In Swimming Simplified coach Mitch Bowmile goes over anything and everything to do with the science of swimming and simplifies it. With information delivered in an easy-to-understand fashion, the series is designed to help bridge the gap between what coaches are asking of their athletes and their athletes’ understanding of the sport. By becoming students of the sports and grasping the fundamentals of swim training, swimmers will be able to understand the why of what they’re doing better than ever before.
The phrase “building a foundation” or “building a base” gets thrown around a lot when discussing the long-term development model of swimmers, but what does a strong foundation consist of?
Building a strong foundation consists of three things:
1️⃣Developing an efficient repertoire of fundamental technique
2️⃣Developing fundamental training skills specific to your practice environment
3️⃣Developing a fundamental training capacity
🏾♀️Fundamental Technical Skills
Fundamental technical skills are the most basic skills that all other skills are built around. Streamline position, body position, the ability to kick and the ability to push off the wall are some just to name a few. Developing these fundamental skills before progressing to more advanced skills lays down brick #1 in your foundation.
🏾♀️Fundamental Training Skills
In order to take part in more complex training sessions that will include more advanced training skills and technical skills, you need to be able to do the basics well. If you don’t, you’re going to be present at practice, but not take part. Learning how to train in an aerobic-based sport like swimming is just as important as developing technical proficiency. Learning the basics of training lays down brick #2 in your foundation
🏾♀️Fundamental Training Capacity
Repetition is the mother of all learning, so repeating fundamental training and technical skills is important if you want to grasp them. The more volume you can swim with these skills and the higher intensities you can swim with these skills opens up more areas of training that you can benefit from. In prepubescent swimmers it’s important that they have the capacity to train at a high level so that when they’re able to benefit more from the metabolic adaptations of training, they can. For older swimmers still building their foundation, building your capacity allows you to get more out of a microcycle (week of training). If you have the capacity to do more work, or better work, or even both during that week, you’re creating a prime opportunity for your body to adapt to new training stimulus and ultimately make you faster.
Disclaimer: This video is for informational purposes. Athletes should check with their doctors and/or trainers before taking on a new exercise routine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovu_cmNpRwM
ABOUT SWIMMINGSTRONGER
At Swimming Stronger we strive to be the best organization dedicated to teaching the fundamentals of swimming performance, and teaching those fundamentals exceptionally well. Every elite athlete, great athlete, and even good athlete are all built on stable foundations of proper movement patterns that become the basis of every muscle action that they use in their day-to-day sport specific movements. Building an athlete is exactly like building a house. Without a proper foundation, you’re not going to have a stable house, and slowly, you’re going to experience problem after problem. When athletes progress too quickly without mastering these fundamental abilities, they get injured, plateau, and fail to maintain longevity in their sport. We address these concerns before they become concerns. By being the absolute best at teaching these foundational skills and building training programs based on sound, well researched scientific principles, we set our athletes up for reduced risk of injury and greater potential of success. No fluff, just fundamentals.
Our services currently include virtual coaching, private coaching, video and stroke analysis, program support, and clinics.
www.swimmingstronger.com
