I read an article on the American Swim Coaches Association (ASCA) website a while back. It’s written by John Leonard, the head of ASCA, and it’s a response to an email that he got from a coach about practicing with good swimming technique. For those who have not met John Leonard, he’s not one of those warm and fuzzy, free-to-be-you-and-me, just do stroke drills type of guy. I was really interested in his response. 

The part that caught my eye was:

Long practices, with high training volumes will make all swimmers VERY good at what they are doing. Repetition builds habit. Habit stands up beautifully under the pressure of competition…when in fact, nothing else does….as the pain of competition effort  removes all traces of thought from the brain…..it becomes habit that the swimmer relies upon to get him home to the finish.

Unfortunately, if they are practicing poor technique, that will be learned and habituated, just as well as good technique. And poor technique makes you biomechanically inefficient at the time of greatest stress. Hence you struggle more, go slower and your stroke collapses at the end of races.

This makes swimming a technique limited sport. Your child will be severely limited by the degree with which they can perform the strokes with good habits, instead of poor habits.

A little training with good habits, will result in a good swimmer and one that is “unlimited” in their future.

This topic has been the hardest one for me to address in the last 10 years.  I know that it’s true, but it’s always hard to get swimmers to stick to the plan because “putting in the yardage” and “working hard” are such loaded terms in the sport.  The heart rate work that we’ve incorporated into our Triathlon Swimming practices seems to be helping me find the right balance.  Stroke tends to break down mostly when a swimmer goes anaerobic; by keeping our triathletes in more of a base aerobic zone, we are ensuring that they are spending time working the right energy systems while ensuring that the heart rates isn’t so high that their minds turn off and they start to move into survival instincts.    

To read the full text of the article, go to the CBD Website and read the Training vs. Learning article.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions recently about newspaper and magazine articles and a Today Show spot about the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) easing their past stance that aquatic programs for children under the age of four would not reduce drowing or teach swimming.  Now they cite benefits for children between the ages of 1-4 years.  

The details of the decision came to me from the folks at the World Aquatic Babies conference.  They made a statement on Monday May 24th:

“Today one of two AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) committees who issue policy statements for parent benefit spoke specifically on drowning prevention strategies. In that statement they indicated that possible benefits indicated by recent studies (see WABC Focus newsletter), is reason enough that parents, if they wish, could consider aquatic programs for children 1 year of age and older (where previously 4 years and older was the AAP permissible starting age.)

The AAP committee that speaks specifically on swimming lessons for infant toddlers has, at the moment, not changed their policy statement – crafted in 2000 & refreshed in 2004, still pointing to the 4 years of age starting standard.” 

 

For the information wonks in the crowd, you can find more information here.

 

We’re very happy that the AAP is recognizing that swim lessons for young children can reduce the risk of drowning and can teach real water skills.  However, we like to start our lessons as early as 6 months because we feel that there are benefits to these younger swimmers in getting into the water early:

 

• Swimming Skills  Even an infant can start to learn the basics of breath-holding, facial submersion, gliding, and kicking.  No, they won’t be doing the butterfly or front crawl, i.e., the AAP’s objection to say that they are “swimming.”  But these little swimmers are learning the foundational skills.  Further they are getting comfortable and relaxed in the which must be in place for a child to learn to swim later
• Swimming Safety Skills  An 8-month old can begin to learn to hold his breath and propel through the water with ease and confidence.  This skill can buy parents a few valuable extra seconds if a child does enter the pool or water unsupervised.  There is no substitute for constant vigilant supervision (see “Water Safety and Your Child” below), but this skill lays a critical foundation on which all other skills are laid.  It takes roughly 2 months to get a child to this point so we like to start at the 6 month mark
• Improved Fitness Swimming is one of the few outside activities that a 6-month old can do.  The sooner they start from 6-months on, the more eager they are and the easier it is to avoid and overcome water anxiety issues
• Recreation and Enjoyment Each class an an interactive recreational activity in a new exciting and engaging.  Our parents report how quickly their young swimmers learn the words  “Go Pool!”
• Social Skills Swim class teaches young children apsects of socialization.  The learn to wait their turn and enjoy watching someone else take their turn.  Th learn to follow simple directions from simple commands such as “1-2-3-jump!” to multiple task directions
• Relaxation and Sleeping The smooth fluid exercise and warm water that our swim classes provide helps to relax many infants and toddlers, resulting in healthy naps after class or improved sleeping patterns at night
• Improved Cognitive and Developmental Abilities European researchers have documented that early swim programs, when taught in a child-centered methodology, have the potential to increase intelligence, concentration, alertness, and perceptual abilities.  Improvement in social, emotional, and physical development has also been published.  Of course, receiving these possible benefits takes time.  The potential increasese proportionately with your child’s comfort in the water and ability to move within it 

