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.