Cy Fair Swim Club “Home of the Fleet” Fleet Swimming and Fleet FIRST Swim School
June 2013
Upcoming Events: • Shreveport Travel Trip June 7—9 • Rockwall Meet Travel Trip June 20-22 • Aggie Meet July 5-7 • Senior Circuit Meet at UT July 11-13 • B & Under Champs July 13-14 • Gulf Champs July 20-21 • TAGS at UT July 24-28 • Sectionals as TWST July 30-Aug 3
Inside this issue: Coach Andy
2
Coach Alex
2
Coach Maryanne
3
Coach Matt
3
Coach Dustin
4
Smoothies
5
Cy Fair Swim Club
Coach Jack: Time Management As we get to the end of May, students everywhere are getting to the homestretch of their academic year. Students are taking their last test, finishing that last project, or going on the last field trip to signify their promotion to the next grade. There is a great sense of relief that it’s summer time, and there is no more school. Summertime means something else to the swimming world and the coaches here at Fleet. It means sacrifice, commitment, two practices a day, and 4 to 5 weeks of intense training. All of this is done to achieve the season ending goal of swimming fast. The reason I bring up school with swimming is that time management is critical for success in both endeavors. If an individual is not able to manage his or her time, then both tend to be compromised. So as we enter into June, where school no longer becomes a factor in their everyday life, it’s a golden opportunity to really take a big step forward on the swimming side. Now that school is out, it should be easy for every athlete to commit to every practice that is offered. Put all of your efforts into training hard and get plenty of rest, so you can
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train to be a champion everyday. In theory that sounds like a pretty good game plan and the very best athletes do adhere to these very standards.
There are challenges and distractions that athletes will have to deal with along the way to reach their goals. Some of these variables are social activities and their work schedule. These outside influences can provide a roadblock for athletes in their path to achieve their season ending goals. So the key is having balance, and to manage your time wisely so you're not burning the candle at both ends. So what are the keys to managing your time and still becoming a champion swimmer? The biggest thing a swimmer can do is become a planner. Every swimmer, by this time of the season, should have sat down with his or her coach and set out season ending goals. Goals without a plan are not really goals at all. As I have stated before: failing to prepare is
preparing to fail. To be successful, each individual has to set up other activities, like work and social, around the weekly training schedule. Inevitably every summer I always see one or two athletes that take on more than they can chew with work and social commitments, and they get burnt out on swimming. In the end everything suffers because of this overload. So it’s important to balance everything, have time for yourself and family, set up your work schedule to work with your training schedule, and find some time for your friends. In closing, we as coaches are here to promote swimming excellence. In this process we want to develop the great leaders of tomorrow, and teach them how to be champions in life. Having great time management will be a key ingredient in that formula.
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Cy Fair Swim Club “Home of the Fleet”
Coach Andy: Will the Pain Ever Stop?
“Sleeping 8 hours a night is
Lately on the pool deck the coaching staff has heard a lot of upper level swimmers saying “I’m sore” or “Will the pain ever stop?” The answer is, YES! At the end of season during taper time the swimmers bodies will reset and recover from all the hard work.
swimmers to do a warm down and “if you need a little more, do a little more”. That is exactly what swimmers should do. If you feel tired or sore at the end of the warm down, try doing a little more warm down.
But during the season, this pain or soreness hinders an athlete from training to his / her highest level. So what can we do to help lower or recover from this pain during the season? Here are a few things to do that will help athletes recover from hard work out so that they are not as sore and in the end will allow them to train at a higher level the next day.
2. Drink a recovery drink within 45 minutes after your practice. Recovery drinks have a high protein and some carbs that help the body repair form the inside. Chocolate milk, P2Life, and Gatorade are few choices for recovery drinks.
1. At the end of the workout do the entire warm down or even a little more. I have heard Coach Jack tell his
3. Stretching. Take a few minutes after your practice and stretch out every muscle. You can also use a roller to help break up some tight muscles.
4.
Compression suits (for older swimmers only). You can look online and buy some compression suits. These suits help compress the body and basically squeeze the junk out of your mussels so that you are not as sore. These are really good to wear between prelims and finals of a championship meet.
