Swim Smooth Sessions 17 to 26 (Holiday Period)

Dear All

We very much hope you are enjoying the Swim Smooth Blog and our regular free postings of our squad swim sessions.

Myself and Michelle will be heading off tommorow from Perth over to Toronto & then Montreal to get married on the 8th December. We then head over to the UK for Christmas and New Year before being back in Perth for the 3rd January. As such the Blog postings will be a little quiet for the next 5 weeks whilst we are away on our exciting holiday and as such, rather than leave you "high and dry" without any Swim Sessions, we have prepared this little downloadable schedule for you with some session ideas for you to print off!

As our squad is now only doing 2 pool sessions per week (plus 1 Open Water session and then a solo Friday technique swim which follows the session outline as per http://www.swimsmooth.com/samplesession.htm ), we will provide the following sessions for your Tuesday and Thursday swims until the 2nd week of January and suggest you supplement with the session link above on a Friday or Saturday. Here goes (see the schedule for full details):

Remember, if you need any help with the session content, the Swim Smooth DVD Boxset is an excellent resource for your drill development!

Tues 27th - Session # 6
Thurs 29th - Session # 7
Tues 4th - Session # 9
Thurs 6th - Session # 18
Tues 11th - Session # 8
Thurs 13th - Session # 20
Tues 18th - Session # 2
Thurs 20th - Session # 13
---- 2 week Christmas Break (keep swimming up, but your choice of session!) ----
Tues 1st - Session # 5
Thurs 3rd - Session # 10 (this is on the 3rd page with session # 9)

Please note we will only have sporadic email contact between the 28th November and the 3rd December.

Online Store Closure Period:

The Swim Smooth International Dispatch office will be closed from Tuesday 4th December until Monday 17th December, so if you plan to buy the Swim Smooth DVD, some PT Paddles and / or a Wetronome for one of your friends or family, please get your orders in within the next week to ensure pre-Christmas delivery. The office will be again open from Monday 17th December to Friday 21st December where last-minute shipments will be made (though not guaranteed for Christmas). The office will then be closed again from Saturday 22nd December until Thursday 3rd January 2008 when we will commence normal working hours. Thanks for your patience and understanding at this busy and exciting time!

Here's wishing you a great Christmas!

Regards

Paul

Session # 16

A very relaxed session this morning after yesterday's T60 Challenge!

 

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

 

Paul

Session # 15

Test yourself with the T60 swim challenge, our top swimmer this morning covered just over 4300m in the 60 mins time-frame..see what you can do!

 

Session # 14

A tough session today focused on developing top-end speed over a set of 6 x broken 200m swims - enjoy!

Session # 13

We're having a steady couple of sessions in the latter half of this week...unless your name is Bec of course - well done on a great set!

Session # 12

A super-steady and simple set today totalling between 2.4km and 3.0km - enjoy!

Session # 11

By far and away my personal favourite swim session - the 40 x 50m "Spike Set" - enjoy!

Session # 10

An opportunity today to work on some individual stroke correction (as per the given examples). Choose an aspect of your stroke that needs work and really work to address this in the middle 5 x 100m set. Then do a set of 20 x 50m with a few short fast efforts (as per the board) where you try to maintain form. Have a good weekend!

Session # 9

Just a leisurely aerobic swim today focusing on good form, body roll and a smooth hand entry (plus a bit of hypoxic breathing work!). Enjoy!

Session # 8

This is a tough threshold session - so make sure you don't start off too fast and blow it!

Follow the Swim Smooth Wiki!

If you have any questions regarding the Swim Smooth 8-week Training Program or wish to know more about how others are progressing in their goal of finishing the program, please visit the new Swim Smooth Wiki page at: http://swimsmooth.pbwiki.com/

 

We'd like to thank Phil Wilson (UK) for all his help setting this Wiki up purely to help others get the most from the program - cheers Phil!

 

Enjoy!

 

Paul

Session # 7

An easy session this morning, working on body rotation and catch in preparation for a full weekend of racing!

Swimming Bands Only

Here's a clip of a Team Swim Smooth swimmer displaying an excellent catch and hold on the water even when using a band around the ankles. Notice no dead-spots in his stroke (i.e. no over-gliding), exceptional core control, and toes pointed in plantar flexion. Most swimmers feel like they sink when they try this exercise - not this swimmer, he's just cruising at 1'23" for this 100m. If you try this at home, start off with short intervals of between 25m and 50m, make sure you feel stretch through your stomach to lengthen and keep the hips up, and try stroking at a slightly higher rate than normal to eliminate dead-spots in your stroke.

Session # 6

A steady aerobic swim with a total distance of between 2.5km and 4.0km - enjoy!