This post was written with my wife, former elite swimmer, coach, teacher and mother of four Helen Morris who continues to amaze me every day.

So you’re pregnant. Congratulations!

That’s no reason to stop exercising!

Pregnancy and Swimming: some simple, practical advice from an experienced mother and swimmer.

Safety first!

OK – before we go too far into this post, here come the very important safety considerations:

1. If you are pregnant or think you might be pregnant, please consult your doctor before continuing or commencing an exercise program of any kind;

2. Continue to consult your doctor throughout your pregnancy and ensure your exercise program is closely monitored and managed.

Now the story so far…

I’ve had four kids. I also swim regularly, as I have done for many years. I’ve somehow managed to balance being pregnant, being a mum and still doing some swimming for fun and fitness and wanted to share some of my experiences with other “swim-mums”.

There are five really great reasons for exercising during pregnancy:

1. It helps keep mum healthier and happier (‘me time’);

2. It helps keep your growing baby healthier;

3. It helps maintain your own fitness and strength making carrying the baby a little easier;

4. It helps maintain your own fitness and strength making delivery a little easier;

5. It helps maintain your fitness and strength helping with post-delivery recovery.

So there are lots of good reasons to keep training while pregnant – (obviously taking heed of the need to seek and continue to consult medical advice during your pregnancy).

I wanted to share with you some ideas, some learning and some real-life experiences that may help you in your efforts to stay fit and health during your pregnancy and have a happy healthy baby at the end of it.

Eight Practical Swimming Tips for the Mother on the Move:

1. Do what you can. Some days you feel great and exercise is relatively easy. Other days you feel tired, fatigued, lethargic and even nauseous. Forget the “periodised” plan. Train as you feel and don’t feel guilty for having a day off when you need to;

2. Exercise with a friend! There is always a chance that something could go wrong so the smart thing to do is to train with a squad or at the very least with a friend;

3. Monitor yourself very closely when exercising. Monitor your temperature, heart rate, your pain and discomfort, your breathing and your nausea throughout any training session and be prepared to slow down or stop if you need to;

4. Drink regularly. The baby has a big thirst! It is growing and developing and needs a good supply of fluid. And when you exercise your own need for fluid increases. So make sure you drink regularly before, during and after your pregnancy exercise program;

5. Allow yourself extra time for rest, recovery and sleep. As a general rule, for every 30 minutes of exercise I do during pregnancy, I allow an extra 60 minutes for rest, recovery and sleep;

6. Remember that the baby is “selfish”. The baby you are carrying is very good at taking care of itself and will “fight back” if you push it too hard. It is not uncommon for expectant mums to feel a little dizzy during exercise as working muscles, lungs and heart compete for blood and oxygen with a growing baby. Take it easy – “listen” to the baby;

7. Be careful with the old “eating for two thinking”. This is a big mistake that a lot of mums make. They eat too much of the wrong types of food during their pregnancy and brush it off as “I am eating for two”. Sure, you deserve a little treat now and then: being pregnant can be really tough but the baby is not a chocolate junkie and is not a pizza addict – you are!;

8. Don’t listen to “old wives tales”. Every woman who has ever had a baby has some good old fashioned home spun advice about what to do, what not to do, what every little sign means etc. In the “old days” pregnant women did very little exercise believing that it was harmful for the baby. As long as pregnant women closely monitor and manage their exercise program in consultation with their doctor, exercise is great for both mum and bub!

As time goes by take it easy-er.

As you travel through your pregnancy, and you get bigger remember to decrease your exercise expectations accordingly! It’s easy to forget how much of your body is working for the baby. Your heart rate will be higher than usual, your weight will be increased and your total blood volume will be larger meaning you can feel a bit slow and sluggish making those “not so easy to get going days” even tougher.

Swimming is one of the best exercises you can do while you’re pregnant. You get a fantastic overall body workout with full support from the water. No weight-bearing stuff to damage your already stretching / stretched ligaments but all the same…… work within your limits, monitor your body throughout your workout and feel free to rest anytime you need to.

Tumble Turns and Pregnancy.

A word of caution though about “Tumble turns” during pregnancy: you can keep on “tumbling” as long as you feel capable of doing them! There is generally no harm done to your baby by you tumbling around in water – after all, that’s what your baby is doing all the time. However, you may get to the point where it is not terribly comfortable for you to tumble turn. Don’t feel bad! When that “basketball” comes out, you’ll be able to tumble again! Just imagine how hard tumble turns would be if you had to do them over the top of a basketball each time – ’cause that’s what you are basically doing later in your pregnancy!

Form strokes, i.e. butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke.

If you’re anything like me, your ability to do form strokes decreases as you grow bigger (and I used to do a decent medley!).

I found the first thing that deteriorated during my pregnancies was butterfly, (I found it got much harder to maintain enough power in my kick to breath easily).

Then the breaststroke went due to my lower back not coping well with ‘frog’ kicking, when my ligaments started to stretch significantly. Lastly the backstroke went, as even being supported in the water, I felt my insides were being crushed when on my back (much like when lying in bed). So the last couple of months of swimming when pregnant are less interesting, due to being relegated to freestyle only. (If you’re a triathlete, I guess that wouldn’t bother you so much!)

Decreasing training load.

Reducing your swimming training load over your pregnancy is normal and natural. This was always a disappointment to me but it is something you have to accept. Being realistic about having to reduce the amount of laps you do is hard to swallow, however, I keep telling myself that ANY-thing is better than NO-thing. Do what you can for as long as you can. As a general rule:

•Trimester 1: Maintain the volume of your training (how much you do) and the frequency of your training  (how often you train) but decrease the intensity of your training (how hard you train);

•Trimester 2: Decrease the volume and intensity of your training but maintain the frequency of your training;

•Trimester 3: Decrease the volume, frequency and intensity of your training.

Note these are general guidelines only. Each individual swim-mum should monitor and manage her own training program during pregnancy carefully and in regular consultation with their medical practitioner.

 Keeping Motivated.

I have had different ‘mantras’ over my pregnancy to help keep me motivated and attending swimming practice regularly:

1. First trimester – “keeping it up”, “me time”, “feeling happier after every swim”, and “coping with daily activities better”.

