Swim Smooth Perth Squad Blog

The Long Weekend and Tuesday Evenings

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Tue, 29 May 2012 21:59:19 PDT

Dear Swimmers

I just can't get over how great this weather is at the moment - I know we need rain but it is just glorious for swimming at the moment. You'll also probably appreciate the Claremont Pool being a smidgen warmer at the moment as well to account for those colder mornings we've been having.

Tuesday Evenings with Sandy, now 6.15pm to 7.15pm:

Sandy brought it to my attention that for some of you whom have been swimming in the 6.30pm Tuesday session that it's proving a little inconvenient having to rush through the latter stages of the session and also not be able to use the showers afterwards as the pool closes bang on 7.30pm.

I brought this to the Pool Manager's attention and what we have decided to do is start this session 15 minutes earlier at 6.15pm. Sandy will be set-up in lanes 5 & 6 from 6.15pm and when Chris's group (Kirby Swim) finish at 6.30pm he'll migrate across to lanes 7 & 8 (and 6 if numbers warrant it). This should work in perfectly with when everyone finishes the warm-up in readiness for the main set and allow you to feel unhurried completing the session. Personally I find rushing to finish a session adds stress to what should otherwise be an enjoyable experience, so I hope this helps and allows you to pamper yourself in the showers afterwards with that 15 minute window this creates!

Sandy informs me that some of you sometimes struggle to get there for bang-on 6.30pm though, however, you can still turn-up from 6.30pm, get straight into the main set (as Sandy instructs, which is normally quite light and technique focused on a Tuesday anyway) and then if you wish, complete what you've missed in the warm-up in that 15 minute window that remains after the session officially finishes, obviously with the caveat that you'll sacrifice any showering time in doing so. I hope this is a good compromise for everyone?

Lastly, it's obviously tougher to get out of bed in the early morning during winter, so if you are down to attend the 5.30am or 6.30am sessions on a Tuesday, but for whatever reason miss them and then feel "guilty" later on (!) you are more than welcome to attend in the evening at 6.15pm instead and still complete the same session. This might be particularly useful for those working on long projects at the moment who would otherwise feel they've missed a session on a Tuesday morning with a sleep-in.

Please pass on this information to your friends.

The Long Weekend:

We're very fortunate enough to be spending 4 nights down in Gnarabup this weekend as a little getaway courtesy of Jane Davis from the 9.30am squad who has kindly loaned us the use of her beautiful Gnarabup Beach House however, we have decided not to cancel any of the sessions this weekend as I have it on good understanding that many of you will still be around this weekend and want to keep your swimming going. As such, this is how the sessions will pan out:

Friday 1st June - 5.30am & 6.30am Fresh & Fruity squads* with Sally Scaffidi
Friday 1st June - 9.30am Technique squad with Sandy Burt
Saturday 2nd June - 1pm Open Water Skills Session with Sally Scaffidi
Monday 4th June - 7am & 9.30am Technique squad with Sandy Burt

*just as a bit of a heads-up about this Friday, the session is going to be a cracker! As we can see here...

...I thought you'd like to see the idea behind this set. The session is nothing but 100m intervals and all 4 lanes will follow a similar format. The beepers will be handed out to the leader who will have to BEAT THE BEEPER as it will be set to a 25m cycle time, the idea being for example that lane 4 (in this example - will be different times on Friday!) will start off with 4 (top left corner of each box) x 100m with the beeper set to beep every 28 seconds (green writing) which means that the actual send-off time per 100m would be 1:52 in this example, typically giving you ~25 seconds rest on the first set. The idea is to hold your fastest maintainable time such that you get as much rest as possible between each interval. After 4 x 100m the beeper will be reduced from 28 seconds to 27 seconds and as such (assuming you hold the same pace as the first set of 4) you will get 4 seconds less rest at the end of each 100m. The beeper is very easy to change, just press the bottom left button once and this will reduce the time per 25m by precisely one second. As such it becomes increasingly hard to hold the same pace as your rest reduces such that on the final set you'll only be getting ~4 to 8s rest between each 100m. The crew this morning loved it and so I'm hoping you will to!

Quick tip - aim for about the normal threshold pace you've been doing on a Friday - try to avoid going off too fast, but equally, try not to be too conservative either - the effort will build during the set (as usual!).

Have a great weekend and I'll see you back on Tuesday at 5.30am - bright and breezy!

Paul

Limber-up this Saturday at 12.15pm!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:30:12 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Hope you're enjoying this awesome autumnal weather - pretty lucky aren't we?!

Anyway, just a quick email seeking your assistance. As you'll probably have realised, myself and Adam have been doing quite a bit of filming for a new project recently and were hoping to get some video of me conducting a suitable stretching session for swimmers and triathletes at Claremont Pool this Saturday from 12.15pm (immediately prior to the 1-2pm squad session). We're hoping to get together maybe 8 to 15 people to partake in this session which I will deliver and present to camera a-la "Aerobics Oz Style" (without the leotards!). It'll be a lot of fun and very useful as a warm-up in itself to the squad session.

Can you help? If so, please flick me a quick reply on the email and we'll see you at Claremont Pool on Saturday from 12.15pm. Thanks!

Paul

Apologies once again...

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Fri, 18 May 2012 19:58:31 PDT

Dear Swimmers

It is with much regret and massive frustration on my part that we were not able to run the 5.30am Friday morning session yesterday again given that the same Duty Manager failed to turn up to open up the Claremont Pool that did not show 3 weeks ago.

Please rest assured that I have taken this complaint to the Centre Manager and also to the council as I feel it is totally unacceptable. I do sincerely apologise if you were put out by this again yesterday.

On the last occurrence I apologised and promised you it wouldn't happen again, and so to have it happen again so soon afterwards makes me personally feel rather stupid.

Thank you to those of you who stayed around and were able to start the session at 6.10am (40 minutes late). Of course I did not feel comfortable charging for this session once again and I believe that the pool allowed free access also in order to partly compensate for your inconvenience.

Sincere thanks to the 6.30am squad for accommodating the small number of swimmers from the 5.30am squad who overlapped with the start of your session as I do appreciate that it was massively chaotic and somewhat frustrating for you too.

It is hard enough at this time of year to get out of bed for a 5.30am start when the temperature gauge is reading in the single digits, and I can only imagine how your confidence in the reliability of this early morning session could easily wane in light of these incidents. I personally feel like the strongest part of our squad is the reliability factor - you always know that I'll be there and that the session will be of good quality and enjoyable too. This is something that I've worked extremely hard to build at Claremont Pool over the last 4 years and to have it compromised in such a manner is very annoying for me. I can only ask that you please do not give up hope and confidence.

Thanks for hearing me out. The pool has promised a resolve by Wednesday of next week.

Sean Badani, Centre Manager, has suggested that you contact him directly on sbadani@claremont.wa.gov.au or 9285 4343 if you felt the need to discuss the matter directly with him, however, I am hoping that we should see a positive step forward with this situation now.

Kind regards

Paul

Awesome article from Chrissie Wellington

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:41:11 PDT

Needing a mental kick up the bum or just some inspiration for tomorrows Fresh & Fruity session? Check out:

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/21/health/chrissie-wellington-triathlete-champion/index.html

Some very sage advice from arguably the best long distance triathlete the world has seen.

Enjoy!

Paul

Eyesport Study

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Mon, 14 May 2012 05:44:01 PDT

Dear Swimmers

There's been some great turn-outs in the last week despite the weather cooling down notch or two - thanks for supporting us in the winter months, it's very much appreciated.