Many parents have asked me about water safety for their child and “survival swimming.”  It shouldn’t be suprising since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that drowning remains the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14 years, despite a steady decline in drowning rates over the last 20 years.  I want to give you some general guidelines and thoughts to help you get your arms around what is obviously a stressful and very real event. 

As a father of a 17 month old little girl, I am as concerned as you are.  But please recognize that swimming lessons are only one part of a strategy to keep your child safe and secure around the water.  No child is drown-proof; Michael Phelps isn’t drown proof.  Don’t be deluded that you can off-load water safety onto your child.  While we teach critical safety skills and technique in our swim classes, safety is a four-pronged strategy.

1. Constant Supervision Consider yourself your child’s primary lifeguard — never assume that somone is watching your child.  Always know where your children are, especially around water.  Maintain constant eye contact and bodily contact if they are in the water.  Even for older children, stay within arm’s reach.  Teach your child never to go in or near the water without permission from a parent or caregiver.  If your child is missing and you are near a pool or other body of water, check the pool or body of water first.  Make sure that you, your spouse, and other caregivers can swim.  Make sure grandparents and caregivers know the importance of supervision.  Take the same care to make sure you supervise baths, keep the lid down on the toilets, and monitor other bodies of water, no matter how small.  Finally, do not drink alcohol when supervising children   
2. Barriers If you own a pool or live near a body of water, you need to do your best to restrict unsupervised access.  Check local and statewide codes for specific requirements, but some basic strategies include:

• Close and Lock all Entrances — Keep all entrances from the house to the pool, spa, or other body of water closed and locked.  Install an exta lock at least 54 inches above the floor on doors leading to the pool or other bodies of water.  Whatever you do use, your child should not be able to reach or open it
• Door Alarms — Exit doors from the house to the pool or other bodies of water can be protected by alarms
• Pool Fence — A mesh type fence at least 48 inches tall should completely surround the pool.  Gates to the fence should be self-closing, self-latching, and should be locked when a parent or caregiver is not present 
• Pool Alarms — Pool alarms can float on the surface of the water or on the side to detect motion or a mass in the water
• Safety Pool Cover — These types of covers are electronically controlled and totally isolate the pool
• Perimeter Yard Fence — A perimeter yard fence or wall can be installed to limit unauthorized access from the outside.  The fence or wall should be at least 4 feet tall with a self-closing, self-latching gate.  The latch should be out of reach of a child, kept shut, and checked to ensure it is in working order

1. CPR and Basic Water Safety You should get certified in Infant/Child CPR and prepare an Emergency Action Plan for your home.  Keep a phone by your pool in case of emergencies.  Familiarize yourself with nationally recognized pool safety standards and teach your children all the pool and water safety rules.  If  you are on a boat, make sure you child is wearing a life-jacket no matter how good a swimmer you think he or she is
2. Swimming Safety Skills These safety skills act as a supplement to supervision and barriers.  And though it is the responsibility of the adult to ensure the safety of the child, lapses in supervision can and do occur.  With proper pre-requisites, training, and continued practice, the potential exists for the following:

• At 8 months a child can begin to hold his breath and propel himself in the water.  This skill can buy a few extra seconds if the child enters the water unsupervised
• At 19 months a child can learn to return to the side of the pool (at 24 months with ease and confidence)
• At 2 1/2 years, a child can begin to learn to recover for a breath
• At 3 1/2 years, a child can begin to learn to back float and roll from front to back and back to front (NOTE:  Most children up to this age are not comfortable with back floating.  DO NOT FORCE IT!)