2. Second trimester – “maintain as much fitness as possible”, “don’t put on too much weight”, “me time”.

3. Third trimester – “the more I do now, the quicker my recovery will be”, and “take every opportunity now, as it may not be so easy to get away for time to myself when I have a newborn!”

It is important to understand your own motivation for swimming while pregnant and to have clear goals and objectives for your training each trimester.

Regular swimming during pregnancy is about the three “mys”:

•My health;

•My baby;

•My time – i.e. time for me

I can’t imagine three better motivators for regular swimming, can you?

 Summary:

•So enjoy being pregnant, take care of yourself and keep fit and healthy: the benefits to you and your baby are immeasurable.

•Do what you can do: don’t dwell on what you can’t do – particularly in your second and third trimester.

•Do keep in regular communication with your medical practitioner throughout your pregnancy and work with them as you commence and continue a swimming program.

 Helen Morris (with only a little help from Wayne Goldsmith – same as the rest of the pregnancy!).

© 2012, Swim Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Related posts:

1. Mental Skills Training in Swimming – a new approach.

Talent is Harder to Hide than it is to Find.

When looking for the characteristics, traits and abilities that may indicate a swimmer’s talent, the most obvious things to look for are the physical ones.

However, swimmers with real physical talent are harder to hide than they are to find!

How many times have you been to a Swim Meet and seen the ten year old who is built like a fifteen year old blitz the opposition and break the Meet record? Finding physical talent in very talented swimmers is like telling people you discovered the Pacific Ocean-someone was going to find it sooner or later – hiding it would have been a far greater challenge!

And…ultimately, physical talent is only one indicator - and not a particularly good one - of performance potential.

It’s more than merely muscle.

Real talent is a far more complex thing than merely muscles, tendons, nerves, blood and ligaments. It’s an integration of mind, body and spirit: a combination of physical, mental, technical, tactical, genetic, cultural and personality factors that come together in a pair of swimming costumes that may one day break the World record or win the Olympic Gold Medal.

So what are the Top Ten Talent ID Techniques for Swimming: how do you find the most talented swimmers in the talent pool?:

1. Parents – (genetic material): choose your parents carefully;
2. Parents- a supporting, loving, caring environment, where parents or carers provide a swimmer’s core needs in nutrition, time management, sleep, rest, education and family support;
3. The Ability to learn fast – learn more in a shorter period of time = faster progression and improvement;
4. The Ability to deal with difficulty, adversity and change – the path to greatness is never straight or smooth. Many Olympic Gold medalists have had to endure set-backs, surgery, illness and disappointment and fight hard to achieve their dreams;
5. Physical talent- you have to have at least one “weapon” – speed, size, strength, power, flexibility….having at least one physical gift is useful;
6. Self confidence / self belief – they can who believe they can;
7. Passion – the love of swimming is the driving force of so many great swimmers and great swimming performances;
8. The ability to get along with other people - swimming is an individual sport wrapped up in a team environment. The ability to work well with team-mates in often tough, hard, high pressure situations, e.g when touring with a representative team, is a critical skill and a much under-estimated talent;
9. The ability to keep a sense of humour and balance about life – after all it is only swimming and you are so much more than just a swimmer;
10. Time availability – whilst not strictly a measure of talent, the amount of time available to train, prepare, rest, recover and compete are critical determinants of the level of swimming you can achieve.

Or if you like…

• Talent is….
• Attitude to train to your full potential everyday;
• Love of the sport;
• Enthusiasm – particularly in the tough times;
• Nurturing – unconditional love and support at home from a family who cares;
• Toughness – being able to persevere and keep giving your best when your feel so tired you can barely lift your arms;
• Inherited characteristics – choose your parents carefully;
• Desire – never give up.

Putting it all together.

So when looking in the talent pool for talent in the pool, keep your eyes, ears, heart and mind open.

It’s a lot more than just being the biggest, the strongest, the tallest or the fastest…..talent is a total package: a combination of factors that, when combined with consistent hard work, dedication, commitment and an uncompromising devotion to perfect preparation, turns potential into performance.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2012, Swim Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

1. Physiology based Training Set Design in Swimming: There must be Another Way.
2. Five New Ideas that will Change Swimming Forever.
3. Top Ten Tips for Swimming Coaching Success.

A.T. – what does it stand for?

Anaerobic Threshold? Yep – for senior athletes, elite swimmers, swimmers 13 years of age and older – absolutely.

For swimmers 12 and under what does A.T. stand for? A Total waste of time.

We’ve all heard the old swimming cliches about kids and training:

“You’ve got to get the miles into the kids.”

“Kids recover fast so you can push them harder more often.”

“Training kids is all about volume – you have do a lot of work.”

The volume of training appropriate for kids 12 years and under is not for debate here (and let’s be honest, no one really knows the answer to that one anyway) – it’s all about intensity – and by and large, we are pushing young swimmers too hard too often: we are pushing them at or around A.T. for no logical or rational reason.

Whilst the evidence for including some quantity of A.T. work in the training programs of senior swimmers is hard to question, the role of A.T. in the training and development of young swimmers is uncertain at the very least.

Here’s the case for pushing kids 12 and under at A.T. pace for extended periods during swimming training:

1. It looks like they are training hard so everyone feels good about the workout;
2. It keeps the noisy and disruptive kids quiet.
3. Their parents like it because the kids are too tired to argue with them, and they sleep!

Now here’s the case against pushing kids 12 and under at A.T. pace for extended periods during swimming training:

1. They don’t produce a lot of lactate but what they do produce (i.e. by swimming at or above A.T.) they don’t deal with very well;
2. They don’t race over distances requiring high level A.T. adaptation abilities, i.e. most 12 and under swimmers race 50s and 100s;
3. Most of the events they race over are approximately 50% dives, turns, underwater swimming and finishes - i.e. skills based – with only around 50% of race distance being free swimming;
4. Pushing them hard at A.T. for long periods leaves them fatigued and impacts on their ability to swim at max or near speeds in training during speed development training;
5. A.T. is the proverbial metabolic “no man’s land” for swimmers aged 12 and under. It has the effect of young swimmers doing their slow work too fast and their fast work too slow – developing neither endurance or speed and largely wasting their all too valuable water time.