I've just been passed the email below from Fran in the Tue/Fri 6.30am squad (Lane 1) who is hoping some of us from the squad can help out?? Looks like an interesting study. Details in the attachments.

Have a great week!

Paul

Begin forwarded message:

From: Waddells <waddell@iinet.net.au>
Date: 15 May 2012 7:59:43 PM AWST
To: 'Swim Smooth Perth Squad Blog' <swimsmooth@me.com>
Subject: Eyesport Study

Hi Paul,

Here is the information about that study I mentioned to you last week. UWA and the Lion's Eye Institute are looking for participants, over the age of 18yrs, to be involved in a research project looking at eye protection in swimming and outdoor sporting activities. Hopefully some of the Swim Smooth squad members might be interested in participating.

Regards

Fran

http://www.swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/Eye_Study_1.docx

http://www.swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/Eye_Study_2.docx

Sensational results down in Busselton

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Sun, 06 May 2012 05:07:13 PDT

Dear Swimmers

I've just arrived back from the 2012 Busselton 70.3 Half Ironman and what a great weekend it was! More about the infamous swim discipline in a moment...

We had some sensational results from within the squad and the new "Performance Squad" I established in December 2011, the most notable being:

Overall PRO / Open:

2nd overall PRO female = Kate Bevilaqua (with an amazing joint 2nd place exit out of the water!)
6th overall PRO male = Mike Gee
7th overall PRO male = Guy Crawford

2nd open male = Tom Bakowski

Age Group Awards:

1st = Helen King (female 18-24)
2nd = Andy Tyack (male 18-24)
1st = Anna-lee Hazell (female 25-29)
1st = Lisa Delaurentis (female 30-34)
2nd = Luke Cameron (male 18-24)
1st = Janine Willis (female 35-39)
3rd = Pam Criddle (female 35-39)
2nd = Cyndy Hetrick (female 45-49)
2nd = Janet Ferguson (female 50-54)
1st = Anne Murrell (female 55-59)

Teams:

5th place female team "Lady Power" = Michelle Newsome (swim), Sue-ann Anderson (bike), Ceinwen Williams (run)

NB. keen to hear how other team members from within the squad went as it's a little hard to check these results against the wacky names you come up with!

Fastest Individual Discipline Times:

2nd fastest female swimmer = Anna-lee Hazell
1st fastest male cyclist = Matt Illingworth

Well done to all those of you who competed, especially those of you who completed your first Half Ironman event!

Now onto the swim...it was eventful...!

If you check the sketch out which I did immediately after watching the elite wave finish (and for the benefit of some of the team swimmers who went later), it really was arguably one of the hardest swims this race has ever seen with most swimmers being (on average) 5-7 minutes slower than in previous years. Even last year's fastest swimmer (our very own Guy Crawford) was 3 minutes slower than last year, and when I saw this (and knowing Guy's strength), I knew immediately it was going to be a long swim in the water for everyone. Unlike in some races where the race distance can be questionable, I am confident that this race was set-up as 1.9km exactly as billed - whether or not some of the buoys drifted due to the strong wind and swell is a different matter, but what undoubtedly caused the slow times were a combination of the following factors which you might like to heed for future races / years:

The night before had been very stormy and a strong wind was blowing from left to right across the course. This produced significant surface chop which may have assisted swimmers on the long stretch on the way out (tail wind), but would have severely impeded progress on the way back (head wind). Such conditions make sighting very difficult indeed (as thus the ability to keep straight) as well as making it almost impossible to get into a good rhythm. Those swimmers that really excel in these conditions are our Swinger swim type (www.swimtypes.com - having a higher natural stroke rate), with the Overgliders and Kicktastics typically really struggling. This was highlighted perfectly by Anna-lee Hazell (a brilliant Swinger) picking up the 2nd fastest overall swim time of the day - well done Anna-lee! A higher, straighter arm recovery compared with the classic pool swimmers's high elbow recovery ensures that the arms consistently clear the surface of the water and that momentum is maintained.
The large swell pushed swimmers towards the shore on the return leg in particular and many swimmers then struggled to hold the straight line (about 150m off shore) to the final pointed yellow buoy. We saw countless numbers of swimmers (of all abilities) being told to swim back out (~150m) to complete the course as they had totally missed this final buoy. This of course added at least another 3 minutes to most swim times. Frustrating for many but for those more savvy to the conditions, this proved to be a real boost to their relative performance. Again, those with strong surf swimming backgrounds really excelled in these conditions, a-la Anna-lee Hazell.
The PRO and Open waves had a distinct advantage over the Age Group and Team waves that followed in that they set-off in very overcast / dark conditions. Those setting off after 7.10am had to deal with the fact that the rising sun began to poke through the clouds directly into the swimmers's eyes on the outward bound leg, making sighting nigh-on impossible. In these scenarios, a good, balanced stroke really pays dividends as your confidence in your ability to hold a straight line without the ability to sight is key. Bilateral breathing was advantageous on this leg, however, given the fact that the swell was hitting hard in this direction from the left, swimmers had to elect to breathe predominantly to the right on the outward leg and then predominantly to the left on the return - obviously those who have the flexibility in their stroke to do both are at a major advantage.

All-in-all it was not a day for fast swim times, but as I managed to say to many swimmers before they hit the rough conditions, what ultimately determines your success in those conditions is how you approach the swim from a psychological perspective. Janine Willis had clearly identified just how dearly she wanted to finally break the magic 30 minute barrier for the swim. Her training and improvement in the pool and open water has been going stunningly well recently and I was confident that she could do it. However, upon seeing the conditions Janine was very realistic about the chances of achieving this time, so shelved this time orientated goal and just put her head down and ploughed through the waves - she was rewarded with a simply brilliant first place exit out of the water in the first of the main female waves...beating one of the swimmers by 2 minutes whom Janine had put on a pedestal of being "unbeatable" - well done Janine - an inspiring result. Janine's time was just under 3.5 minutes slower than she had hoped, but relative to others in her age-group it set her up to win the whole race in her Age Group.

Massive credit is also due to Anne Murrell who similarly tackled the swim with gusto and shelved her fears of the conditions to get through and also win her Age Group. Tom Bakowski certainly didn't enjoy the swim and seemed very frustrated upon exit, but I was personally massively impressed by how he turned around what could have been a very negative start to his race to come through and finish 2nd overall in the coveted Open Male category - well done that man for keeping his head!

I'd love to hear your stories from the swim if you're keen to send them over....

OK, so it's back to business on the pool deck this week. It might be the end of the triathlon season here in Perth and the start of the winter, but you can be assured that we'll be keeping everything pumping as normal! Come on down - next year it could be you winning your Age Group!

Cheers

Paul

Good luck to all those racing at Busselton 70.3 this weekend!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Thu, 03 May 2012 00:29:42 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Hope you've all had a great week...just Friday to go! For some of you it's only two sleeps before you race (possibly for the first time) at the Busselton Half Ironman event - good luck to all of you who are competing. We'll be down there supporting and cheering you on all the way!

With that in mind we have elected to cancel this Saturday's (5th May) 1-2pm squad session at Claremont Pool knowing that many of you who have been attending recently have been training up for the Half Ironman. We will resume this session (and keep it running over winter) on Saturday 12th May.

Top tip for this weekend from Henry Ford:

Whether you think you can or you think you can't, either way you are right!

Good luck!

Paul

Apologies on behalf of the pool

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:01:39 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Sincere apologies on behalf of Claremont Pool to those of you who turned up this morning for the 530am session to find that the pool was closed.

I was down at the pool all ready and raring as usual but couldn't let anyone in. This was very frustrating as you can imagine!!!

