture but did want everyone to know that as coaches we were dissapointed with the attendance both today and Friday.  My goal is for every one of your kids to reach their potential and beyond, and in order to get there they need to be at practice.  We really do understand at coaches that it is a full year grind and we appreciate everything that goes into that.  There will be days that the swimmers miss, and days that aren't perfect at practice.  The most important thing I want everyone to take out of this is that we want you there every day because we want to get as much out of your swimmers as possible. For those of you that have been there, great job, you all got faster.  

I wrote this email and got a great response from both the parents and the swimmers.  The past week we have had 100 percent attendance and the commitment of each swimmer to every set has been impressive.  A lot of coaching and being a great leader is communication, if you want your swimmers and parents to do things a certain way, communicate your expectations to them.  I know I am lucky with the group that I always have, they believe in the process and just needed a little reminder of what the expectations are.  That should have been something I expected due to the change of schedules this year and the fact that they are still somewhat new at this.  Please feel free to comment any thoughts or ideas  you all have!

-Blair

A swimming introduction

Hello Swimming World,
My name is Blair Piddington and I have been a swim coach at Machine Aquatics since 2001.  More and more this year I have been writing emails to the parents on my team and have been trying to push off my thoughts about how I am going to make their swimmer great and my views of swimming at different parts of the season.  I just learned about how to write and create blogs and decided this would be a great platform to start writing down different ideas and overall thoughts on the world of swimming.  I plan on writing my blog and having new posts whenever I have an idea or have encountered a situation that I think could help other people or interest others.  I am part of the swim coaches idea exchange on Facebook and have noticed that a lot of the coaches have similar issues, and many of them I've dealt with during my time with Machine Aquatics.  This first blog is going to be just a little bit about myself, my history with swimming, and my overall thoughts on where these blogs may go.


As I said I have been coaching with Machine Aquatics since 2001 and couldn't be happier.  I have been lucky enough to become part of the Machine family since before it was even Machine because I swam for Dan Jacobs from the time I was a little guy at 7 back in 1989.  Dan has been a mentor of mine and role model through the years I swam and have now coached and a whole lot of the creativity I have learned has come from Dan.  One thing he has taught me is to continue to strive to be better than you already are and that there is always new information and innovative ways out there, continue to educate yourself and try and be the best.  I've worked with many coaches and have hopefully taken a little bit from each and every one of them (it's ok to steal ideas from other coaches, that's how we get better).  I swam for York growing up and swam for Greg through High School, then was lucky enough to swim for Peter Ward at George Mason University for my 4 years through college.  I've coached a little bit of all ages and currently am a head site coach at Oak Marr for the 12 and under swimmers.  In addition each swimmer and parent (I know we don't like to admit it) has helped me become the coach I am today and hopefully only half the coach I will be in 10 years.

To not go too in depth with a bio, I hope that some of the topics I write about will be things that you all can make connections to and maybe you can use some of my ideas or ways I handle things.  Blogs are supposed to be ways to get your views out there, and if you don't agree with some of the things I say or my views I'm totally ok with that.  Its great that there are many different coaches with many different views on how to handle things, which means there is something out there for everyone.  This blog will be designed for a little bit of everyone; coaches, swimmers, parents, swim fans, and especially my Mom Dad and Brother who I'm sure will be the majority of my views.

My ideas for future blogs are: about practice attendance, a nutrition blog, a blog about taking ownership of your groups, a blog about yardage during workouts, a blog about how kids are up for the challenge, and a blog about making your practice a community and an actual team.  Those are my initial ideas about things I'll talk about, with more after that.

-Blair