So why do so many coaches spend so much time bashing and belting young swimmers up and down the pool in the A.T. “no man’s land”?

Because it is easy to do!

The easiest way to coach a large team of young swimmers is to push them as hard as possible as often as possible. It keeps them under control. It keeps them working hard. It makes parents think they are getting fitter and stronger. And…just occasionally, a few swimmers get a good result from the too hard / too often approach if they manage to get a lot of rest during their taper and have some underlying sprinting abilities.

This is of course the old “broken-egg” coaching approach. Throw enough eggs against a wall and maybe, just maybe one or two out of a thousand will survive the impact.

Instead of the other 998 eggs lying broken on the ground…. think!! - is this really good coaching????? And we wonder why so many kids drop out of the sport at 13, 14 and 15 years of age…. they just got sick of being made into omelettes!

So weigh it up in your own mind.

Old way – push the kids as hard as possible at or above A.T. in every workout for a few months, taper them for a few days and hope it all comes together on race day or……

New way – adopt a common sense, practical, sensible approach that helps develop the swimmers’ physical, mental, technical and tactical abilities in a way which is relevant and appropriate to their competition goals.

Hmmmmmm – difficult choice!

Summary and Practical Coaching Tips:

1. When coaching swimmers 12 years of age and under, stick to the simplicity and practicality of the P.A.C.E. model;
2. If in doubt, either work very slow (60-70% speed, very aerobically, great technique) or very very fast (100% speed, short distances, great technique, lots of recovery) – and always work in an integrated way – i.e. managing training speed plus mental factors plus technique plus skills;
3. Break your old habits! The old “let’s push the kids every workout so their faces are red, their shoulders sore and they are out of breath” days are over! Effective training is about balance, adopting an integrated approach and including physical, mental, technical, tactical development activities in every session.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2012, Swim Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

1. Peaking and Tapering Strategies–Getting it right the first time.
2. Physiology based Training Set Design in Swimming: There must be Another Way.
3. Twenty Tips for a Tip Top Taper!

1. Set your self a daily goal to improve by one tenth of one inch. Anyone can improve one tenth of an inch each day. Over a week that’s almost an inch. That’s about 4 inches a month. That’s about 3 feet a year…..and 12 feet every Olympic cycle.
2. If you are in a pace line (i.e. a line of swimmers) chase the feet of the person in front of you.
3. If you are leading the pace line, imagine the person behind you is a shark or crocodile and you need to make sure you stay ahead of them!
4. Promise yourself a small gift or reward for improving your skills and drills – reward excellence in technique – technique is the key to swimming success.
5. Encourage other swimmers – the better your team mates perform – the more it will lift you and your performance – “a rising tide lifts all the boats”.
6. Keep a training diary and write in it three things you improved each day.
7. Keep a PB record sheet on your wall. Watch how you improve over time.
8. Remember you are special. How many people are prepared to get out of bed at 5 am, train hard and balance school, swimming and life the way you do?
9. Link your seasonsby making your short course PBs this season your long course PBs next season.
10. Make it your aim to have your 100 yard kick time no more than 10 seconds slower than your 100 yard PB swim time.
11. Reward PBs with things that will help you do more PBs. For example, if you do a PB, reward yourself with a copy of the latest swimming magazine.
12. Understand what motivates you – not anyone else – what motivates you! If you are motivated by winning, then do everything in your power to prepare to win. If you are motivated by learning new skills and challenging yourself, do it. The key to motivation is knowing what it is that motivates you.
13. Make a PARTNER PROMISE. Find someone in the team who wants to swim fast and make a commitment to them. For example, make a commitment that you will help each other achieve your goals. Each session say something positive to each other, encourage each other, meet at the pool early and do some extra work together, support each other through the tough times. Sometimes knowing you have made a commitment to help someone else is a great motivator for you.
14. Play imagination games in training like imagining the final lap of every set is the final lap of the 2012 Olympic final and all you need to do is work hard for a few more strokes and you will win the gold medal and break the world record. These imagination games are great fun and very motivating.
15. Make up some unusual, fun and weird goals that mean something only to you. Like how many times can you say “sausages” on a single breath or what’s the weirdest stroke you can come up with. Having fun is the best motivation of all.
16. Find a fast beat song that you enjoy and play it before you get in the water. “Feel the rhythm” and the beat when you are swimming and feel it lift you when you get tired.
17. Do your favourite stretches that make you feel good – as you start to stretch, you will find you begin to relax into the right mind set for fast swimming.
18. Imagine you are finishing a race when you pass someone in the next lane. Thinking about it will ignite the competitive fires!
19. Think about how heavy you thought the weight was when you first started doing gym.  How much heavier are you lifting now?
20. How many push ups / sit ups / chin ups do you do now? How many did you used to do? Be proud of all your success. Enjoy the journey.
21. Think of the other swimmers that you have beaten recently that used to beat you. Give yourself permission to be proud of your resilience, your toughness, your perseverance and your character.
22. Imagine how good you will feel when you go home, have dinner and curl up in bed tonight? – Now work hard so that comes quickly!
23. Challenge yourself to turn (or start or finish) better than ever. Before you know it you will feel better and motivated to train hard.
24. Think of each lap as an opportunity: an opportunity to improve in an area of your swimming, which will bypass you if you don’t take it.  Remember, someone somewhere IS taking that opportunity.
25. Ask a top swimmer (or successful athlete in any sport) what they do to stay motivated. Learn from them. Copy them.
26. Work hard – sometimes not thinking about it – and just doing it – is all the motivation you need.
27. Do the old NEVER ENDING STORY routine. Make up a funny story and tell someone in your lane a small piece of it between repeats. See how long you can make the story. It really motivates you to get to the end of the pool fast (and start telling the “never ending” story).
28. Get some support!!! Talk to some friends about motivation and every day support each other, encourage each other – motivate each other.
29. Put some photos of Michael Phelps, Natalie Coughlin and other swimming greats up on your wall. Imagine about what they would be doing, what they would be thinking and how they would be training each day.
30. Finish off one task every day. Nothing motivates you like finishing something! Might be something as simple as homework. Or a chore at home. Just finish something.
31. Shave down in training – no reason – it just feels great.
32. Stay positive. Everyone has tough days – the difference is in how you allow the tough days make you feel. Tough times fade…..tough people never do.
33. Say one positive, encouraging thing to every person in the team: coaches, swimmers, parents, pool attendants – everyone. You will be surprised how motivating others will motivate you.
34. Believe anything is possible – never, ever stop believing that.
35. Buy yourself a new, fast swimming costume.
36. Switch your brain on to something else. Focus on improving in another area of your life – school, music, another sport……..success breeds success.
37. Remember the three best things that ever happened to you. Just the thought of these amazing things will change the way you look at life.
38. Put up motivation quotes all over the place. Some good places are next to your alarm clock, on your swim bag, on the top of the bathroom mirror and in your training diary.
39. Get to training early and motivate some of the younger swimmers in your club. They look up to you and admire you the same way you look up to and admire older and more successful swimmers. Being a role model for others will trigger some really great, positive motivation messages in your brain.
40. Be the first. For example, get to the pool first on January 1^st and be the first in the team to swim a lap, a mile, two miles, five miles and so on. Striving to be the first is a great driving force and very motivating.
41. Try a new sports drink. Or sports bar. Or a new all natural diet. Motivate your “inside”.
42. Do something everyday that is “impossible”. Try kicking 50 metres underwater at maximum speed. Or sprinting 60 metres on a single breathe. Or aiming to do a PR from a wall push off (i.e. no dive). Keep trying one impossible thing each day and sooner or later the impossible becomes reality.
43. Form a triathlon team with two friends at school who cycle and run and enter in a local triathlon.
44. Lead the team cheers at your next meet. Even better, get some of your team together and write some new team cheers….and lead them at the next meet.
45. Allow yourself to be proud of you. Look in the mirror and take time to realise what an amazing person you are.
46. Do something away from the pool to help your swimming. Take an aerobics class to improve your fitness. Do a martial arts course to build strength, balance and confidence. Take up dancing to improve rhythm and co-ordination.
47. Play a counting game. Swimmers are great at these. Count tiles, laps, turns, breaths, strokes…………….you know the drill.
48. Have repeat or two in each set which is PERFECT. If you are swimming 10 x 50 always make the second, fifth, eighth and tenth ones perfect.
49. Challenge someone much faster than you to a race at the end of training. Nothing motivates like a real challenge.
50. Smile. It is impossible to smile and not feel better.

