This past weekend I attended an amazing swim clinic. It had a wide variety of speakers who coached age group, high school, and college. it covered a variety of topics from basic stroke progression, to nutrition, building a positive swimmer coach relationship and seasonal planning. To cover an in-depth amount of topic by some of the best coaches in the industry was a dream. Something I thought was a great about the talks was you were allowed to talk one on one with the coaches after their presentation were finished. Something that I realized that is important about coaching is building a positive relationship with your swimmers; you do way more then just talk swimming you help guide them, get to know them, and cheer them on. This was something I realized but its a really important piece of coaching that they highlighted.
Another piece of the industry was just all the business vendors provided to the the coaches and kids. i felt that group, coaches and kids, were fortunate enough to interact with. There we’re several vendors selling stuff and talking about what was the latest technology was and how it influenced swimming. There are plenty of tech suits being made but you have to stay up to date with the swimming technology because it can influence how fast a swimmer can swim. Filming and taping is also a new piece of the industry. As much as kids of this age really thrive by using technology. One genius coach seems to be using it and it has had a really great affect on the sport; as kids seem to be swimming faster then ever. The tapping aspect has completely changed the game up. Before age group swimmers couldn’t see how they swam and the changes they needed to make; visually seeing the tape shows them it is in fact a change they need to make.
We also had a short piece of the clinic that was in a pool. We got to watch Olympic swimmers practice drills and their were even a couple of kids who worked with the Olympians to preform the drill. If your considering a clinic look into this one its great for kids and even more awesome for coaches. Thank you, Eastern and Central State Swim Clinic for a great clinic; I will definitely be back.