While I don’t like to promote baby swimming as a way to create a master race of super-children, this article in Sunday May 2nd issue of the Chicago Tribune is one of many that say that children really benefit from baby swim classes.  I’m also not a big fan of the back float submersion done in the photo, so don’t expect to see that in our classes.  I wouldn’t want anyone to do that to me…

Monday night coach, Valerie Tyler, competed in the Boston Marathon on Monday April 19th.  She finished the race in 4:33, beating her best Chicago Marathon by 1 minute.

She described the motivation as:  ”So you ask – why do I do this?  Well, I would say the typical – it’s the challenge.  It is, but I think it’s more the accomplishment.  I can now check this off my bucket list knowing that I achieved what less than 5% of all marathoners achieve in a lifetime…a chance to run in the Boston Marathon.”

If you see Valerie, please pass along a congratulations.  Thanks, Valerie, for making us look good.

When I tell a mom or dad that we teach baby swimming classes at the Chicago Blue Dolphins Swim Studio, I often get a puzzled look on his or her face followed by the question:  “They aren’t really swimming, are they?”  When people think of swimming, they think of competitive strokes like butterfly or freestyle; that kind of swimming won’t start to happen until your child is at least 5 years old.  So if it’s not about learning the competitive strokes, what’s the purpose of baby swimming?

• Water Adjustment:  Swim lessons help your young swimmer get comfortable and relaxed in the water – a non-negotiable pre-requisite to learning any swimming stroke in the future
• Being Safe:  A central component of baby swimming lessons is water safety.  We teach water safety skills all the way from simple skills like parental cueing of entry into the water or breath-holding to more advanced skills like jumping in, turning around, and swimming back to the wall
•  Parent-Child Bonding:  Baby swimming allows you to be face-to-face, skin-to-skin, and in the moment with your child for 25 minutes at a time.  No other parent-child activity in this age range allows for such intense and rewarding engagement
• Improved Physical and Mental Development:  Many infants and toddlers will learn to swim before they can learn to walk; swimming offers a sense of freedom and empowerment that young children don’t get on land.  Swimming skills like reaching, grabbing, balancing, turning, gliding, kicking, and listening all improve your child’s mental and physical development
• It’s really Fun!  Your baby or toddler will laugh and smile and so will you.  Is there a better way to spend your day?

Come join us for the fun at the Blue Dolphins Swim Studio.  As one parent said recently:  “I smiled so much my face hurts.”

Chicago Blue Dolphins had its best finish at a State Meet ever this weekend, 5th Place, at the Illinois Masters State Meet at the Kishwaukee YMCA in DeKalb.  Two other notables for now are Eric Nilsson who took the Men’s High Point trophy for the 18-24 Age Group and Tim Carlson who took the Men’s High Point trophy for the 30-34 Age Group.  The team broke a bunch of Illinois state records, but the final results aren’t posted yet.  We’ll have other updates to the blog later this week.

Thank you to the following team members who came out for the meet:

• Tim Carlson
• Eric Nilsson
• Katie Braun
• Becky Kreutzjans
• Julia Sutherland
• Cory Robertson
• Charlie Cunnick
• Eric Hatch
• Grace Chappell
• Christina Liu
• Jeanine Bogart
• Liz Jobe
• Kate Lorenz
• Laura Wegner
• Jess Stephens
• Alex Helfers
• T.R. Raese
• Dan Cook
• Matt Wyble
• John Cole
• Sarah Randag
• Justin Chiles

If you see these folks at practice or around town, please wish them congratulations for putting in a lot of great races and relays.

Team Captain, Tim Carlson, made the Top 10 in the World for Men Ages 30-34 in 5 Short-Course Meters events in 2009:

• 100m Breast — 8th Place (1:03.05)
• 200m Breast — 2nd Place (2:17.92)
• 100m Fly — 5th Place (0:55.11)
• 100m IM — 5th Place (0:57.34)
• 200m IM — 2nd Place (2:03.74)

You can see the whole list at:  http://www.fina.org/project/docs/masters/TT_SC_09.pdf

If you see Tim, give him a round of applause for this pretty amazing achievement.