Try some of these and see if it helps. With two workouts a day during the summer, swimmers will need to try everything to avoid getting sore so they can train at the highest level possible every day.
crucial for your body and its recovery process. “
Coach Alex: Recovery As Fleet prepares to embark upon the summer training schedule, there are always going to be a few guarantees. While the pressure of school fades away, athletes are presented with different yet equally challenging obstacles to overcome in their training. With many senior athletes jumping to a training schedule that demands two workouts per day, combined with the heat that accompanies those workouts, athletes need to take the well being of their body into consideration. Training, while essential to top performance at the season’s end, simply breaks the body down. As athletes, we need to give our body what it www.FleetSwimming.com
needs to succeed: RECOVERY! There are two major factors that you as an athlete should think about when it comes to providing your body with the necessary recovery. The first factor is short term recovery. Short term recovery is the recovery process that occurs in the minutes and hours following an intense workout or exercise period. This type of recovery involves engaging in low intensity sets as part of the cool down process immediately after a workout. After your workout, help speed up your
body’s recovery process by cooling down sufficiently, stretching, and eating something substantial within 30 minutes of the workouts end. The second factor that you must be diligent with is getting adequate sleep. Sleeping 8 hours a night is crucial for your body and its recovery process. This is the time that broken down muscle rebuilds and becomes stronger, and failing to get adequate sleep is a prerequisite for failure. It is common for swimmers to be tired and sore, especially during this time of the season. Stay ahead of the game by practicing these tips on a daily basis, and you will set yourself up for success at the end of the season.
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Cy Fair Swim Club “Home of the Fleet”
Coach Maryanne: A Swimmer’s Successful Summer The days are getting longer and hotter and school is about to end, that means summer is in full swing! Below you will find a few tips I have to make sure your swimmer has a successful summer. 1. Drink water (not a sports drink). Make water available and
appealing to your swimmer. Swimmers need the hydration, but not the sugar. 2. Eat REAL food. Fruit & veggies. Foods with only ONE ingredient. Stop buying energy chews and power shots. In the Gatorade energy chews there are 42 grams of sugar in one package and the first ingredient is corn syrup. 3. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Often times the summer is busier
than the school year. It’s easy to over plan and over commit to things. Remember that your swimmer is still growing and in need of a significant amount of sleep. Encourage them to go to bed early and take naps when needed. Remember that summertime is about having fun and relaxing from the stressful school year. Enjoy the time you can spend with your family and make as many memories as possible!
Coach Matt: Importance of FLEET Practices During Summer League Around this time every year, summer league swim teams begin to enter the picture. Lots of our swimmers, especially our younger kids, enjoy swimming with their friends every weekend with their neighborhood program. This can be lots of fun and a big confidence booster for our younger swimmers. It is, however, very important to keep things in perspective. Remember what it was that got you to the level of swimming you are that allows you to have so much success with your summer league team. Lots of hours and months of hard work were put in to improve your strokes and build up your strength and speed. Yes, summer league practices can be fun and relatively easy, but make sure you make it to your Fleet practice as much as possible to maintain your technique and continue progressing over the course of the summer. Many kids and parents are tempted to go to both Fleet and
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summer league practices every day. While this may work out for some, and the kids will get lots of yardage in, I highly recommend that you avoid this temptation for various reasons. For one thing, we don’t want the kids to burn out. Especially at a young age, we want kids to enjoy swimming for as long as possible so that we can keep them in the sport for years to come. Practicing twice a day will often burn kids out over the course of the summer and we have lost many talented swimmers due to this very reason. Don’t fall into the trap thinking that more swimming means faster times and better strokes. Shorter, “Quality” practices yield far better results for a young swimmer than swimming
lap after lap multiple times a day. For example, if a swimmer goes to summer league in the morning and practices for an hour, regardless of how easy it is, they are burning energy. When they attend their Fleet practice later in the day, they won’t be as well rested and the quality of their performance during practice will suffer. Instead of giving their “all” during the higher quality practice and getting out of it as much as they possibly could, they swim slower and develop bad habits which will lead to slower swimming at meets with poorer technique. All of that being said, make sure that you have lots of fun this summer, but try your best to be smart about it. Remember what your goals are for the summer and do everything you can to achieve them. Don’t get in your own way by becoming an obstacle to yourself!