Wayne and Helen

© 2012, Swim Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

1. Twenty Tips for a Tip Top Taper!
2. Flying into Fly: Five Tips for Swimming Brilliant Butterfly.
3. The Top Ten Technique Tips for Every Swimmer

Coaches – ever wanted to know how you rate as a coach?

Swimmers – ever wanted to know how your coach rates as a coach?

Swimming Parents – ever wanted to know how your kid’s coach rates as a coach?

Then look no further than….the Swimming Coach Score Card.

This score card is a little different. Instead of being awarded points, you lose points for poor coaching standards and mediocre coaching behaviours.

Are you ready?

OK – your starting score is 100 CCs – that is 100 coaching credits.

1. Take off 5 CCs if you have been late to training in the past month;
2. Take off 10 CCs if you coach from one end of the pool all the time and another 5 CCs if you ever sit down during workouts;
3. Take off 5 CCS if you have not given each swimmer in your team one on one quality coaching in the past week;
4. Take off 20 CCs if you have used a mobile phone during workouts while on deck in the past year (except in emergencies);
5. Take off 5 CCs if you allow swimmers to breathe inside the flags in free and fly;
6. Take off 5 CCs if you allow swimmers to finish poorly on the wall at the end of fly and breast;
7. Take off 10 CCs if you talk to parents, swim club committee, non swimming swimmers and pool staff during workouts;
8. Take off 20 CCs if you don’t take time to write down the work the swimmers actually completed during the session, i.e. as opposed to what was scheduled to be done;
9. Take off 10 CCs if you made up the workout on deck as the swimmers walked in to the pool;
10. Take off 5 CCs if you didn’t give each swimmer in your team at least five quality instructions and / or pieces of feedback during your most recent session;
11. Take off 100 CCs if you still throw kickboards, fins or pull buoys at swimmers to get their attention;
12. Take off 20 CCs if you don’t give each swimmer one on one feedback after each race they swim at Meets;
13. Take off 10 CCs if you don’t wear team gear to training and / or competitions;
14. Take off 5 CCs if you don’t attend Club Nights;
15. Take off 15 CCs if you don’t know the first name of each of your swimmers within 2 sessions of them starting training with you;
16. Take off 50 CCs if you don’t have an individualised plan for each swimmer in your team for the next two seasons;
17. Take off 10 CCs if you have never scheduled time to meet with the parents of each of the swimmers in your team (i.e. away from the pool deck and outside of training times);
18. Take off 30 CCs if you have not completed at least 50 hours of professional development, learning and personal improvement in the past year;
19. Take off 5 CCs if you don’t ask swimmers “how did that feel” (and really listen to their views) after they try new skills;
20. Take off 30 CCs if you don’t have an outstanding dryland program which engages the total commitment of every swimmer in your team;
21. Take off 10 CCs if you don’t include mental skills development activities in every session;
22. Take off 5 CCs if you didn’t smile at least ten times during the team’s last workout;
23. Take off 50 CCs if you smoke and or / drink alcohol in front of the swim team (i.e. junior swimmers);
24. Take off 20 CCs if you don’t regularly practice “performance under pressure” – i.e. making training more challenging and more demanding than any competition could be;
25. Take off 20 CCs if you don’t encourage and embrace recovery during and after every workout.

So, how did you do?

Swimming Coaches Scorecard key:

90-100 CCs: Wow – Amazing. Please stop reading this blog and my articles. Start writing your own – I want to learn from you O Coaching Master.

80-89 CCs: Outstanding work. Do they call you SUPER COACH? If not, they should!

70-79 CCs: Great stuff. Some things to work on but generally you coach like a basketball – plenty of bounce and well rounded.

60-69 CCs: Not bad. Keep working on the little things….the funny thing is that when it comes to poor coaching and the little things…there are no little things.