Thanks to the 20 of you who stayed around to swim and got to start at 605am - you were rewarded with a free session of course and sincere thanks to the 630am crew for sympathizing with the situation and allowing the 530am crew to finish their set whilst you warmed up as normal.

I believe a few of you have wrote to the council regarding this issue. Frustrating for everyone but I'm assured it won't happen again.

Cheers

Paul

Kind regards

Paul

P.S great 1pm session planned for tomorrow if you can make it - ideal for Busso HIM athletes in particular!

Do you know someone in desperate need of tuning up their stroke? If so, we want to help, for FREE!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:50:31 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Some of you have requested seeing some of the photos that I took at Ceinwen's wedding last weekend at Cave's House in Yallingup. With Ceinwen's kind permission she has said it's OK for you to view this selection - enjoy:

http://gallery.me.com/swimsmooth/101057 (username = andy , password = 2012)

The ANZAC Day Challenge - can you help us find someone to help with their swimming for FREE??

Here is a great challenge for you this ANZAC day...next Tuesday 1st May (12pm to 4pm) and Thursday 3rd May (9am to 3pm) we hope to conduct a series of mini 1-2-1 stroke correction sessions at Claremont Pool and Challenge Stadium respectively...do you have a friend in desperate need of tuning up their swimming who would benefit from this entirely FREE mini session?

Each session will last ~30-45 minutes and will be filmed above and below the water with the swimmer receiving a copy of this footage to take away with them. Adam will actually film me delivering the session to the swimmer as we will use this footage to share with other swimmers and coaches around the world on how to fix the most common stroke flaws - as such consent to use the video footage is essential. The swimmer will be shown how to correct the biggest single thing holding them back in the water, and to this extent we are hoping to film a variety of swimmers who have had limited coaching experience in the past (although anyone is welcome to apply...even you guys in the squad!).

Swimmers will need to be available during these two periods but will be notified by Friday 5pm this week on whether they have a) been selected for the challenge and b) what time slot we will allocate them.

This will be of massive help to us and whilst the filming will be done primarily for the benefit of others seeing how to address these common issues, of course the swimmer going through the session will see how our unique processes work to simply correct things holding them back. It will be a lot of fun and very insightful! Each swimmer will also go away with a complimentary copy of the most appropriate www.swimtype.com guide for their stroke, worth $20.00.

So, can you help? Can you nominate a friend or do you think you fit the bill yourself? If so, please ask your friend or yourself to complete the questions below as fully as possible and we'll take the selection process from there.

We cannot guarantee that every swimmer will get selected as we only have a limited number of slots available and are looking for some very specific aspects to work on, however, we do of course have our highly regarded 1-2-1 Video Analysis Session available as per http://www.swimsmooth.com/perth_videoanalysis.html should someone wish to consider these down the line (currently fully booked till the third week in July for your reference).

This could be an excellent chance for a last minute tweak for someone prior to the Busselton Half Ironman...??!!

Questions to answer (in full):

Name:
Email Address:
Phone Number:
Age:
Occupation:
Number of years swimming:
Are you available for both days?
What is your time for 400m?
What do YOU think is the biggest single thing holding you back with your swimming (be as detailed here as you see necessary)?
Are you faster or slower with a pull buoy?
How often do you swim per week and what do you do in your sessions?
How would you rate your enjoyment of swimming (1 = a necessary evil, 10 = can't get enough of it!)?
What are your swimming aspirations (be as detailed here as you see necessary)?
Have you ever been filmed before and if so, what did you see as the most obvious flaw within your stroke?
Have you ever suffered any shoulder soreness, pain or injury?
How do you fare in the open water compared with the pool?

...responses to be received by no later than midday on Friday 27th April 2012.

Cheers

Paul

ANZAC DAY

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:26:29 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Hope you've had a great weekend - we had an awesome time down in Yallingup attending Ceinwen and Andy's wedding - the couple looked very happy together and we wish them well!

Just quickly, there will be no Wednesday 5.30am session this week due to the ANZAC day public holiday. The pool does not open until 7am. We will however, still be running the 9.30am session (Fresh and Fruity) if you'd care to attend. No other squad sessions are affected this week.

I'd highly recommend swimming in the open water and doing a ~4km wetsuit swim for those who would normally swim on Wednesday morning (early) and whom are doing the Busselton Half Ironman next week.

Thanks and have a great week!

Paul

Your chance to be famous!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:24:29 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Hope you're all doing well! Just a quick note this week:

1. I will personally be away from the squad this Friday and Saturday and then back on Monday. Sally will cover the Friday 5.30am and 6.30am sessions as well as the Saturday 1pm session and Francene will be back on the pool deck on Friday at 9.30am after giving birth to her beautiful daughter Sabine last month. I will be heading down to Yallingup to photograph one of my best friend's wedding's and Rottnest / English Channel queen, Ceinwen Williams as she marries Andy this Saturday at Caves House Hotel - can't wait!

2. Want to be famous?! Adam is back tonight and on Thursday we will commence six weeks of a heavy filming schedule at Challenge Stadium for an amazing new series of videos that we're compiling for a VERY special project later this year. We need some volunteers (2) for filming at Challenge Stadium this Thursday 19/4) morning between 9am and 12pm. This week we'll be filming how to improve your exhalation in the water with some great tips on how viewers can do this...we're seeking two swimmers (one a natural 'floater' and one a 'leg sinker') to help out in this mini-project...if you're keen just email back to this Blog. Thanks!

Cheers

Paul

Welcome Back!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:55:48 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Just a quick note to welcome you back to training after the Easter break - hope you had a good one!

If there's anyone else who didn't get re-tested for their 400m/200m Time Trials last week but were keen to, please reply back to this email and we'll get you testing this week on either Wednesday 5.30am or 9.30am / Friday 5.30am or 6.30am - it'd be really good to see a few more of you re-test to complete our little experiment and see how you've done. No pressure of course if not.

Cheers and have a great week!

Paul

Best time of year for swim coaching at Claremont?

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:53:43 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Hope you're having a great week!

This is just a quick note to remind you that there will be no swimming sessions on this Friday (Good Friday), Saturday (7th April) and Monday (9th April). All sessions will resume as normal on Tuesday 10th April when we get fully back into the swing of things.

If anyone did want to swim this weekend (note that the pool is totally closed on Good Friday), may I suggest my favourite Fresh 'n' Fruity session, the "Goldilocks Set" - see: http://www.feelforthewater.com/2010/03/goldilocks-set.html - for those who normally swim on a Monday, may I suggest this session of Contrasts: http://www.feelforthewater.com/2009/12/discover-flaws-in-your-stroke-with.html

9.30am session swimmers will also be pleased to know that we'll now be back permanently at the Claremont Pool and in our favoured lanes of 6, 7 and 8 in the 50m pool as of tomorrow. Sincere thanks for your support and patience during March with all the venue changes and the scheduled beach sessions when the pool was busy with carnivals. Claremont Pool do their very best to accommodate us at this busy time but I do appreciate that these changes can throw a spanner in the works to your weekly schedule. The nice thing is now though that the pool is quiet and free from both carnivals and the busy school programs, so it's a great time to venture back down and get back into a routine.

I would have to say that April is by far my favourite month of the year for coaching and despite the drizzly weather this morning, we still had a good showing at the 5.30am and 6.30am sessions. If anyone missed this morning's session there's obviously the option of attending the 6.30pm session tonight (you don't need to book) - it's a good one and enjoyed by all it seemed!