To help you track your swimming yardage during the Holiday Fitness Challenge, we suggest using the US Masters Swimming Fitness Log, or FLOG.  This program can track for multiple types of workouts and fitness memberships.  And it’s FREE with your USMS membership.  Here are the steps you can follow to set up your FLOG and start entering your information.

1)  Go to the MyUSMS page to create a user id for yourself — http://www.usms.org/myusms/

2)  In the “HELP!  What is my user name or password?” section, click the link “go here to create one now” to create a user id in the discussion forums

3)  Enter your date of birth and click proceed

4)  Agree to the forum rules by clicking the check box

5)  Enter a user id, password, your email, and the answer to the security question to create your account.  If you want to enter additional information about yourself in the section below, feel free to do so.

6)  Go to the email account that you used in your registration.  You will have received an email entitled, “Action Required to Activate Membership for U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums.”  Open the email.

7)  Go to the section that says “To complete your registration, please visit this URL” and click the URL.  If you are an AOL user, you’ll need to click the second URL

8)  Click the link to take you to the MyUSMS area

9)  Click the link to “set up your MyUSMS area today.”

10)  Enter the last 5 characters of your USMS number, your last name, your birthdate, and your gender and then click “Setup My USMS.”

11)  Under the “Available USMS Member Online Services” section, click “My fitness log (FLOG)”

12)  To enter a workout for the day, click the date number in the calendar box

13)  Choose “Swimming” as the type of workout (if you want to enter all of your workouts, that’s fine, too.  Just click that name too).  If you want to track your weight and resting heart rate, you can make entries for those items as well.

14)  Click the length of the pool, the total distance and the units, the time you swam.  If you have any comments or details, enter them and click “Add Workout” at the bottom

15)  Click on “Preferences” in the left sidebar.  Click “Allow anyone to view my workout logs” so that our office can see what you are doing.  Click “Allow anyone to view my fitness measurements (e.g., my weight log)” if you want that to be visible as well.

As the fund-raising part of the Holiday Fitness Challenge, I would like Chicago Blue Dolphins to raise money for the Greater Chicago Food Depository. With the economy in the state that it’s in, stopping hunger over the holidays sounds like a pretty good thing for us to do for our community. We can think of it as “I’ll eat less to stay in swimming shape, and I’ll help bring food for those who need it.”

The Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chicago ’s food bank, is a nonprofit food distribution and training center providing food for hungry people while striving to end hunger in our community. The Food Depository distributes donated and purchased food through a network of 600 pantries, soup kitchens and shelters to 500,000 adults and children in Cook County every year. Last year, the Food Depository distributed 58 million pounds of nonperishable food and fresh produce, dairy products and meat, the equivalent of 119,000 meals every day. The Food Depository’s programs and services for children, older adults and the unemployed and underemployed address the root causes of hunger. For more information, log onto www.chicagosfoodbank.org or call 773-247-FOOD.

I asked my donations contact at the Great Chicago Food Depository to give me some statistics to bring an aire of urgency to the situation. She passed along some pretty startling statistics:

The need continues: The Greater Chicago Food Depository established a new record for demand over the past 30 years in September, with 427,660 visits to our member pantries in Cook County. The tally narrowly topped July, which held the record at 426,898 visits. The first three months of the fiscal year are 26 percent ahead of last year’s pace in pantry visits, and 70 percent ahead of the pace of two years ago.

Challenging times: The poverty rates for Cook County (14.8 percent) and Chicago (20.6 percent) continue to rise and are higher than the national average (13.2 percent). The unemployment rate in Cook County was 10.6 percent in September, four percentage points higher than last year (6.6 percent), and higher than the national average (9.8 percent).

Food supply: The Food Depository distributed a record 58.3 million pounds of food during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009. This fiscal year continues to reflect increased demand, having distributed 1.7 million more pounds than in the prior year period. Nutritious food is vital—produce is 23 percent of total distribution.

So, let’s get fired up to do some swimming over the next month and bring some food to the Chicago community at the same time.