50-59 CCs: Danger – danger – warning – warning. You need to improve and fast.

40-49 CCs: How did you find this site? Were you looking for help to save your job? Or were you looking for Coaches Anonymous?

30-39 CCs: Have you thought about taking up football coaching? It’s still challenging coaching but at least there is no danger of people drowning.

20-29 CCs: Have you thought about another career? Something not too brain taxing where your unique skills will be appreciated - maybe an Economist at Wall Street? A Government Advisor on the Environment?

10-19 CCs: I think I need to type slower so you can read this….S.T.O.P. C.O.A.C.H.I.N.G!!!!

1-9 CCs: The only job for you I can think of for you is something that requires no skill, no brain power and no effort…Congratulations Congressman!

Zero (or less) CCs: Please return your coaching card to your national swimming authority. Do not go anywhere near water…ever. Stop bathing. Stop shaving. Ask for help when drinking a glass of water. The further you keep away from water the better for all of us.

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2012, Swim Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

1. 101 Super Swimming Tips for Super Swimming Coaches: 101 Ways to Be the Coach You Want to Be and the Coach your Swimmers want to See.
2. The Trials of Teenage Swimmers: A Guide for Parents and Coaches.
3. The Number 1 Reason Why Most Swimmers and Coaches Fail at Swim Meets.

On the day I was born, the nurses all gathered ’round And they gazed in wide wonder, at the joy they had found The head nurse spoke up, and she said leave this one alone She could tell right away, that I was bad to the bone Bad to the bone Bad to the bone

(George Thorogood)

In this old classic rock and roll song, George Thorogood is telling the world he is “bad to the bone” – that he is tough, rough, mean and nasty and you had better not get in his way.

A lot of people think that mental toughness in swimming is a bit like this: being mentally tough means being rough, tough, mean, angry, rude, crude, nasty and that you enjoy bashing, bullying and belittling your opposition.

Guess what….real mental toughness is the exact opposite!

Mental toughness…the old way: training the body to train the mind.

The old way of developing mental toughness was simple.

Swimmers trained and trained and trained…then trained some more.

In the process, they became fitter, stronger and physically “tougher” than their opposition and being physically tougher it was believed they would also be mentally tougher.

We trained the body to train the mind. It didn’t really matter if technique fell apart, or if breathing was uncontrolled or skills like turns were sloppy: just work and work and work until you were physically capable of anything.

There were two fundamental flaws in this approach:

1. Not all swimmers were capable of completing huge volumes of training and in many cases the long, hard training programs induced illness and injury
2. It assumed that mental toughness would flow from having the confidence of having completed a long, hard, physical preparation.

Mental toughness…the new way: training the mind to train the body.

The biggest breakthrough in our understanding of mental toughness has come from the realisation that the mind is the master of the body.

Research into the mind-body interaction has consistently demonstrated what many swimmers and coaches have suspected: what the mind believes…the body can achieve.

We also know that with the right mental skills training, the mind is capable of amazing things and can drive the body to achieve swimming performances that cannot be explained by the mechanics of blood, heart, lungs and muscle alone.

In addition, our old thinking on swimming as a sport was that it was a physiology driven activity, i.e. the person who was physically best prepared would win.

We now know that success in swimming comes from the integration of three critical aspects of sports performance:

• Physiology: physical factors like muscle, blood, lungs, heart, tendons etc.
• Biomechanics: technical factors like stroke technique, stroke length, stroke rate and skills like dives, starts, turns and finishes
• Psychology: mental factors like self-belief, concentration, focusing, imagery and relaxation.

In practical terms, this integrated model of swimming performance looks like this:

Thinking differently means swimming differently.

Actions don’t happen by themselves.

They start with thoughts. Thoughts become words – (even words you say to yourself). And those words become actions.

Swimming differently means thinking differently.

For example: A swimmer is in the middle of a really hard, challenging training set. She thinks, “Man this is really tough. But I will push harder and fight harder and get through this”.

With all we now know about mental toughness and how the mind and body work together in pain, pressure and fatigue situations, more effective thinking could be: “Focus on breathing and staying long and loose and relaxed in the water. Focus on each stroke. Feel my hand enter the water and begin to pull. Notice the feeling of pressure on my fingers and hand as I accelerate my arm through the water. Feel the bubbles stream from my nose and mouth as I breathe out”.

We used to talk about mental toughness in terms of “fight” – now it is all about flow.

We thought it was all about being brave – now we encourage breathing.

We believed the secret to mental toughness was to get tougher – now we know it about relaxation: the faster you want to go, the more relaxed you have to be.

Table 1: Mental toughness in swimming: comparing the old way of thinking about mental toughness with some new ideas and better ways of learning how to be mentally tough.

A new direction for mental toughness and swimming: Swimming and Mindfulness:

Mindfulness is a relatively “new” technique in swimming performance psychology. (It has only been around for 2-3 thousand years in the practice of meditation).  It has been described as bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis.

Increasingly mental skills practitioners and coaches are looking at mindfulness as a technique to help swimmers manage their mind around training and competition.

Mindfulness can be learnt relatively quickly and once practiced can help swimmers deal with the “moment to moment” challenges they face when training hard and racing fast.

Summary:

1. Being mentally tough has nothing to do with anger, being mean, feeling nasty or fighting: it’s keeping calm, composed and in control when things get hard;
2. Anyone can be mentally tough when it doesn’t matter. Being mentally tough in the first three repeats of a 20 x 100 metres training set doesn’t really take a lot of doing. Being mentally tough by maintaining great technique, skills and breathing control when doing the final three repeats – and even asking the coach for one or two additional repeats….now that’s mentally tough;
3. Don’t confuse physical toughness with mental toughness (although they are related). Just training hard physically is not enough! You need to integrate MIND AND BODY in training and practice so that your ability to stay relaxed and maintain technical excellence in pain, pressure and fatigue conditions is enhanced;
4. Mental toughness is a skill and like any swimming skill, it needs to be practiced every session, every workout, every day;
5. Mindfulness is an exciting new direction in mental skills training for competitive swimmers and is potentially the greatest leap forward in our ability to enhance mental toughness since George Thorogood’s immortal words!

