Non-swimming weekend ahead

Well, I think that the group finished the week strong. We did some new balance exercises during dryland and even got to play a nice game of ultimate in the end. This weekend...no practice and no meets. I am looking forward to that. I am sure the kids are also. Just need to get through practice this afternoon and I will be set.

The Greatest Athlete Ever?

I dream of having a swimmer race each time the way Secretariat raced.

Fresh ideas, hard core results

I was concerned after the last couple of days of dryland. I felt like the energy was waning a bit. People dragging from the locker rooms to the balcony or outside. Today was better.

Last night I spent some time looking up med ball exercises on the internet. I just needed some fresh ideas. Today we worked mostly our abs. We did some exercises with the med balls:

• Balls between knees, reverse crunches
• Balls between knees, oblique rotators
• Ball on chest between (just below chin), crunches
• Seated with feet off ground while leaning back, chest throws
• Both partners with feet of ground while leaning back, chest throws and oblique touches

I included a small stair/running route to some of the circuits today. The kids were awesome. They did great. I even had a small group stay and do a "bonus" Tenderizer set.

Let's Get it Started

Getting tired, working past the hump

I can feel it coming off the kids like a vapor or a stench. Things are getting stagnate and tired. We did our 5km run today and only one person dropped time. Everyone else gained or DNF. I think that I need to change up the dryland routine a bit just to freshen everyone up.

This happens every season. It is part mental and part physical. Of course those two things go hand in hand. Things have to change in order to keep the kids interested and the training effect...well in effect.

I will ponder this and see if I can come up with some new material.

Airedale Photography

I manage to take a lot of pictures of jd. Well here is a cool one and my favorite. It is from the first snow last October. She was in heaven and this was a lucky shot.

I got an Olympus E-330 last fall around the time I took this photo. SLR's are amazing. I love the fast shutter speeds and the depth of field that you are able to get with this type of camera.

The Softer Side of Airedales

The picture is of Rory (left) and jd (right). Don't let the small letters in jd's name fool you...she is a wild one. But only out in the open.

See that is what I have come to notice about Airedales. They have boundless energy on the walks and at the dog parks. Get them home though and it is a different story.

It helps that this picture was taken right after a weekend walk with the Airedale Group at the North Bivouac Trail Head in Anchorage. I just wanted to post this peaceful picture of these two great dogs.

Summer Season

As the head coach I have been working with the Gold group primarily as a sniper. We (the NLSC coaches) use sniping to describe our coaching when we are mostly giving technique advice and urging the swimmers to keep going. I am also their dryland coach.

The dryland training for the Gold group is centered around two basic foundations. Providing weight baring exercise, primarily through running, and core strength exercises (med balls, abs, stretchcordz, etc). The dryland is designed to be dynamic. Combinations of various running and core strength exercises are organized into circuits. The swimmers seem to like this high energy form of training. I have been getting excellent effort from them.

Here are some new things that I have tried with this summer's dryland training.

• "The Tenderizer" - A series of abdominal exercises centered around an isometric 6 inch leg lift. I have been building it up from 5 minutes. It is very tough. We usually follow this exercise with a running/through down set.
• 5km run for time. Pretty straight forward. There is a 1.03km cross country loop behind the pool. It is perfect.
• Dryland 100's. These are 1min short course dryland "swims". The med ball version is a series of med ball throws against the wall with a streamline jump every 15sec. The stretchcord version is similar but doing swimmer's pulls or chest flys.
• Wall sits with med balls between the knees. This is good for jumpers knee and challenges the legs of the swimmers who can not run.

I have a been running the dryland with the Silver group as well, but on a slightly toned down scale. Training the Silver group is a bit different this summer because I have a large new group of 10-11 year old girls and boys. They are good swimmers, but I feel a bit like I have started over from the beginning. My group of Silver grads (13-14 year olds) were very strong and motivated trainers. I think this group will be strong as well, but it is going to take some work.