OK everyone, I'll see some of you tomorrow at the 5.30am and 9.30am sessions and then others next week when we get fully back into the swing of things!

Cheers and Happy Easter...we're off for a 2-night break in Toodjay, can't wait!

Paul

P.S here's a couple of funny photos from our trip to Adventure World last weekend with the kids...Jackson is now 101cm tall and most of the rides require him to be 102cm - teaching him how to stand tall and proud to 'sneak' through was very funny indeed...he was very much the Big Boy and even got to meet his first koala! On the go-karts I'm not sure who is having the most fun though - him or me?!

And the results are in!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 08:24:00 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Thanks for turning up on Wednesday at 9.30am or this morning at 5.30am / 6.30am to retest over the 400m and 200m Time Trials for the culmination of our 10 Week CSS Development Program. Here's my breakdown of our little experiment for your reference (apologies for the length!).

Abstract (for a more detailed description of the 'experiment' and our findings, please read to the end):

127 athletes from the Swim Smooth Perth Squad were tested on 13th January 2012 for their Critical Swim Speed (CSS) pace per 100m using the 400m and 200m Time Trial method first proposed in 1993 by Ginn*. A 10 week CSS Development Program was designed and put in place with the view that it might be possible to improve the swimmer's performance by reducing the CSS time per 25m by 0.5% per week using the Finis Tempo Trainer PRO to help control pacing accuracy for the incremental improvements proposed. The swimmers typically swam 2 to 3 times per week for 2.5km to 4km in a given session. One session per week was set aside to purely work on developing this aspect of their performance by adapting to progressively faster CSS times. By 30th March 2012, 57 of the original 127 athletes had been re-tested and 25 new athletes had also been tested for their current CSS pace.

*Ginn, E. (1993), "The application of the critical power test to swimming and swim training programmes", National Sports Research Centre

Further athletes will be re-tested in the first week of April 2012 (this is a preliminary report, due to be updated).

The hypothetical goal of an average 4.5% reduction in CSS time per 25m for the squad (0.5% per week compounding over 10 weeks) was not achieved, but an average reduction of 2.59% was observed.

45 out of the 57 athletes re-tested improved their CSS pace with the training intervention, 42 out of the 57 improved their 400m times and 40 out of the 57 improved their 200m times. The greatest improvement was seen by Alen Pezzin dropping his CSS time by an amazing 13.62%! Well done Alen - sensational result!

Other significant improvements above the goal of 4.5% were made by:

Alen Pezzin, 13.62%
Bill Carmody, 9.92%
Lorraine Driscoll, 8.82%
Michael Serich, 8.25%
Chris Foley, 7.80%
Ian Murray, 7.46%
Caroline Claydon, 7.05%
Trevor Magee, 7.02% (a sensational bounce-back from a horrific shoulder injury from cycling!)
Craig Jameson, 6.27%
Chris Jameson, 6.11%
Nicole Klemm, 5.88%
Jess Huston, 5.76%
Bill Moody, 5.29%
Belinda Bennett, 5.12%
Lindsey Shepherd, 4.98%
Anne-Marie D'Arcy, 4.63%
Amy Callow, 4.58%

Swimmers needing to move up a lane or two (!) are:

5.30am:

Chris Foley - lane 2 to 3

Bill Moody - lane 2 to 3

6.30am:

Jess Huston - lane 4 to 4.5

John Turner - lane 4 to 4.5

Michael Serich - lane 3 to 4.5

Alen Pezzin - lane 3 to 4.5

Amy Callow - lane 1.5 to 2

Caroline Claydon - lane 1.5 to 2

9.30am:

Gillian Evans - lane 1 to 2

Introduction:

If you recall, CSS stands for 'Critical Swim Speed' and closely equates to your continuous 1500m pace in race-like conditions. It's an excellent measure of your current level of aerobic fitness and can be estimated by doing a 400m Time Trial and a 200m Time Trial and comparing the two. Put very simply, the 400m swim assesses the aerobic / endurance component of your current fitness and the 200m swim assesses the anaerobic / sprint component of your current fitness. This is a bit of a gross simplification of what the equation looks for, but essentially allows you to extrapolate out what pace a swimmer should then be able to maintain for longer distances based on the slope of this curve. It has been used in sports science since the early 1990s as a non-invasive way of testing and monitoring for improvements over time and is much easier to get you guys to do than a 1500m Time Trial every 4-6 weeks!

You can read more about the validity of CSS testing at: http://www.topendsports.com/testing/tests/critical-swim-speed.htm and in more simple language at: http://www.swimsmooth.com/training.html

As you know, we've been using the new Finis Tempo Trainer PRO in our Fresh 'n' Fruity CSS sessions for the last five months to accurately gauge pacing over a set distance. Before the Finis unit we were using the Wetronome and have been using this in a similar fashion for the last 4 years in the squad. The beepers are set to beep once every time you should be at each 25m mark, e.g. if you wanted to swim 1'40" per 100m, it should be set to beep every 25 seconds (4 x 25 seconds = 100 seconds = 1'40"). Simple - you either stay with the pace or you don't - a little like the red World Record line at the Olympics overlaid to visually show how close to a new record a swimmer is - just like the red line has a habit of getting in front of the Olympians right in the last moment, so too does the beeper often annoyingly get ahead of you too!

With the new beepers it has been possible to more accurately set the pace to be precise to 1/100th of a second, so as opposed to just full second increments being available (giving steps of 4" per 100m), we've been able to set paces to 0.04" per 100m accuracy! Amazing! This then prompted the idea - how much improvement in someone's threshold pace (a key determinant of their endurance ability over any distance >400m) is possible over a given time frame like 10 weeks?

Hypothetically, coaches have often discussed the potential to improve by ~5% in a whole season (i.e. 9 to 12 months) with a consistent approach to their athlete's training programs. However, not until now has such a device been available in swimming to control the accuracy and performance of a swimmer in a given training set. Given that to make a 5% improvement in a whole season actually requires just incredibly small steps in improvement to be made each session, I proposed that it may be possible to see an average of 0.5% improvement per week over 10 weeks following a very structured program designed specifically to bolster improvement in CSS pace for masters swimmers / triathletes of varying ability typically swimming 2-3 times per week for 2.5 to 3.5km per session. This improvement - when compounded - equates to a goal of 4.5% reduction in CSS time per 25m over the 10 weeks. Given the variety of abilities within the group, this seemed like a reasonable, albeit optimistic, goal to aim for.

Method:

The plan was to use the beepers to set a progressively faster CSS times per 25m by 0.5% each week for a key session every Wednesday or Friday morning. This typically equated to just 0.1" to 0.25" per 25m after the swimmers were all tested in mid-January 2012. Such a small margin was deemed to be barely perceivable by the swimmers and as such the goal of 0.5% improvement per week was set upon. Each week the main set was split up into two parts - the 'pace control set' (a series of 5 to 10 x 100m intervals with a full 25m beep cycle recovery, i.e. ~18 to 30" rest) and the 'maintain over distance set' (a total of 1000m of longer intervals with shorter relative recoveries aiming to stay as close to the set pace as possible). Even up to Week 10, most swimmers found the first set doable (given the 4:1 work to rest ratio) and were encouraged to use this first set to really dial in the pace awareness at the new speed each week with the view of avoiding 'blowing-up' for the second part of the main set. The second part was always kept 'blind' to the swimmers so that they did not hold back in anticipation on the 100m intervals. Sticking to these times after week 5/6 in particular proved to be quite challenging, especially for the faster, more experienced swimmers.

