Practice: There are many key areas that go into a good performance or a “best time”, proper diet, stretching, proper rest, mental preparation, strength building and most important practice. But beyond just being there for every workout, how you work out is just as important. Each segment of the practice has an importance and a method of doing it. Paying attention to the description of the segment is just as important as swimming all the lengths in it.

Warm up: The warm up should be done nice and easy, starting out slow and long, stretching your muscles to get them ready for the rest of the workout. The warm up is usually done freestyle but can vary depending on the work out focus. But the key is to go slow and “warm up” the muscles. Stretching is also a key pre or can be a post workout activity, even during other parts of the day or off days, STRETCH. A good warm up is critical to a good workout as well as a good performances at meets.

Kicking drills: All of our kicking drills are for one purpose and one purpose only, to build leg strength. Kicking drills are to be done with max effort. We want our legs to strong and not tire out. While different strokes require different levels of kicking power, all the strokes (fly, breast and back) require max effort and timing to be successful. So remember kicking drills, go all out.

Stroke work: Many Stingrays need a lot of stroke work. Even competent, year round swimmers still do stroke work to improve their stroke. However stroke work eats up valuable work out time. If your not doing a stroke properly, all the workouts in the world could be worthless. So when we are doing stroke work you have to use the most powerful muscles you have, your brain. Your body is “etched” with the way you do a specific stroke from years of swimming. To change those “etchings” or habits, you have to use your brain to overpower your muscles to make your body change the way you are doing things. It requires tremendous focus and concentration. During stroke work listen to your coaches, keep your ears wide open and your mouth closed. Focus on the specific drill of the stroke technique. Put all the drills together and your stroke will improve and so will your times! I can’t emphasize enough the importance of the time we spend on stroke technique.

Repetitive sets: Repetitive sets are where your times are improved through building muscle strength and endurance. This is the most challenging portion of the workout. Repetitive sets are where speed and endurance are manufactured. This part of the workout is what you make of it. You can swim through them, or you can make yourself into a better swimmer through hard work.

Examples of repetitive sets:
  • 10 x 50 on 1:15 minutes
  • 5 x 100 on 3:00 minutes
  • 6 x 100 I/M’s on 3:30
  • 20 x 25’s
The only way to get faster is to swim a distance equal or greater than the distance of your race over and over again with max effort; it’s as simple as that. There are no secrets once you’ve fixed all your technique problems; hard work drops times.

In closing there is one other key element to improvement. It is very important to attend as many practice session as possible. In addition, be on time to take advantage of the entire workout. Swimming is like most things in life, what you get out of it is directly proportionate to the amount and the quality of effort put in.