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“Eat REAL food. Fruit & veggies. Foods with only ONE ingredient.” ingredient
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Cy Fair Swim Club “Home of the Fleet”
Coach Dustin: Taking Care of Yourself to Ensure Success This Summer
“Manage your time well, stay dedicated to your diet and recovery techniques”
School is almost out and we are about to start our summer schedule. Without the physical and mental drain of sitting in a desk for 7 to 8 hours a day, the summer ends up being a great time to focus on training and get some quality work in. Practices will occur more often, they will be hard, and the coaches will have expectations of the swimmers. With the increase in work load, it is important that the swimmers are taking care of themselves. Swimmers need to make it a priority to properly fuel their body, and give it adequate rest and recovery time during hard training. Below are three things your swimmer can do in order to maximize recovery, and therefore maximize their summer training. First: fuel your body. Fueling the body is simple: eat healthy foods, and eat a lot of them. Structure a meal and snack plan. The plan should include 3 meals plus 3 snacks a day. Your meals need to try and cover all the food groups. The more colorful your meal is the better. Home-cooked meals made from fresh ingredients are much better than the stuff made from the boxed, processed stuff, and they are definitely better than fast food. Your post-workout snack should contain both carbohydrates and protein. This will help refuel tired muscles. Something like a peanut butter on a whole grain bagel, with a banana is great. Remember
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that your post-workout snack should be eaten within 1 hour of your workout, and do not skip this snack! Your postworkout snack is a critical step in the recovery practice. With as much exercise that swimmers do during the summer, it is important that they make sure they are eating enough. There are a lot of apps and websites out there that will help you keep track of your calorie intake to ensure that you are getting enough. Second: stretch. Hard practice after hard practice will cause any athlete to be sore. Counter this by stretching or using a foam roller on a daily basis. Professional swimmers have the luxury of getting the occasional massage (which are also great!), however a good massage therapist can get pretty costly. Foam rollers are a
cheap, one-time expenditure and are a great way to target sore spots, work out tight muscles and increase flexibility. Third: rest! This third one seems kind of a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised. In order for
the body to truly recovery, it has to rest! Too often I’ll have an athlete having a horrible morning practice, despite the fact that they did not have afternoon practice the day before. When I find out that they spent 8 hours out on the lake in the hot sun the day before, then were up until midnight that same night, well it’s no wonder this kid is dying right now! Now I’m not saying you have to completely sacrifice a social life this summer, but you need to manage your time well. You can hang out with friends without spending 8 straight hours under the hot Texas sun. Have fun, go out and do things, but be smart and allow enough time during the day to get enough rest. There are many of ways to help ensure that you are taking care of yourself this summer, these are just the easy and important ones! Manage your time well, stay dedicated to your diet and recovery techniques, and you will be able to handle the summer workload like a boss. This will allow us to be a champion at the end of the season!
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Cy Fair Swim Club “Home of the Fleet”
Nutrition: Top Tips for Choosing Smoothies By Chris Rosenbloom//PHD, RD, CSSD Smoothies are a great choice for swimmers because they provide nutrient-rich carbohydrates to fuel muscles before a workout and can rapidly replace lost muscle glycogen after a workout. However, with so many choices of smoothies found in specialty stores (Smoothie King, Freshens, Jamba Juice, etc.) to bottled smoothies in the grocery store, how do you choose? Here are some tips to help you choose the smoothie that will meet your energy needs and won’t sabotage your workouts.
but many are sugar traps. Fruit naturally contains sugar but many smoothies add sugar in the form of fruit puree blends or include sherbet or frozen yogurt which contributes to added sugar. And, just because the sugar is listed as “organic” doesn’t mean it is healthier. Sugar is sugar. Remember that “energy” is another word for calories. All food gives you energy because it is broken down to provide fuel. If smoothies were called “calorie drinks” no one would buy them, but when the word “energy” is on the label everyone wants it. Energy can also be a marketing code word for caffeine or other stimulants, like guarana or yerba mate, so be careful when choosing a smoothie that claims to boost your energy. Don’t add the “boosters” or “enhancers” when ordering a smoothie to avoid caffeine or even possibly a banned substance.