127 athletes were initially tested for their CSS pace and allocated set training groups (lanes) according to their ability within the three Swim Smooth Perth squads at 5.30am, 6.30am and 9.30am. The fastest swimmer in each lane was to use the beeper to control the pace for the whole group and up to 5" difference in CSS pace per 100m was seen within each lane between the fastest swimmers in the lane to the slower swimmers. In theory, every swimmer should have followed the same protocol at their own set CSS pace using their own beeper, but given the drag effect created by in-line lane etiquette (even when the swimmers were 5 to 10 seconds apart) and with up to 10 swimmers per 50m lane, this was seen to be impractical.

Results:

The hypothetical goal of an average 4.5% reduction in CSS time per 25m for the squad (0.5% per week compounding over 10 weeks) was not achieved, but an average reduction of 2.59% was observed.

45 out of the 57 athletes re-tested improved their CSS pace with the training intervention, 42 out of the 57 improved their 400m times and 40 out of the 57 improved their 200m times. The greatest improvement was seen by Alen Pezzin dropping his CSS time by an amazing 13.62%!

Full results can be seen at: http://www.swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/CSS_Retest.pdf

NB. swimmers highlighted in purple did not complete the initial test, but were tested along with the rest of the group on 30/3/12 for the ongoing benefit.

Discussion:

CSS closely equates to your continuous 1500m pace in race-like conditions and the calculation (as seen at: http://www.swimsmooth.com/training ) attempts to extrapolate that from the 400m and 200m Time Trial speeds. If a swimmer has a fast 200m time but seems to be much slower relative to other swimmers in his / her lane over 400m an 'Aerobic to Anaerobic Ratio'* of over 4.0% is typically observed. This says he / she is more anaerobic in their physiology and is either naturally suited or has trained (or both) for short distance swims. Other swimmers have a much lower drop-off between his 200m and 400m times and therefore are much more likely to be good distance swimmers. As shown in the chart below, the calculation is predicting this trend will continue and that the pure distance swimmer will start to get progressively faster than the middle distance swimmer over distances of more than 400m.

*this is a super simplified way of describing the drop-off in times between the 200m and 400m swims.

...really this has to be the case or the fastest 100m sprinter in the world would also be the best at 400m and 1500m – when in fact these three distances need different athletes with different physiologies. The sprinter needs pure power and a strong anaerobic system. The middle-distance swimmer needs a compromise between anaerobic and aerobic and the distance swimmer needs a great aerobic system.

The key thing here is that if the middle distance swimmer wants to maximise his distance swimming he / she needs to do more CSS work and not focus on training his anaerobic system with lots of short, sharp sprints.

Probably the best example of this within the squad is that of Bill Moody. In 2009 Bill trained up for the Australian National Masters Championships in the 50m freestyle sprint event. He's a natural born sprinter with a very good turn of speed. 10 weeks ago his CSS pace was 1'44" per 100m with an 'Aerobic to Anaerobic Ratio' of 6.39%. Bill had a tendency of setting off too quick in interval sessions and during training for the Rottnest Channel Swim Event (20km) performed a 10km training swim which started off at a pace of ~16' per km but by the end had dropped to over 24' per km. Had this happened during the actual event, Bill ran the risk of not even finishing. The CSS intervention training and a lot of work spent at ~8" per 100m slower than CSS pace resulted in Bill dropping his ratio to 3.68% and improving his CSS pace to 1'38" per 100m. This took a lot of trust on Bill's part in my seeming "madness". He didn't get any faster over 200m, but for distance freestyle he didn't need to - his performances above 400m though really improved. A sensational result that ensured that he completed the Rottnest Channel Swim in a very respectable 7h05m - Bill actually got faster by going slower and getting REALLY good at pacing! This is arguably one of my proudest coaching achievements to date given how weird these ideas must have sounded to Bill at the time.

Whilst this protocol primarily looked at trying to improve the swimmer's CSS pace, it was also beneficial to see improvements in the outright performances over 400m and 200m. Given that some 'strange' results can occur (as detailed below), it was good to see that nearly 74% of the squad got faster in both 400m and 200m times.

A swimmer's CSS pace can improve despite their 200m speed in particular decreasing due to the slope of the extrapolated line essentially become more gradual. This can show one of two things: 1) more focus has been on CSS and endurance type work (as per the 10 Week Program); 2) the swimmer was too tired from the 400m exertion and correspondingly did not perform well over the 200m. This becomes particularly evident if the 200m time is more than half of the 400m time and can lead to erroneous results as in theory it's impossible for a swimmer's speed to not be at least as fast over 200m as it is over 400m as at some point within the 400m test the swimmer must have swum 200m as fast as (or faster than) half the 400m time. This occurred with 8 out of the 57 swimmers (Jon Turner, Anne Murrell, Suzi Scarff, John Edwards, Sally Steffanoni, Kim Annear, Roxanne Garven and Annette van Hazel). As such, for the purposes of the analysis, their 200m times were doctored to 50% of their 400m time less 2".
It is possible for a swimmer to get slightly faster over 400m but a lot faster over 200m and for his / her CSS pace to appear to decrease or be exactly the same as it was at the start of the 'experiment'. This occurred with 3 out of the 57 swimmers (Michael Japp, Adam Wheeler and Sally Howe). It can be explained by either the swimmer not performing as well on the 400m swim (possibly due to pacing) or typically from having some time off, i.e. endurance drops off but freshness increases and over short distances the swimmer is able to knock out a pretty quick time. It can also occur if the swimmer's training has been skewed much more towards shorter, faster intervals well above CSS pace, i.e. sprinting.

Of course, ideally we'd have liked to see everyone improve (that was the aim after all!) but a 79% improvement rate in CSS across the entire group is a pretty good result all round. Some possible suggestions for those who didn't improve or only improved a touch are:

How consistently were you swimming 2-3 times per week and attending the Fresh 'n' Fruity Test Set each week?
Could you have just had an 'off day' (we all have them!) - if you felt like you've been progressively well recently, it would be worth re-testing next week and see if you can have another go at it.
Have you been on holiday during this last 10 week period, or been sick / injured? Obviously the program was cut in half by the Rottnest Channel Swim - some of you would have taken a few weeks off after this - could that explain it?
Are you already swimming pretty quick (i.e. lane 4 or 4.5) - could you already be nearing your ceiling of improvement? Was 0.5% per week simply too much to ask?

Summary:

I do hope you've all found this 10 Week CSS Development Program to be at the very least intriguing! If you're still reading now, firstly, well done (!) and secondly I hope it's helped improve your knowledge and interest of how to improve your efficiency for distance swimming purely from a training / physiology perspective, i.e. irrespective of any specific stroke technique development work we did during this period. It's been a very useful exercise for me personally as I simply didn't know what people were capable of within a 10 week time frame, only that you were all likely to develop at different rates, despite all following a relatively similar program with the hope that you could all attend as consistently as possible. The findings (thus far) show that 2.59% improvement is possible within this time frame as an average, but equally that much more and much less than this amount is equally possible.

I plan to use these results to further develop the squad's fitness training structure to compliment the large amount of technique work that we also conduct.

For the next few weeks at least we'll ensure that we maintain and develop this fitness further, albeit with some new session ideas.

Thanks for reading and thanks for being part of this exciting project!

Cheers

Paul

Training is testing and testing is training!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:29:24 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Well, the 10 Week CSS Development program is complete, all that is left now is to re-test and see how everyone did!

If you recall, I hypothetically stated that a good goal for improvement would be 5% over 10 weeks, albeit knowing that some of you would see more than this, and some of you less. The big thing is that it's given us some great structure and something to work towards and that in itself has been very worthwhile.

