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Our Focus for
Chamionship Season

Head Coach's Message

January 2010


Murray Drudge
NYAC Head Coach
 Heading into Championship Season, it's a useful exercise to reflect on where we have been and to focus on what lies ahead.

The competitive swim year is broken into 3 sections: The first runs from September through to December. We have just ended this section where the focus was on (other than getting into shape), stroke development and event versatility. NYAC swimmers should be paying attention to being efficient in all 4 strokes so that the core events become: 200m of each stroke, the 400 free, 400 IM and the 800/1500. With this said, the meets in the first part of the season are not only geared to exposure but learning how to swim those events which would entail or include: proper turns and proper splitting -so that NYAC athletes finish races strong.

Having ended the first section of the season and as we go into the second stage of the season, Championship Short Course Season, the focus is geared towards the events that the swimmers have qualified in at various stages of development. These stages include: Central Region Winter Team Championships (C times and below), stepping up to Central Regionals (A + B times), then graduating to Junior Provincial Time Standards. This naturally progresses to Age Group Nationals in Long Course Season, Eastern Championships in Short Course Season, and then finally swimming at a Senior National Level. The third and final stage is the Long Course Season which I will address at a later date.

Championship Season is where we are now. This is what swimmers should be thinking about right now and here are some guidelines for parents and swimmers to keep in mind:
 
  • Breaking new ground
     Basically it means that athletes need to be very focused on their goals. Where you are now and where you can end up is largely due to your mental preparation. My best advice is to find something to be excited about and focus on this.

  • Being specific
    What events drive you to get to the next level? You need to know what times you need, and what splits are required to make that time. This is called a strategy. Have one. The next step are tactics. Swimmers should have no more than 3 things that are particular to them that focus their attention during the race: ie. out fast, explode off walls, strong kick to finish.

  • Preparation on a daily basis
    The third item to assist a swimmer is "preparation on a daily basis". Anyone can get up on race day, but not everyone does that on a daily basis towards a goal that is important to them. This is the difference between participating and achieving.
 Since September the coaches have been stressing stoke development. I have focused a lot of time on this over the last three months to promote changes in developments in each athlete's ability to execute the stroke more efficiently. I facilitated this through coaches' training sessions where they were participating in technique training. They were able to watch stroke sequencing and see how this can make a more efficient swimmer. Some of the National Group swimmers were in the water to demonstrate efficient stroke technique. We strive to continually develop these coaching skills in our coaches.

Another significant event that we look forward to is Team Champs. This year it is being held in Nepean in the month of April. I look forward to the results of the Championship Season and to seeing how many of our athletes have broken new ground. The results posted will be used by coaches to assist them with the selection of the NYAC Team Champs team. I feel that the NYAC team selection is very fair and equitable and is a reflection of how our club operates promoting athlete development. We're there to win but we also ensure that opportunity is provided across all age groups and genders. Our team is selected with representation of each age group regardless of their ability to score points. NYAC strongly supports the development of all swimmers in the club and in keeping with this philosophy, we build a team that has each age group represented. If you take each age group and build a relay team with each group you have a total of 32 swimmers. The final 8 swimmers are selected based on the needs of the team and the recommendations of the coaches. This opportunity is a great team building event and it is very prestigious to be involved and to represent your club at this Division 1 meet. We will be making our team selection based on the results of our Championship Season, so make every race count!

In other club news, during the month of November, provincial coach, Dean Boles, made a guest visitation to the National and Provincial 1 group practice at Glendon College. He watched both practices. His visit was to offer insight and guidance and he went away with a very favourable impression of how we are doing things.

In closing I'd like to thank all of the families who helped us pull off yet another extremely successful Youth Cup and Mega City meet. It is great to know we have the backing of our NYAC community.

Good luck in Championship Season. I'll be watching!

Murray Drudge
NYAC Head Coach

 

 

 


 
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