October 2009 Archives

Written by Gunther Niklas

Your post exercise routine can have a big impact on fitness gains and athletic performance.  Most swimmers often neglect an after swimming recovery plan.  Recovery is an essential part of training.  It allows you to train harder at the next practice. After completing a challenging practice, serious swimmers need to start thinking about recovery.  Intense exercise depletes the body of glucose. To maximize glucose replacement, the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Dietetic Association recommend taking in a serving of carbohydrates within 30 minutes after a long and vigorous workout.  During these thirty minutes, your body is best able to absorb nutrient, making it vital to get some high quality protein and complex carbohydrates back into the body as soon as possible.  

Chocolate milk has been gaining popularity recently as a post workout recovery drink.  At the Eastern States Clinic, Dara Torres mentioned drinking chocolate milk as a post workout recovery.  Before endorsing  his own brand of post recovery drink, Michael Phelps would drink instant milk after workouts.

This week in the Coach's corner we are going to cover the importance of the underwater dolphin kick, or the "5^th stroke" as it is sometimes referred.

There are two videos for your viewing pleasure that provide a good visual as to what we're looking for in a good underwater kick. The first video is a tutorial explaining how to perform a good underwater dolphin kick and shows a couple of athletes performing the motion. While watching be sure to take note of how tightly streamlined they are and how they're using their whole body to propel them through the water.  

The second video is Michael Phelps racing the 200M freestyle at the Beijing Olympics. You will notice that he totally dominates off the walls, which is due to his tremendous skill performing the underwater dolphin kick.

Performing a solid underwater kick! 

Michael Phelp's Kick!

Please enjoy this installment of Athletes Corner and be sure to attempt some of the skills we have gone over at your next practice.

Be sure to check back again next week!

Last weekend was an interesting weekend both in and out of the water for the FISH. This was our first "training" meet with 4 sessions of competition, an extra practice, and team lunch between the first and second sessions on Saturday! A number of programs utilize something like this during the early portion of their season to help educate their athletes on what it feels like to compete when challenged. This is a crucial lesson for a swimmer to understand when they are making the transition to a senior level swimmer.

As a senior swimmer, an athlete will compete in numerous multi-day meets with much longer events, often starting with the 1650 free. Therefore, learning what racing when fatigued feels like, and that regardless of fatigue level, they still need to step up and be competitive, is a very important lesson to learn.  Also, learning how to recover between sessions and even between events is another very important lesson that needs to be learned.

As for the meet itself, we had a couple of outstanding swims that deem mentioning.  Some performances on the men's side worth mentioning include: Ryan Williams, after an evening of rest and recovery, improved his 1000 freestyle to 10:13.56; and John Baldwin dropping time in a number of events from the 100 backstroke (57.76), to the 100 breaststroke, also after an evening of rest and recovery.

On the women's side there were some equally impressive performances including: Isabella Rongione, who continued her tear of improvements with best times in all of her events, regardless of whether they were before or after the practice between sessions, or on the second day. Her most notable swims were the 50 free (27.93) - a sprint thrown in with the longer distances - 500 free (5:40.02), and 200 backstroke (2:33.09). Both Becca Yost and Ellie Belilos were two other FISH who experienced huge time drops in multiple events. For more specific results - including times - please see the complete MSSC Results.

All in all, it was a good weekend for the FISH - we had some great performances in the water and we also learned a number of things about ourselves. The athletes had the opportunity to see how well they could respond to tremendous challenges and also learned how resilient and tough we can truly be. Finally, we also experienced the need to be able to compete even when not at our best, and also explored the very important concept of rest and recovery.

Written by Coach Gunther Niklas

No matter how demanding or painful a practice set may be, Megan McCreary always has a smile on her face and a determination to do her best.  Her approach to training and her "coach ability", make her an easy choice for Swimmer of the Month. Megan started out the 2009-2010 season with the challenging goal of qualifying for Spring Junior Olympics.  Through her hard work and determination, Megan is now within 2 seconds of her goal in the 200 freestyle.

The Harvest Moon was held on October 10th - 11th in Herndon. The FISH had a very strong showing by the fifty five, 12 and under FISH that participated.  Swimmers swam in either the Full Moon (longer events) or Half Moon (shorter events). Times from their 6 events were added up, with the top three swimmers being awarded special prizes. 

In the Full Moon and Half Moon competition:

Grace Tierney was awarded 3rd place among 9 year old girls. Isabella Rongione and Michelle Owens finished 1st and 2nd in the 10 year old girls competition.  Chris Murphy took 2nd place in the 12 year old boys  division.  Emily Meilus took 1st place in the 10 year old girls half moon.

In their individual events many swimmers posted huge improvements.  Twenty Two FISH swimmers reported double digit improvements!  19 others dropped over 5 second in an individual event! Megan McCreary led the girls by dropping 45 seconds in her 100 Butterfly, and Alex Lim was the boys leader with a 41 second improvement in the 200 freestyle!

12 FISH swam an individual race for the first time at the Meet.  Fiona Muir, Grace Gent, Ben Sharrer and Anna Weidman achieved BB times in several "first swim" events.

Dear Fish Families,

The November Open is less than two weeks away.  In addition to signing your kids up to swim, we need many volunteers and food donations. All families of participating swimmers are expected to contribute by donating food items and volunteer their time.  Simply follow thins link and sign up.  If we don't hear from you five days prior to the meet, we will contact you and ask for your support.  

If you would like to officiate, please contact our Officials Chair Al Meilus directly.

We really appreciate all your support.  The goal is to host one of the best meets in Potomac Valley, and that should be easy with the support of great Fish families like you! 

If you have a question, please feel free to contact Monika Paris.

Thank you very much!

the Fish Swim Meet Committee

All swimmers who were invited to this meet need to turn in their entries with full payment by Wednesday, October 7th.

When:          Saturday, October 24^th  - Sunday, October 25^th, 2009

Where:         Fairland Aquatics Center, 13820 Old Gunpowder Road, Laurel, MD 20707

Warm up:          You must arrive 15 minutes before your warm-ups begin

Cost: $5.25/individual event (Max of 5 events Saturday and 4 events Sunday)

DEADLINE: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7^TH, 2009