USMS Swimming

Yesterday, we spent the day in NYC for the USMS coaching clinics, Level I and II.  I have not been to many of these clinics and I come from a competitive swimming background so I was not sure what to expect for and how much information I would get from this.  I met up with Kelly in NYC and it was so much fun to catch up and get together.

It was held at Asphalt Green, which is a pretty neat place in NYC and I am sure it comes at a not so pretty monthly price as well.  The pool is a 50m Olympic pool and there was a masters meet going on. Instead of swimming in this

we were PACKED into a closet room...like this

Literally the seating was on top of each other and some out the door....some standing..it was kind of nuts.  In the end, it was kind of a shame because the information that they presented was actually really interesting.   

We spent the morning talking about different masters swimmers, the fitness, triathlete and competitive swimmer.  The challenges of bringing these groups together in one venue and identifying goals that would satisfy all groups.  The participants were a mixed group of either pure swim coaches or triathlon coaches.  There was some good discussion regarding the challenges of the groups and bridging the gap to promote success in any program.

I found it interesting that USMS made a large effort to include and identify the multiport athlete as a strong part of their program.  There was some dissention among pure swim coaches about this individual because their goals are often so different that the traditional swimmer, and lets be honest most triathletes could care less about getting into a pool meet.  I thought it was really interesting to see how some of the larger and more successful masters programs really identify and run some of training in synch with the local tri calendar.

We broke for lunch and we able to escape the sardined room and head out for some fresh air....the one bummer about being inside was the weather was so nice in NYC yesterday.

The afternoon was spent entirely on stroke development and skills associated in the pool.  It would have been fun to put some of the drills and info into action in the pool at Asphalt Green but alas we stuck to the classroom.  The afternoon sesssion was great, I got a bunch of new drills and exercises for the adult onset swimmer.  There was a lot of conversation regarding using pool toys and we were given a pair of fins to bring home.  We talked about starts and turns and mechanics, this was great to see how far swimming has really come.  

The presenters were great.  Most were accomplished swimmers and coaches and they were entertaining and not dry.  Overall it was fun to brush up and learn some new things to try this spring.