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2012, Swim Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Related posts:

1. Mental Toughness for Swimming: Building a Bulletproof Brain.
2. Super Starts: How to get faster sooner and leave your competitors languishing in the slow lane.
3. The Ten Myths of Swimming.

Tapering is fun, it’s fantastic and above all its about feeling fast fast fast.

It is the time when you feel light, loose and long in the water as your body regenerates and recharges after weeks of hard work.

And above all tapering is one thing – one simple thing that everyone already has in their possession but it is one thing most people use very often….common sense.

Think about it this way.

Imagine you were telling someone – someone who knew nothing about swimming, “I have been training for months and months for a big Meet coming up in two weeks”.

And then you told them, “And for the next two weeks I am going to change lots of things, get little or no rest, stress out a lot and worry about things that may not even happen, eat strange foods that I have never eaten before, buy some different swimsuits to wear on the day without trialling them and I will not spend anytime practicing exactly what I want to do at the Meet”.

They would probably tell you, “Well good luck with all that and here’s the number of a good psychiatrist!”

So how do you have a tip top taper?

Here’s twenty tips to turn tapering into triumph:

1. Try it before you use it! It is really tempting to buy a new suit or a new pair of goggles or some new sporting supplements to give you a special something extra for the big Meet. But time and time again, swimmers who have worked hard and trained hard for a Meet blow it all by reaching for a miracle over the counter super swimming supplement. Find out what works for you and keep doing it; 
2. Don’t add anything new. Another taper trap is to add more work in the belief that if some training is good, then more will work even better. Taper is the time for the four Rs – Rest, Regenerate, Recover and Race - not the four Ms – More – More – More – More;
3. Work fast, work smart. Tip three is an important one. Taper is the time for speed: training fast to race fast. Once you start tapering the golden rules are: Decrease training volume but maintain training frequency and training intensity or if you like train fast, train often but train less;
4. No sleep-ins. Lots of swimmers (and their parents) fall for this one. Swimmers will often try to scam a few mornings off during taper by telling their coach they need the rest to swim at their best. Some swimmers – you know who you are – will even get their parents to push the coach for some morning sleep ins. Again the golden rules are….train fast, train often, train less;
5. New suit – old suit. It feels great to race in a nice new, fast suit but a new suit only works if you have done all you can do in training to make it go fast. A slow driver in a Ferrari is still a slow driver;
6. It’s all mental. Racing is 90% mental. So practice “mental tapering” as well as physical tapering. During your taper take time to relax, to do things you enjoy, get plenty of sleep, read a book, watch some TV and taper your mind as well as your body;
7. Dives and starts. During taper – more than any other time – every dive is a race dive – every start is a race start…..every dive is a race dive – every start is a race start……..;
8. Turns. And you guessed it…every turn is a race turn;
9. Underwater practice. To go fast above the water, practice going fast under the water. Practice the three big kicks of underwater speed at every opportunity during taper: Kicking fast under water in streamline, kicking fast to the surface and kicking explosively to the surface for the breakout stroke;
10. Easy speed. A feature of a great taper is easy speed – being able to move fast with little effort. ”Easy-speed” comes as your body recovers and regenerates as the training load decreases. Enjoy this feeling – it is what all the training is about;
11. Practice several warm ups. Practice your ideal pre race warm up several times during the taper. Be very comfortable with it – know it backwards and try to rehearse it in conditions which are as close as possible to actual race conditions. And practice a few “what-if” warm ups. “What if we get to the practice pool late and I only get five minutes to warm up” or “What if for some reason I can’t do a pool warm up and have to warm up on dry land?”: plans and back-up plans and back-up plans for back-up plans;
12. Practice several swim downs. And again….”what if they change the race schedule at the last minute and I don’t get a chance to do a full swim down?”. Don’t make the mistake of practicing for a perfect day – be prepared to deal with whatever can (and will) go wrong;
13. Fast Fuel. Eat “fast” foods – no, not the kind you usually eat. Plenty of fresh fruit, salads, vegetables and quality, nutritious, healthy food. You can’t put low performance fuel in a high performance machine and hope it will race fast;
14. Swimming bag check list. Make a check list of everything you will need on race day – goggles, cap, suit and back up suit, food, drink, something to read, two towels….write it down, tick it off as you pack your bag and leave nothing to chance;
15. Spares of everything. Ever had a pair goggles break on race day? Ever lost a suit? Your swim bag should be like Noah’s Arc…everything in two by two;
16. Don’t do anything dumb…Taper is not the time to take up bungee jumping, sky-diving or professional stunt work;
17. Relax. Take it easy. You’ve worked hard. You deserve to relax;
18. Recover. Help your body to help you by committing to a daily recovery schedule. Eat good foods. Drink plenty of water. Do some light stretching and most importantly……….;
19. Sleep. Sleep is the most under-rated but most important recovery tool at your disposal. And..an extra hour  of sleep each night means an extra night’s sleep each week. If you have a three week taper, then by going to bed an hour earlier each night, you get three extra nights sleep to recover and be ready to race like you have never raced before;
20. Practise everything that can be practised. Perfect practice = perfect performance. As the Meet gets closer, make every aspect of your practice as perfect as the performance you want on race day.

It’s all mental – it really is.

Believe. Believe. Believe. It all starts with what you believe. Think fast, train hard, taper smart, race brilliantly!

The performance equation…..looks something like this:

A great training season plus a consistently professional attitude in and out of the pool plus a well designed and executed taper = Success.

It all adds up!

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2011, Swim Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

1. Top Ten Tips for Swimming Coaching Success.
2. Twenty Things to do NOW if you want to Win Gold at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
3. Physiology based Training Set Design in Swimming: There must be Another Way.

© 2011, Swim Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

1. The Top Ten Technique Tips for Every Swimmer
2. Twenty Tips for a Tip Top Taper!
3. Motivation: 50 Tricks, Tips and Techniques or How to find the fire when the fire isn’t firing!!!

