The Race Club – Swimming Camps • Coaching • Competitive Training • Advanced Techniques

Learn the movements for the warmup exercise for the strength training for swimmers routine that Coach Coley Stickels of Indiana University Men’s and Women’s swim team uses for their specific dryland training needs. This is the first in a series of the progression of different strength training exercises that Coach Coley implements exclusively in Lanes 3 and 4.

Swiss Olympic hopeful Max Seidel is ready to try out his new individual medley freestyle technique.  After a series of drills Max has shown that he can achieve greater coupling motion focusing on an elevated core, high octane recovery and extended recovery technique.  In this set of 4 x 25’s Coach Gary challenges Max to achieve a 90 stroke rate using these swim techniques.  For the individual medley we believe it is optimal for Max to use a hybrid freestyle at 90 strokes per minute.  He is used to swimming around 80 strokes a minute with a low/medium octane.  His freestyle leg has been his weakest leg in his IM.  Find out how Max does with his new technique.

Swim coaches and swimmers often overlook how to hold your core while swimming even though it can make a huge difference in your speed.  At the Race Club we believe a swimmer should tuck their belly in by engaging the lower lumbar while swimming.  This can be achieved by laying on the flat ground and ‘pressing’ your lower flat to the ground.  In Yoga and Pilates this ‘core’ concept is key to the movement and exercises taught and for good reason.  We love core balance exercises that Coach Coley Stickels has taught us in our previous dryland series.  In this video Coach Gary and Max teach each other some core balance exercises that are done in the pool with a kickboard and pull buoy that teaches the swimmer how to hold the core in swimming.

Swiss Olympic hopeful Max Seidel is learning a new extended recovery technique for his freestyle. When using this technique swimming slow we call it the Stop and Pop drill. In our previous episode with Max, he practiced the 6 Kick 1 Stroke drill focusing on the extended recovery. Before we try swimming this technique at fast speeds Coach Gary teaches Max the Stop and Pop drill that requires slow or warmup speed swimming. This allows the swimmer to keep focus on the critical moment when the hand starts to drive forward and up during the recovery.

This week’s main set is one we love to use to improve breaststrokers’ kick cycle time. A fast breaststroke kick cycle time is crucial for strong coupling in breaststroke.

This week’s main set is one I just had one of our swimmers do this morning. This swimmer has come to see us twice now, and every time I get to coach him it’s an absolute pleasure.

IM Technique: Shaine Casas
While attending the USA Swimming National Team alumni reunion on the final night of swimming competition at US Nationals, I was impressed with two swims.

This week’s main set is for all our backstrokers or those who want to improve their backstroke. Using a progression of drills and eventually a tempo trainer, we’ll get you to swim backstroke Race Club style. This whole set should be done with fins since a majority of it is drill work.