I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts (good, bad, indifferent) about the program (even if brief) and equally how you found having the goal times to still focus on in my absence this month from the squad. I know the coaches found it useful to have a point of reference for each lane and every swimmer which I hope you could feel whilst in the water.

So we will re-test at the following sessions this week:

Wednesday 9.30am
Friday 5.30am
Friday 6.30am
- within various sessions next week via "appointment" (i.e. for those who can't make it this week but would like to be re-tested).

The test will be exactly the same as before - a 400m time trial and a 200m time trial (separated by ~10 mins of easy swimming / active recovery) - and we shall run waves within the squad if numbers are large to ensure a 10s gap between swimmers as per last time.

I will collate everyone's results and work out your new CSS pace. I'll then be able to work this back and say (for example) if you had a 3s improvement, this would mean that you made it to Week 6 in the program and had ~3% improvement over the 10 weeks. Everyone will be different no doubt - this is not a name or shame exercise, just chance to see how well you did and more globally how effective the whole exercise has been.

If possible have a day off or easy day of training the day before and come set with the view of knocking out a good performance but in a controlled, well paced way. Enjoy!

When I take down your times it'd also be really useful for me to know how many of the 10 weeks you've been able to attend in this last block for my reference against improvement.

Going forwards we'll still be doing a lot of this type of training at these sessions but will probably add in a bit of speed work for something slightly different for the next couple of weeks and certainly won't be asking you to do the monotonous 10 x 100 at the start of every week for a while!

Thanks everyone, see you on the pool deck.

P.S don't panic - just come and do your best, enjoy, and pace yourself out well...if nothing else the 100s at the start of each week should have really shown you how to pace yourself properly!!

Cheers

Paul

Back to business, Easter and a Ladies Cycle Clinic!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 23:56:56 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Hope you are well. First proper day back on the pool deck today and what a beautiful morning it was!

9.30am sessions this week and next:

I ran my first proper open water session of 2012 down at Cottesloe Beach this morning for the 9.30am session and despite an early sea breeze it all went very well indeed. Just as a reminder, this Friday at 9.30am and next Monday at 9.30am will also both be down at Cottesloe Beach - please pop along if you can, it's a lot of fun! All other sessions are down at Claremont Pool.

Easter:

For the Easter Weekend, there will be no official sessions on Friday 6th April, Saturday 7th April, Sunday 8th April and Monday 9th April.

All will be back to normal from Tuesday 10th April for our lead-up to the Busselton Half Ironman event. I personally love this time of year for swim coaching - the weather's a bit cooler but still very fine and the volume of swimmers in the pool (including the public and carnivals, school programs etc) is always a bit lower than earlier on in the year. For those waiting for a spot to join the squad, we anticipate space becoming available in all but the 5.30am sessions on Tuesday and Friday. If interested, please reply to this email.

Please note that the 5.30am Wednesday morning session will remain as a feature over the winter at this stage, so anyone keen on getting in a really challenging and satisfying longer swim session in the week, please pop along to this!

Ladies Cycle Clinic:

Short notice this one, but may appeal to quite a few of the ladies in the group:

Garland Cycleworks is in South Perth on the corner of Albany Hwy and Berwick st (parking located behind the store next to Bunnings) is holding a Ladies Cycle Clinic tonight and Saturday. See:

http://www.garlandcycleworks.com/

Session #1 Tonight 6:30pm - 8:00pm, Womens Clinic Night, features:

• Learn how to maintain your bike, change a tyre and get tips from experts for the road or trail.

• Talk to the energy experts from Endura, about using energy products to improve performance and recovery.

• Learn about the Specialized women specific bikes, accessories and clothing that are available and how you can benefit from them.

• Check which size or type of saddle or what foot bed insert you should be using with our free BG saddle and shoe fits.

• Chat to like minded people about all things cycling over a glass of wine and some nibbles at this fun and free women only event!

Session #2 Saturday 6:30am - 9:00am, Womens Group Ride (test our bikes and equipment or bring your own. *limited supply), features:

As a follow up from our clinic night we will be holding a women only group to go out out with our regular Saturday morning group rides. The group will leave last and will be a friendly and social no drop(fast as the slowest rider) ride of around 30km. There will be bikes available to test, saddles to demo and and maybe even a few pairs of shoes to try.We should be back between 8.30 and 9.00 in time for fresh coffee and muffins!

To Register call Garland Cycleworks on 94701990.

Homeward Bound!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:47:45 PDT

The team behind the new range of HUUB wetsuits - (L-R): Huub Toussaint, Dean Jackson, Adam Young, Paul Newsome

Dear Swimmers,

I'm just on my way to the airport for the flight back to sunny Perth. It's been a great trip and really worthwhile - sincere thanks for supporting the squad in my absence and making the coaches feel welcome. I look forward to receiving any feedback that you may have (from what I've heard so far, everything has gone very smoothly indeed!). I'll be on the pool deck at 1pm for the Saturday squad session this week and then back to normal next week.

Please note that the 9.30am Monday Time-4-Me session will be held at Cottesloe Beach this Monday (26th March) due to a carnival at the pool - please pop along - it'll be a really fun session!

Here's Olympic Gold Medallist (Moscow, 1980) and British celebrity Duncan Goodhew with Swim Smooth Coach Julian Nagi at the London Olympic Pool prior to delivering a unique one-off coached swim session to nearly 50 British Gas employees (they sponsor British Swimming):

Duncan Goodhew (left) and Julian Nagi (right)

Access all areas: Julian Nagi coaching the British Gas employees in Swim Smooth techniques

Catching up with coach Steve Casson (right) at one of his three swim training facilities, this being his Endless Pool flume tank

Cheers! See you all soon,

Paul

3 more days to go then homeward bound!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:24:08 PDT

Dear Swimmers

I hope all's going well for you over in Perth - just 3 days now until I step back on the plane and head back there to sunny old Perth (I think my 'moon' tan needs some work!).

Since I last wrote we've completed two 3-day Coach Education Courses - one in Stirling, Scotland and the other in Loughborough, England. They each had 12 coaches whom had travelled from as far afield as Israel, Germany, South Africa and Belgium to attend. These 3-day courses are a chance for coaches to learn our video analysis and stroke correction skills for use in their own coaching businesses or within their club environment. Given that the coaches all went through a selection / screening process and were selected from over 120 candidates from around the world, we were optimistic that we'd see some great coaching talent - and we certainly did, in droves!

Loughborough, England 16-18 March 2012

Stirling, Scotland 9-11 March 2012

N.B notice how the pool backgrounds almost look identical - these two pools are carbon copies of each other, save for Stirling being a slightly narrower 6-lane 50m pool and Loughborough an 8-lane 50m pool. Both are brilliant facilities (for the UK!).

On the third day of each course we ran a full 1-day Swim Smooth Clinic where 12 swimmers joined us and the coaches had chance to then utilise their new skills by shadowing the work and direction that myself and Adam were delivering with their own 1-2-1 coach:swimmer. The coaches stated that they all really enjoyed this pragmatic experience.

Coach Lucy with swimmer Clare in Loughborough, England.

Coaches observe 1-2-1 instruction on pool deck at Loughborough University, England.