1. Never use your mobile phone on deck during workouts.
2. Smile – it makes a big difference.
3. Say one constructive, positive thing to every swimmer at every workout.
4. Be a master of technique: technique is critical in fast swimming.
5. Be creative – the best ideas win.
6. Bring parents into your program: parents are your partners in performance.
7. Understand the basics of swimming science: get a “PhD” – a “Practical Human Degree” – i.e. learn enough about sports science to work effectively with people.
8. Be comfortable talking about “winning”. It’s cool to talk about kids achieving their best.
9. Teach one new swimming skill every week. That’s about 50 new skills a year and around 500 over the career of most swimmers.
10. Walk workouts: never sit down and coach from a chair. It’s like asking the swimmers to train from showers.
11. Incorporate mental skills development in the design of every workout.
12. Engage swimmers and work with them: don’t coach at them.
13. Be committed to your own learning and development: the faster you learn, the faster they swim.
14. Review your workouts every day – what worked, what didn’t, what can be improved?
15. Swimming is an individual sport wrapped in a team structure. Think about both individual and team issues in your training and competition plans.
16. Remember that every swimmer is different and needs individual attention to detail. To a coach with a hammer, every swimmer is a nail.
17. Keep yourself healthy – continually work on your own health, fitness and well-being (physical and mental).
18. Use your imagination – every workout should include some new, exciting, stimulating ideas.
19. Stay calm, composed and confident at Swim Meets.
20. Inspire swimmers to want to give their best rather than trying to force them to what you want them to do.
21. Work hard – there is no other way to succeed.
22. Be yourself.
23. Believe in yourself.
24. Be different.
25. Be unique.
26. Speed is the most precious thing in swimming – don’t be afraid to work on it all year round.
27. Give feedback – often.
28. Include your assistant coaches in decision making, planning and programming.
29. Don’t just try to create fast swimmers: build outstanding young people with great self-confidence, values and passion and then teach them to swim fast.
30. Learn how to use Social media effectively to communicate with your swimmers and families, e.g. Face-book, Twitter, Blogs, and YouTube etc.
31. Have a clear coaching philosophy: if you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.
32. Get to workouts early and welcome the swimmers as they arrive.
33. Put sarcasm and cynicism in the rubbish bin outside the pool area and never take them to workouts.
34. Recognise and praise swimmers for improvement in skills and technique.
35. Have a clear policy on drugs and alcohol in swimming – Just Say No!
36. Be understanding of the commitments swimmers have away from the pool – e.g. school exams, other sports, family commitments.
37. Don’t categorise young swimmers as a “backstroker” or “freestyler” etc. Kids change, kids grow, kids develop and last year’s “backstroker” can be next year’s “butterflyer”.
38. Get out of the A.T. mindset – there is no need to drive kids at anaerobic / lactic threshold pace every workout.
39. Challenge kids to try one new thing or to accept one new challenge every day. It builds confidence and the belief that they can achieve anything.
40. Educate swimmers about nutrition – what they eat today, swims tomorrow.
41. Educate parents about nutrition because kids don’t shop and kids don’t cook!
42. Teach swimmers that rest, recovery, sleep and relaxation are as important as training and hard work.
43. Empower swimmers to make decisions, to become independent, to learn through problem solving and accepting responsibility for their own actions.
44. Regularly connect senior swimmers with junior swimmers in training and at Meets. Coaches coach but swimmers learn from other swimmers.
45. Plan.
46. Listen twice as much as you talk – that’s why you have two ears and one mouth.
47. Look like, dress like, act like the coach you want to be.
48. Be confident on deck: build a presence which says “I am a passionate, knowledgeable swimming professional who knows what I am doing and who loves working with swimmers”.
49. Have a clear policy on discipline, make sure all swimmers and parents know what it is and implement it consistently, fairly and with integrity.
50. Be honest.
51. Have a passion and interest other than swimming. It keeps your mind healthy, fresh and positive.
52. Get to know your swimmers – their birthdays, their schools, their favourite movies, their favourite food etc.  They are kids who choose to swim with you – not swimming machines.
53. Teach swimmers to deal with disappointment and to learn from adversity: these are skills for life that you can teach better than just about anyone.
54. Don’t be a Stop Watch Watcher! Use the watch when you need to, but spend most of your time watching, listening, offering feedback and engaging with your team: the ”clock” will take care of itself.
55. Teach pacing – teach pacing – teach pacing: it is a critically important swimming skill.
56. Think long term but act short term: i.e. think about the long term development of each swimmer but ensure the quality of their training environment each day is the best it can be.
57. Have a sense of humour: life is short and after all it is just swimming.
58. Be unpredictable. Every so often write a workout up on the board but then do something completely different.
59. Meet with parents often but away from the pool deck and the training environment.
60. Have a team selection policy and make sure everyone knows what it is, what is means and where to find it.
61. Build great relay teams.
62. Lead.
63. Understand strength training and how, when and why to incorporate it into your training program.
64. Be flexible: sometimes you have to change the workout in response to the needs of the team and not try to force the team to respond to the needs of your workout.
65. Teach relaxation as a fundamental aspect of all swimming.
66. Do things for a reason and with a lesson in mind: be proactive not reactive.
67. Deliberately create problems and challenges for swimmers to solve, learn and grow through actual experience.
68. Encourage late developers (i.e. kids who are small for their age) to persist, to strive and to develop high level technical skills: they often struggle with sustaining motivation.
69. Develop a great social program around the team and empower the swimmers to make decisions about the social events they want.
70. Start every session with a race quality dive: it sets the tone for the rest of the workout.
71. Vary lane structures, e.g. Monday split up the team by swimming speed, Tuesday split them up by stroke specialisation, Wednesday split them up by gender, Thursday by age, Friday mix up the ages with older swimmers in the same lane as younger team members.
72. Encourage swimmers to drink regularly during workouts.
73. Encourage swimmers to stretch after workouts.
74. Encourage swimmers!!!
75. Make training more challenging and more demanding than competition: this builds “bullet-proof” confidence and self-belief.
76. Teach nervous swimmers how to stay calm, cool, relaxed and composed at Swim Meets…but teach them these skills in training well before the Meet. Just telling them to “relax” on Meet day does not work.
77. Attitude is everything – for both swimmers and coaches.
78. Don’t smoke.
79. Communicate with swimmers in the way they want to be communicated with: learn how to best connect with each individual swimmer in your team.
80. Encourage, praise and reward effort, hard work and commitment.
81. Build leaders: provide the opportunity for your swimmers to learn to lead and to help grow a winning culture in your team from the inside.
82. Keep on top of the political situation at your Club, the Pool and the local swimming administration. More than one great coach has failed because of ignoring what’s going on around them.
83. Use swimming equipment (e.g. fins, paddles, pull buoys) appropriate to the level, age and ability of the swimmer.
84. Avoid fads, gimmicks, tricks and trends: do it your way and avoid quick fixes, short cuts and instant solutions.
85. Educate parents on how they can help their kids be the best they can be.
86. Do your slow work slow and your fast work fast: kids respond well to endurance and speed work.
87. If in doubt, stick with the big five: Dives, Starts, Turns, Finishes and Underwater skills. Building your program around these fundamental swimming skills means your swimmers are always competitive when it counts.
88. Be the best kicking team in your district, your state and your country: fast kicking = fast swimming.
89. Find a coaching mentor and speak with them often. Challenge them to challenge you honestly and without compromise.
90. Review your own coaching regularly – you can always improve.
91. Take holidays!
92. If you have a family and or partner, love them, support them and include them in your life: there are far too many “swimming widows and widowers”.
93. Be a student of swimming – learn from the best coaches in the sport and…..do it better.
94. Know the benchmarks – know the local, state, national and international standards for all strokes, all ages and all distances: you can’t hit a target if you don’t know what it is.
95. Build a team of experts and professionals around your team who you know, trust and who you can utilise to help your team when you need to.
96. Enlist parents and others to raise money for the team: money does not mean medals but it helps with buying equipment, travelling to Meets, providing support services for swimmers etc.
97. Talk to the Club committee about aligning the Club Racing program and Club Night Competition program with your coaching program: it just makes good sense.
98. Be enthusiastic.
99. Be passionate.
100. Enjoy every moment on deck with your team: coaching is one of the most rewarding, exciting, challenging and fulfilling thing you will ever do.
101. Life is short: coach often, love being a coach and coach at your best every day.

