From Coach Mark -What's happening in our Swimming Squads in Term 4?

Development Squad

This being the first level in our squad programme the focus is and will always be on the fundamental principles of swimming and to develop all the skills and disciplines of swimming in a fun and relaxed environment.

In term 3 we worked on all 4 of the Olympic strokes.  Freestyle, Backstroke, Breaststroke and Butterfly. We worked on improving our diving technique and introduced the correct streamline from a start off the wall or from the starting blocks. Each week we identified a focus area that we would work towards. For example, the breaststroke kick, ensuring that we got our feet in the correct position and finished the kick in a strong streamline.

We focussed on the different ways to start a lap of swimming being a push start and a dive from the blocks. Streamlining is a very important basic fundamental in swimming that must be constantly worked on to make it a good swimming habit.

In term 4 we will continue to work on the same identified focus areas as in term 3 as repetition at this level is very important.

Afternoons proved to be very popular, with the number of swimmers up to 30 on certain days.

This term with the promise of better weather I’m going to look to encourage more swimmers to participate in the morning sessions.

Junior Squad

The focus for me as the coach of Wilston Crocs is to prepare our swimmers for all the main Brisbane swim meets, Brisbane Short Course, Brisbane Sprint Champs, Brisbane Long Course and the Junior Metropolitan Champs.

As the swimmers in Juniors are a little older and more experienced and more of them have completed at our Friday club nights, we are looking to participate in more local and regional swim meets.

Term 3 is in the winter months which means it is short course season for our competitive swimmers at the Crocs; that means all our swim meets are swum in a 25-metre pool.

Even though all races are swum in a 25-meter pool there are many longer events; example the 200 freestyle but as it is a 25-metre pool, start and turns are very important, as time can be gained or lost here.

Term 4 is the start of our long course season; this means that all events are swum in a 50-meter pool. Race craft and an understanding on how to race different strokes at different distances is part of this program and we will continue with this moving into term 4.

In our junior squad we continued to work on all the fundamental principles of swimming.

Streamline: the body’s resistance to oncoming water and Distance per stroke: the distance the body can move forward in response to the completion of 1 stroke cycle.

We continue to work on all 4 Olympic strokes. About 50% off the work in the group is done on a timed interval, so a good understanding of how to use the pace clock is very important.

Numbers in our junior group have been good in term 3 with the afternoon being the most popular. There are a number a swimmers in our development squad that are close to moving up to the junior squad and it’s very exciting to see the improvement in our younger swimmers.

Senior Squad

This is our most advanced group of swimmers/athletes but as we are still dealing with young swimmers there is still a big emphasis on the fundamentals of swimming and the continued development of swimming skills and drills. The senior group mirror what happens in our junior group but here they do more repeats and/or do the repeats at a faster interval.

At this level most of our swimmers participate in either club night swimming, school carnivals and/or do some local and regional swim meets. Race craft and understanding how to race different strokes and different distances is a very important part of this program.

Here we also have some of our top swimmers that participate at state level competitions, so a good understanding of the rules and regulations of swimming is an important aspect.

We have started this term with a big emphasis on kicking skills, improving our kicking technique and most importantly our kicking speed. We will continue to focus on this essential skill for most of this term.

Term 4 is also the start of our long course season, that is all swimming carnivals are swum in a 50-meter pool so the emphasis changes from starts and turns to been able to hold your stroke and technique over longer distances.

Mornings are definitely the quieter times for our senior group and hopefully with the warmer weather we can now grow these numbers.