On the second day in Loughborough we were paid a surprise visit by legendary sports scientist Huub Toussaint (see: http://web.mac.com/htoussaint/SwimSite/Propelling_Efficiency.html ) who is part of our 3-way partnership in the new range of HUUB wetsuits. Having Huub on pool deck with us and seeing what we do and how we translate his (and other biomechanist's) groundbreaking research on propulsive efficiency into easily understandable coaching tidbits for the swimmers and coaches was truly great. Having studied this great man's work at university 12 years ago and to now be part of the same partnership that is bringing high-end sports science into the real world is something really special for me - I have to keep pinching myself! ;-)

Here is Huub (centre) with one of our recently certified Swim Smooth Coaches, Martin Hill (left) and owner Dean Jackson (right) testing the new Archimedes suit:

On day two of the Loughborough course we also invited Harry Wilshire, GB International Triathlete and Olympic hopeful to come and demonstrate his stroke for the coaches. Together with HUUB we are helping Harry with some financial assistance to be able to race in the events around the world that he needs to do to try and secure his chance of being selected for the British team. He's still got a long way to go though and then selection itself can go one of two ways depending upon how the British team decides to support their two young superstars, the Brownlee Brothers. Anything we can do to support Harry in this venture though will be beneficial hopefully and help keep this little sparkle of chance alive. Harry will be racing in Sydney all being well next weekend as one of those qualifiers.

Here's Harry testing the new HUUB wetsuit, immediately after swimming 100m very comfortably in under 58 seconds - not bad for a triathlete!

All smiles after a very quick 100m in the Archimedes 4:4 wetsuit

In between the coaches courses we've also run a 1-day swimmer's clinic in Edinburgh, had dinner with the founder of Finis Inc. (the company that makes most of the pool toys that we use in the squad) who flew in from California to meet us, observed the world's top 2 triathletes (the Brownlee Brothers) in action in Leeds, worked more on the book, and are just ramping up for two more 1-day clinics in Corby, England tomorrow and Wednesday before flying straight back to Perth on Thursday. I will literally be hitting the ground running at about 3am on Saturday and on pool deck by 10am Saturday - phew! Hopefully I'll get a nice easy day on Sunday with Mish and the kids before seeing you all down at the pool next week.

Swim Smooth Coach Steve Casson (left), John Mix (CEO of Finis Inc), Paul & Adam

Until then, a-bientot!

Paul

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 05:29:41 PDT

Dear Swimmers

Hope all is well with you. All still crazy busy over here in the UK, but all going exceedingly well which is great! We're going to be meeting the UK's top two triathletes set for Olympic podium places in London tomorrow morning which is very exciting!

Here we are at the British swimming trials:

Finally, here's a note from one of our swimmer's sons about a charity running event at Scotch College soon - hope you can attend / donate for this good cause.

Cheers

Paul

P.S I hope you're still getting Fresh & Fruity on a Wednesday and Friday morning! ;-)

Dear Family and Friends

I am organizing a fun run for my year 10 personal project. It is a 5km event on the 29th of April 2012 at Scotch college playing fields. I hope that you can come down on the day and support the worthy cause. All the profits from the race are going to ICEA, feel free to invite others to come down to the event.

For more information on the event please check out the website: http://iceafunrun.weebly.com/. Please register on-line before the race day.

Thanks

Kyle

VIP access to Olympic Park! Wahoo!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:22:52 PST

Dear Swimmers

Hope all is well over there in Perth - it's bloomin' freezing over here in the UK right now!

Well we had a real treat yesterday, courtesy of Colin Hill, Swim Smooth fan and event director of the 10km Open Water Swimming Event at the London 2012 Olympics in Hyde Park - VIP access and tour of Olympic Park and the new 50m Olympic Pool! It was sensational!

We attended as Colin's guests for the morning heats of the Olympic Trials and watched some of the Brits knock out some seriously quick 100m freestyle times - Aussies, watch out!

The facility is amazing with polished concrete diving platforms (here's Adam with Colin):

...and here's Adam trying to gain a sense of what it will be like for Michael Phelps / Becky Addlington et al. to be waiting in the Final Call room immediately before heading out onto the pool deck to rapturous applause - we got goose bumps just being in this off-limits room!

...I couldn't contain my excitement, so here's a video clip showing you the pool from the stands:

If you cannot see the video player above, check it out directly at YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvTKr9K-u8k

And if you're keen to see two short video clips on the HUUB wetsuits that we've helped design and test, check out:

If you cannot see the video player above, check it out directly at YouTube:

http://youtu.be/KHAUxJk2nYI

And the female suit at:

If you cannot see the video player above, check it out directly at YouTube:

http://youtu.be/YPHfukQGq4w

We're now up in bonny Scotland and it's just started snowing - lovely!

See you soon!

Paul

Aloha from the UK!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 14:47:02 PST

Dear Swimmers

Hope you're all doing well and everything is going smoothly with the new coaches whilst I am away (I'm sure it is and that you're loving having a change from me! LOL!).

So, all is going great over here. I flew in late on Thursday night and was immediately whisked away by Adam to Chessington where we have been staying for the last 3 nights. I've been coping well with the jetlag, but then again I have been up to 3am every night working on our presentations for the Triathlon Show!!

We've had a stand at the show shared with Huub wetsuits (see above) and have delivered two fully booked out seminars to over 300 people each time, making them the most popular technical seminars of the entire show by a good margin. This has been great for us and really exciting to see so many keen people in what we are doing with Swim Smooth and of course Huub wetsuits.

Tomorrow we're meeting up with the London Olympics director for the 10km open water swim and then delivering a mini Swim Smooth Clinic to a private club in central London in the evening. We then need to high-tail it up to Scotland for Thursday where we'll then deliver a 3-day Coaches Education course in Stirling followed by a 1-day swimmer's course in Edinburgh. It's then down to Loughborough University to repeat this same schedule plus another two swimmer's courses in the one of the new satellite Olympic pools in Corby. I can't wait!

It's going to be a crazily busy 3 weeks but then again we wouldn't want it any other way!

Speak soon and please enjoy the hot weather for me - it's pretty chilly over here right now!

Cheers

Paul

P.S that's me with 4 times World Ironman Champion Chrissie Wellington at the show - amazing athlete and the nicest person you're ever likely to meet!

Public Holiday Monday 5th March 2012

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 20:03:49 PST

Hi all,

Just a brief reminder that the 7am and 9.30am squad sessions will still be running this coming Monday despite the Public Holiday - hope that helps those of you not going away this weekend!

P.S Saturday 3rd March at 1pm is also back on after last week's hiatus with the Rottnest Swim.

Cheers

Paul

Bon voyage!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:09:35 PST

Dear Swimmers

Please be advised that I will be away for 3 weeks following my final sessions tomorrow morning at 5.30am and 9.30am, and will be back on pool deck from Saturday 24th March at 1pm. In my absence, all the normal sessions will still be running with the coaching allocations thus:

http://swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/March_2012_Coaching_Roster.pdf

...given that Rotto is over for another year, the only minor modification is that the Wednesday 5.30am sessions will be a maximum of 4-5km (not the 6-7km sessions we've been use to of late). These will also be complete by ~7am. This is a great session to build your endurance and really fine tune your pacing etc.

N.B. Some of the coaching allocations are subject to change, especially with Francene being so close to having her first baby (wahoo!) - please be understanding if things change at short notice with respect to who is taking the session - thanks!

9.30am session swimmers, please take heed of the notes regarding some of the session locations whilst I am away, i.e. 25m pool and two beach sessions owing to fully booked pool space due to the carnival season. Please be patient and supportive of the coaches at this time and also the pool staff as they have all done their very best to ensure that we can maintain the program as much as possible during this busy period at the pool.

Also, if you still require a PAYG payment card, there's the option to buy one at either of the 5.30am or 9.30am sessions tomorrow (Wednesday 29th February) or online at: http://swimsmooth.com/perth_buycard.html

...if you happen to process a payment whilst I am away, please print out the receipt and present this to your coach on the day to receive your PAYG cards.