Wayne Goldsmith (with thanks to the many outstanding swimming coaches and swimmers I have known over the past 22 years).

© 2011, Swim Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

1. The Swimming Coach Score Card – a must for all coaches (and swimmers and parents).
2. The Number 1 Reason Why Most Swimmers and Coaches Fail at Swim Meets.
3. Super Starts: How to get faster sooner and leave your competitors languishing in the slow lane.

Ever wondered why the Grandstands and bleachers at your Club Swimming Carnivals and Swim Meets are empty?

Ever wanted to know how to get lots of people to come along to your Swim Meets?

Ever wanted to know how to get the support of Coaches so that they actively support your Swim Meet and send large numbers of their swimmers along to race?

Then design and deliver Complementary Carnivals!

The simple answer to all these question is this: Design your Swim Meet program to reflect the needs of the swimmers and coaches you are hoping to attract: Complementary Carnivals (i.e. as in the dictitionary definition - acting as or providing a complement – something that completes the whole.

Too many Clubs, Regional Associations, State Swimming Associations and even National Swimming Associations conduct swim meets which are designed around the four Cs:

• Cash – using Swim Meets as Cash-cows and designing a program to deliver the maximum possible financial return rather than the best result for swimmers and coaches;
• Convenience – making the Swim Meet fit into the schedule of the Administration rather than the optimal fit into the training and competition cycles of swimmers and coaches;
• Continuity – repeating the same program over and over again, year after year;
• Committee – doing what the “committee” or Board think is what’s best for swimmers and coaches rather than consulting with them, collaborating with them and asking them what they really need from a Swim Meet.

Too many times we hear these three comments:

From Coaches: “I am not going to send my team to that Swim Meet because it does not work in with our training or competition goals”;

From Swimmers: “I am not going to that Swim Meet. The events are always the same, it’s boring and I get sick of going there every year to do the same stuff” and then…………….

From Swim Meet Organisers: “Why aren’t swimmers and coaches supporting my Swim Meet?”.

Well, duh!

The secret to success in Swim Meet organisation is to design and deliver a program which provides swimmers and coaches with the opportunity they need to enhance their training and competition goals.

There are two ways of doing this.

1. At Club and Regional level, design and deliver Swim Meet programs which complement the training and competition goals of the swimmers and coaches;
2. At State and National level, design and deliver Swim Meet programs which reflect the competition schedules and competition formats of the next level meet, i.e. State Level Swim Meets should replicate and simulate the competition conditions swimmers will face at National Level Swim Meets and National Level Swim Meets should replicate and simulate the competition conditions swimmers will face at their targeted International Level Swim Meet.

Swim Meet organisers have to think in reverse to make this happen.

Instead of thinking “let’s put together a program which generates the most possible revenue for our Club or Region or State” , they need to think, “what is it that our swimmers and coaches need from a Swim Meet that can best help them improve and realise their performance goals?”.

At Club level this concept is critical. If the Club’s coach is working hard on developing the swimmers’ endurance, improving their aerobic capacity and building the team’s stamina in training, then it makes sense to help the coach and the swimmers by delivering a Club Night racing program which is based around endurance, aerobic capacity and stamina!

This should be a no-brainer: the Club competition program should reflect and support the Club’s training program. Again…well, duh!

This is not a hard concept to understand folks – so why do so many Swim Meet organisers get it so wrong?

All over the world, Swim Meet organisers are coming together to discuss and plan their next competition program: format, structure, order of events, timing etc etc.

The smart ones have consulted the swimmers and coaches they represent and have designed a Swim Meet program which delivers something of real value and relevance.

The not-so-smart ones have just rolled out the same program they have used since 1961, thrown in 200 extra events to try and milk every possible cent out of swimming parents and created the whole Meet to suit their own timing, own needs and their own agendas.

Smart or Not-So-Smart………..which one are you?

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2011, Swim Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

1. The Number 1 Reason Why Most Swimmers and Coaches Fail at Swim Meets.
2. Swim Up to Swim Down: Some new ideas on Swim Downs to enhance your Swim Meet Success
3. Swim Shop – Now Open