What is Developing the WHOLE PERSON?

It has been over 5 years since I have added anything here.  I have been feeling inspired the last couple of weeks so I decided to try diving back into writing.  Please share with anyone you feel could get something out of this.

Coaches talk about developing not only the athlete, but the WHOLE PERSON.  Have you ever sat back and thought about what that meant?  I am going to try and explain what it means to me in 10 simple parts.

1. Time management/Punctuality – It is not just about being able to manage your time with all of your different responsibilities, it is also about being on time.  “Early is on time, and on time is late, and late is unacceptable!” -Unknown
2. Goal Oriented – Understanding how to set not just BIG long term goals, but also set short term SMALLER goals that help you continue to work towards that long term goal.  A good example is I (Coach Anthony) am trying to walk 1500 miles in the calendar year.  Each month I set a goal of what mileage I want to be at by the end of the month in order to ensure I will succeed if not supersede my goal.  
3. Responsibility – Being accountable to yourself and others.  When you say you are going to do something, follow through.
4. Teamwork – Swimming may seem like an individual sport, but it actually requires a lot of team work. This means developing friendships, mutual inspiration and admiration, and respect amongst team mates.  Great examples of teamwork would be cheering on everyone swimming in your lane as they finish a long set, providing words of encouragement throughout a long set, or challenging each other during a tough set.
5. Confidence – Having belief in yourself AND the group.  Believing in your coaches, leaders and team. 
6. Courage – The ability to “Fail Beautifully”.  During points of failure is where you can learn the most about yourself.  If you are not willing to take the risks, you will never know your true potential. Despite what you may think, no one succeeds at everything they do the first time.
7. Communication – Being able to communicate with your teammates, coaches, parents, teachers and anyone else in your life.  You need to be able to communicate your goals, schedule, and conflicts.
8. Honesty – Being 100% honest with yourself. 
9. Diligence – Being able to continue working towards long term and short term goals even when obstacles or setbacks happen.  Working towards a goal is never a straight line.  Life will get in the way.  It is how you work your way through the hard times that you will begin to thrive and grow not only as an athlete but as an individual.
10. Leadership – Not everyone is a vocal leader. I was not a vocal leader growing up.  I would lead by example, meaning I would know the whole set, know the intervals and when we were leaving and I was going to push everyone by pushing the pace every day.  Vocal leaders need to be a positive force that rallies their teammates towards their own goals.  Leaders are about the “WE” not the “ME.” As cliché as it sounds “There is no I in TEAM.”  Leaders look for the glory of the team, not just themselves.

If as coaches we are able to help hone each one of these skills and traits we will be doing a tremendous job.

Disclaimer:  These are my opinions and are not to be a reflection on anyone other than myself.

Dealing with Injuries!

Managing swimmers with injuries is sometimes the most difficult part of coaching. As a coach you get frustrated, are bummed because of setbacks, yet determined to make sure your swimmer heals as needed. As a swimmer (or any athlete in most cases) you are just frustrated because the healing process is never quick enough.  You feel you are going to miss out, be left behind and never recover.

I have a swimmer who recently got injured in an Advanced PE Class at her high school. How did the injury occur? Well that is the tough part. I do not know exactly how or what my swimmer was doing when the injury occurred and the truth is they are not 100% sure what they were doing either. This doesn’t surprise me because athletes are stubborn by nature.  I sure know I was when I was still swimming.  We think we are invincible and can push ourselves through anything with no repercussions. 

My swimmer did not say anything to me to start.  I noticed a few times during a tough aerobic set that this swimmer kept grabbing her shoulder.  I asked the swimmer if everything was okay and she said that her shoulder was a little sore.  As she kept swimming I started to notice the pain on her face.  So, I pulled her out of the water and started to ask more thorough questions. 

As an athlete it is very important that you are honest with yourself, your family and your coach.  The injury I mentioned above turns out it is not as serious as it could have been had, but mainly because we caught it so early.  As a coach, you need to be aware of each and every one of your athletes to the best of your ability. You need to pay attention to signs that indicate something is wrong…physically or emotionally.

As a result of my discussion with her we decided to take a couple of days of rest to see if it was just something minor. However, and the pain remained.  The swimmer was able to go to the doctor and after x-rays and an MRI they found one of her tendons was beginning to fray in the rotator cuff.  Yikes! This sounds bad, but it is not nearly as bad as it could have been. 

Based on my swimmers PT requirements and MRI results we have completely shut her down from using her arms. We decided since being out of the water is not an option for her that our focus would turn to her legs while she completed about 6 weeks of physical therapy. This allowed her to continue her cardio work and let the shoulder recover.  She is also supposed to ice and take an anti-inflammatory medication (talk about a challenge) daily to help promote the healing. 

In the long run, this has turned into a learning experience for me as a coach.  I can do everything to pay attention to all my swimmers and stay aware of everything going on in the pool, but unless they physically and obviously show signs of injury I do not know unless they tell me.  As an athlete it is important that they are aware of what their body is telling them and that they be their own advocate if something is not right.  I have mentioned the importance of communication between athlete and coach. But the truth is, a good athlete wants to push themselves no matter what.