On this note, please can I request that you are all super diligent in bringing your PAYG cards to each session...there have been a few consistently 'forgetful' swimmers recently but this will prove to be an admin nightmare with 3 coaches taking the various sessions in my absence, so please support this system as best you can. Your support here is much appreciated!

OK guys, have a great 3 weeks with the new coaches and the exciting sessions that we have planned between us. The 10 week CSS Development Program will still continue in the same format on a Wednesday at 9.30am and Friday at 5.30am & 6.30am. This week is week 7, I return at the end of week 10 and we will be doing some re-testing in week 11 upon my return to see how you've all gone, so please keep up the great work you've been putting in recently!

Cheers and enjoy!

Paul

Congratulations!

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 07:23:12 PST

Dear Swimmers

Congratulations to all of you who successfully completed the 22nd annual Rottnest Channel Swim yesterday. Conditions turned out to be much better than predicted and times generally speaking were relatively quick despite the swell earlier in the day. I aimed to get as many shots of you all either starting or finishing as possible (not easy with 48 successful soloists, and over 70 DUO & TEAM swimmers from the squad and my 1-2-1 coaching taking part!). These can be viewed here:

http://gallery.me.com/swimsmooth/100985

Full results will be published in the next couple of days at:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/ and http://www.rottnestchannelswim.com.au/

It has been an incredible season seeing so many of you take on such a massive goal and succeed in the finest of fashions! Well done to you all! It would be unfair to suggest who had the best race from the squad as just making it across to the island is such a huge fete in itself and many of you were out there to simply complete your first ever solo swim and pick up the number plates! There were some seriously impressive performances though and generally speaking I'd say that 90% of you seemed happy with your times, including all those of you who smashed your PBs from previous years, of which there were many!

Just to illuminate a bit of perspective on the whole time thing though for the few of you who thought you could have / should have swum quicker, squad stalwart and now English Channel legend Paul Downie, swam 9h16m in 2009 for his first successful crossing of the Rottnest Channel. Paul suffered severe shoulder pain in the last 6km but battled on to set in motion what would then be 2.5yrs of hard work leading up to a successful assault on the English Channel in September 2011. Despite Paul's route being over twice the distance of Cottesloe to Thomson's Bay, he completed his epic English Channel swim in just 12h38m. Why raise this point? Well of the 48 soloists who successfully swam to the Rottnest Island this weekend from the Swim Smooth squad and those whom I've been coaching on a 1-2-1 basis, the longest time it took to swim the Rottnest Channel yesterday was 8h48m, i.e. 26 minutes faster than Paul's first attempt in 2009. The quickest (for your reference) was 5h15m.

Should this suggest that all 48 of you now look to swimming the English Channel? No, probably not, but despite how you're feeling with your aching arms and tired muscles over the next few days, please try to take onboard what you have achieved this weekend and realise that very few people have done what you just have. Enjoy this feeling and who knows, maybe you might just have inspired another swim in yourself next year or for another Rotto virgin in your lane!

363 days of training to go...!

Cheers and well done again - I'm super proud to be known as your coach.

Paul

This time tomorrow...

paul@swimsmooth.com (PaulNewsome) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:17:52 PST

...most of you will be across on Rottnest Island, or there or thereabouts! Wahoo!!

The weather conditions look like they have stabilised a touch, but it will pick-up to a SW wind ~11am, so please be prepared for this (not scared, just prepared - and you are, all of you!).

Given the likely conditions and what I'd promised to send out with respect to suitable change-over times for DUO and TEAM swimmers, if it proves to be a bit tricky to get in / out of the boat, my suggestion would be to lengthen the time you spend in the water so that this process doesn't become so fatiguing midway through the swim when you need it most.

As a DUO (of which I have now done three crossings all in about 5h30 with three different partners), we've always done this as me off the beach (first km), my partner will then take the first 12-15 mins whilst I recoup and get my bearings off the beach and then we'd immediately jump down to rotations of 8-10 mins for the first couple of hours before bringing this down to 6-8 mins in the next 2-3 hours and even down to 3-4 mins in the 'final' hour (sometimes given the conditions this might become slightly longer than an hour!). I would say that you'd want to factor on about this +2-3 mins per cycle depending on how rough it gets (i.e. the rougher it is the longer each swimmer should stay in because of the hassle of swapping over). Still though, the max I'd recommend staying in for would be 10-12 mins after that first rotation as swim speed will invariably drop-off somewhat and with the prospect of worsening weather at ~11am, faster (sustainable) paces will be advantageous at the start.

I've never competed in a TEAM event (one year maybe!) but you might like to sway your rotations towards the stronger swimmers in the team (i.e. 6-10 mins for the stronger swimmers and 4-7 mins for the less strong) in order to gain the advantage of an easier day all round if you cover more ground before ~11am. Again, you'd typically start off with longer rotations and reduce these as you got closer to Rottnest and your speed starts to decline all round.

Obviously for SOLOS you don't have to factor such rotations, but I would still stick with your fuelling stop plan as suggested earlier in the week (i.e. 15 to 25 mins). Ensure that your paddler is protecting you from the elements as best as possible and also trying to shelter you when you're feeding as a mouth full of seawater is not nice and will not aid your digestion! Let your skipper set your course and let the paddler follow the boat and be your guide. Tell your paddlers not to deviate from the course even if you (as the swimmer) are mistakenly nudging them off course. Have faith in their judgement and just you get on with your swimming.

OK, so very best of luck everyone. It looks like it will be a tough day at the office, so let's not beat around the bush and get our heads set squarely on. With this in mind I'd like to leave you with these three points / quotes before I see you in the morning on the beach:

whether you think you can, or you think you can't, either way you are right!
the darkest hour still only has sixty minutes in it!
enjoy the challenge - no-one is forcing you to do this or holding a gun to your head...you are doing this because you want to and what the challenge of training for such an event has brought to your life. Now all you can do is just do your best and keep a smile on your face knowing that you are undertaking a challenge which very few people are fortunate enough to be in the position to do so.

My final point is to do with times and expectations of yourself - if I can be brutally honest for a moment, in 2009 I completed my first solo swim - I finished 6th in the men's event and 9th overall (way higher than I had ever believed possible, beating many swimmers who I thought would smash me). I had a goal throughout my whole training program of going sub-5 hrs. I crossed the line in 5h24m. Despite finishing as high up in the field as I did and with the winner 'only' doing 4h48m that year due to strong currents around the island, the first recollection I have of the finish was one of total disappointment for not having cracked 5 hours. I didn't know then where I had finished, only my seemingly disappointing time. Michelle still recalls how sad and grumpy I looked when in fact I should have been overjoyed by making it. The achievement of completing my first ever Rottnest Solo Swim ranks as one of my best ever sporting accomplishments, and yet that initial wave of disappointment and grumpiness will always rank as one of my deepest regrets. Please don't let this happen to yourself.

In September 2011 I completed the English Channel Swim (again in a much slower time than I had envisaged even given the brutal conditions). The last words that I had still ringing in my ears before I started was "forget about the times, just make it across" after speaking with an English Channel veteran and former British record holder. He knew that the conditions weren't conducive to good times and knew that anyone who chased quick times would be either sorely disappointed or would not even make it to France. Without a doubt this was the very best bit of advice I could have had knowing that I was setting out in less than ideal conditions. This savvy advice might just prove to be what you need to have ringing in your ears before you set off tomorrow!

Best of luck everyone - you can do it if you believe you can!

Paul