1. Study the ingredient list to check for real fruit or vegetables and/or fruit or vegetable juice as the main 3. Check the serving size. ingredients. Don’t be Many smoothies come in 2 fooled by pictures of whole or 3 sizes and a 40-ounce fruit or vegetables in the peanut butter power advertising or on the packsmoothie can have 1400 age. The only way to know calories. That might be OK if a smoothie has real food for a really tall, elite swimis to look at the ingredient mer who spends his life in list. Some smoothies list the pool, but it is too much “pear juice concentrate or for a pre-teen female apple juice concentrate” as swimmer. Many smoothies the first ingredient, altsold in the grocery store hough they claim to be fool you on portion size, made from real fruit. too. For example, many 2. Smoothies can be healthy, smoothies come in a 16-
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ounce bottle but the serving size is 2 servings per bottle. So that 300 calorie smoothie really has 600 calories if you drink the whole bottle (and most of us drink the whole bottle). 4. Learn to make smoothies with simple ingredients. The best smoothie I ever had was at little smoothie stand in Florida. The only ingredients were banana, strawberries and orange sections blended with ice. Cool, refreshing, bursting with vitamins and minerals, and not too sweet. So, dig out the blender in mom or dad’s kitchen and experiment with your favorite flavors. Smoothies can be a powerhouse snack for a swimmer by providing carbohydrate, vitamins, minerals and water, but they can also be calorie bombs that can sabotage your workouts, so choose wisely!
Chris Rosenbloom is the sports dietitian for Georgia State University Athletics and is the editor of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Sports Nutrition Manual, 5th edition, 2012. She welcomes questions from swimmers, parents and coaches. Email her at chrisrosenbloom@gmail.com . Article was originally published on www.USASwimming.org on April 16, 2013.
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Smoothies can be a powerhouse snack or calorie bombs that can sabotage your workout, so choose wisely!
Cy Fair Swim Club Street Address 14654 Spring Cypress Rd. Cypress, TX 77429 Mailing Address 11659 Jones Rd., PMB #351
Mission Statement To provide members and residents of the NW Houston area with the best quality swim programs that develop the physical, athle%c and personal poten%al for all ages and levels. This is accomplished through the following principles:
Phone: 281-376-2372 Fax: 281-251-6160
• Provide an environment where swimmers of all ages can reach their desired poten%al based on a philosophy of “longer range development”.
“Home of the Fleet”
• To teach all of our members the value, rewards and poten%al that aqua%c ac%vi%es provide. • To provide a safe aqua%c environment for members of the team and the community. • Provide coaches who are good role models for the purpose of goal se*ng, mo%va%on, a*tude, enthusiasm, morals and maturity. • Provide an environment where coaches and athletes may establish realis%c goals and objec%ves and measure their progress against established standards as benchmarks for improvement. • Provide a link to the local community that improves the value of both to their members. • Con%nued growth of the membership and as well as facili%es for training and development.
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Coaching Staff Jack Maddan, Head Coach & Elite Team Coach coachjack@fleetswimming.com Andrew Korda, Head Age Group, Senior & Gold Coach coachandy@fleetswimming.com Matt Hone, Lead Developmental Coach coachmatt@fleetswimming.com Dustin Myers, Elite Team Asst. Coach, Silver II Coach coachdustin@fleetswimming.com Maryanne Svoboda, Bronze II and Silver Teams Coach coachmaryanne@fleetswimming.com Camilo Orellana, Bronze I & Competitive Prep Coach coachcamilo@fleetswimming.com Alex Rayner, Junior Team & Competitive Prep Team coachalex@fleetswimming.com Ambar Fernandez, Bronze Team Coach coachambar@fleetswimming.com Jeff Carder, Copper Team & Pre-Competitive Team coachjeff@fleetswimming.com Chris Woolsey, High School Prep Coach coachchris@fleetswimming.com
Submit ar%cles and photos by the 25th of the month to Fleet Communica%ons Coordinator toddhdavis@gmail.com for considera%on in the next month’s newsle4er.