 I read an article today about an NFL player (Russell Allen) that hid his injury that drives the point of communication home. (Here is the link to the article about Russell Allen)  There was a football player that took a hit that looked like nothing, but described it as getting his bell rung.  He hid it from the coaches and it turns out shortly after the hit he had a stroke.  He also was lucky, but his injury was much more severe.  He can no longer play football but he is alive.  Now in my case, my swimmer’s injury was nothing life threatening but it serves to make my point. 

As a coach, in a highly competitive sport, it is sometimes hard to try and not push your athlete through an injury. And many injuries athletes can push through with any side effects or repercussions. But when an injury potentially sidelines one of my swimmers I find myself  telling my swimmers, and myself, this is a marathon not a sprint.  There are going to be bumps in the road, mountains to climb, plateaus to cross, but in the end the most important things are to be happy, healthy and have no regrets!

Disclaimer:  These are my opinions and are not to be a reflection on anyone other than myself.

Managing Expectations

As the group I coach is getting older I have started having to work on managing expectations.  This is a very interesting and touchy subject with my swimmers and families.  As swimmers grow and mature the expectation of a best time every time in a race is impossible to achieve, but what they always seem to expect.  However, I look at each meet as a stepping stone towards their goals not  as a race for best times. 

 Right now we are in the heart of our training cycle for our Short Course season building towards our Spring Championship meets.  So as part of this training cycle I have sat down with most of my swimmers to discuss goals, their calendar (practice and meet schedule), and my plans leading into our championship meet.  During our discussions we talk about the opportunities to race at any upcoming meets over the next few months and what our strategies will look like during practice and those meets.  One of the most important topics that I discuss with them is my expectations for each meet.  I am not always expecting best times at every meet, but what I do expect to see are the skills we have been working on in training implemented into their racing.  A perfect example was over the past few weeks we have been working on our turns and under waters.  We had a meet this past weekend and that is what I expected to see my swimmers focus on during their race.  However, what I found was, despite what I have told them, some of the swimmers felt that if I am not expecting best times they did not have to put forth their best effort.  And this is completely wrong.  I am looking for each swimmer to give 100% effort during a race while also focusing on those skills we have been training to improve. 

Why do I not expect best times? Simple.  At this point in the season as we are not tapering for these meets.  These meets are meant to hone certain skills so when the big competition meets come up in the spring my swimmers are in the best shape and form they can be in. The goal is for everything to become second nature so come spring championship meets we are no longer worrying about turns and under waters, but concentrating on best times.

I know swimmers are not going to be perfect at every meet or every race but we are striving for that perfection in the long run.  

For more information on tapering check out: What to expect during taper  

Disclaimer:  These are my opinions and are not to be a reflection on anyone other than myself.

Who am I swimming for?

Over the years I have seen swimmers come into the sport, swim really fast at a young age, and they leave before they even graduate high school.  I have always found this an interesting phenomenon, though I am sure it is not limited to just swimming.  However, I believe this happens for a couple of reasons. 

The first reason is that these swimmers commonly develop strength at young age and they are much bigger and stronger than their peers.  They may not have the greatest technique, but they swim fast times and can do so on strength alone.  These swimmers eventually are caught by their peers because not only have they gained strength but do so while gaining better technique in order to be more competitive.   As a coach, I see this every year. I try to work with swimmers like this, but they are normally only successful if I can get them to buy in to the importance in developing their technique to go along with what is sometimes natural strength.  Yes, their peers do catch up to them, but they normally have started to work on their technique in order stay competitive.

The second reason is because they begin to see swimming as a job. Many times I associate this with the swimmer whose parents push them to the point where swimming is no longer fun.  This is the swimmer who swims because “Well my Mom wants me to.”  This same swimmer after a race comes up to me and says, “My Dad is not happy because I lost to (insert name).”, or “My Parent’s are upset because I added time.”  I have heard this more times than I can even count and it still makes my blood boil.  This swimmer is not swimming for them; they are swimming for someone else.  This is in my opinion one of the most difficult athletes to work with.  The only way they are motivated is by the repercussions of how their parent might reacts.  Over the years I have spent a lot of time trying to educate parents on expectations and explain in detail why we are doing what we are doing in practice and meets.  This is still a challenge as these parents believe they have their swimmers best interest at heart. I understand this, but parents have to learn and trust in the plan of their child’s professional coach.  Because despite what some parents think, the coach normally has their swimmers best interest in mind.  If the swimmer is only swimming to please their parent and not themselves they will only get so far.

The truth is swimming is very much an individualized sport.  You have to have the desire and drive to achieve the highest levels. Swimming needs to be something that you want to do. Yes, you swim with a team, but ultimately your success is not determined on how well your team does in a given meet like most sports. The swimmer spends hours upon hours immersed in water staring at the black line on the bottom of the pool.  You rarely hear anything else that is going on around you other than the thoughts in your own head.  I remember some days wondering how many tiles were on the bottom of the pool and trying to count them.  (I never found out the answer to that question, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t try to figure it out.) 

The question ever serious swimmer needs to ask themselves is… are you swimming for yourself or someone else? 

Disclaimer:  These are my opinions and are not to be a reflection on anyone other than myself.