Carleton Masters Weekly Newsletter #18 Thursday, September 6th, 2001

To: Carleton Coaches

Bcc: Early Birds (49 addresses); Whitecaps (49 addresses)

Newsletter Changing to Bi-weekly

The Masters newsletter will be issued bi-weekly from now on due to my Fall Schedule. Please continue to send in your input!

Start of Fall Session and Interim "Toonie" Workouts

The fall session, with all four groups (Early Birds I and II, Whitecaps, and Nightcaps) starts on Monday, September 17th. Please register at the Athletics Office (2nd floor) or call 520-4480. Interim "toonie" workouts at a cost of $2 each (fee applicable to Varsity as well as Masters swimmers) for those already registered for the Fall session are available until Saturday, September 15th at the following times:

"Toonie" Workout Schedule (pay $2 to the coach):

Thursday, September 6th: 6-7:10pm (Coach: Lynn)

Friday, September 7th: 7:30-8:30am (Coach: Lynn)

Saturday, September 8th: 9-10am (Coach: Kristi)

Monday, September 10th: 7:30-8:30am (Coach: Lynn)

Monday, September 10th: 6-7:10pm (Coach: Mits)

Tuesday, September 11th: 6-7:10pm (Coach: Kristi)

Wednesday, September 12: 7:30-8:30am (Coach: Lynn)

Thursday, September 13th: 6-7:10pm (Coach: Mits)

Friday, September 14th: 7:30-8:30am (Coach: Lynn)

Saturday, September 15th: 9-10am (Coach: Lynn)

Swimmers' Strength Training Clinic

The instructor for the Fall Swimmer's Strength Training Clinic (11am-1pm Saturday September 15th, September 22nd and October 13th; cost $30 + $2.10 GST = $32.10 for members) is John Gallien, one of Carleton's personal trainers with a degree in kinesiology and lots of experience. If anyone has any specific questions for John, please let me know and I'll pass them along.

Race Reports (as usual, please let me know if I've missed anyone or any races!):

Please send in your race results for inclusion here!

Ask the Coach

Dear Coach: I have been feeling tired in the water all week. What's wrong? Concerned

Dear Concerned: It's not that unusual to have a bad day (or week) in the water. Few of us are able to train full time, and thus have many other things going on in our lives (work and community commitments, as well as family and social activities). If you have stress in other areas of your life that affect your schedule (eating, sleeping, rest time), you'll likely notice a difference in the pool. However, if you continue to feel very tired for much longer than a week, I recommend visiting your doctor. Also, note that progress in swimming (or any sport) is not linear. You may find that you have a rapid improvement for a time and then it plateaus -- stick with it and further improvements will come!

Early Birds (Morning Group) Notes: Relay!

Last Friday (August 31st)'s relay was a great race. Lane 4 (Sue, Bernie, Lara, Jim) took on Lanes 2&3 (Dave B, Mike O, Andrew K, Jen G). Lane 4's total age 180 relay was given a 20sec head start over the Lane 2&3 total age 160 relay. It came down to a nail biting stroke for stroke race between the freestylers, with lane 4 clinching the win by 0.4 seconds: 2:58.9 to 2:59.3!! Great job everyone! As we all enjoyed the relay, we'll do another in a couple of months.

Private Masters Lessons

Fall times and costs for private Masters lessons will be published in September.

Total Immersion Course

A Total Immersion workshop is being held in the Toronto area. This is a weekend seminar aimed at improving your swim technique through various drills. The course is good, but expensive! Note that we plan to run another technique seminar at Carleton sometime later in the Fall, and it will be a lot cheaper :-) ! Anyway, details on the Total Immersion workshop follow. Note that while the price is not indicated, I believe it is $600. I attended one of these workshops in 1996, so can give more details for anyone who is interested.

"Here's what you'll get:

- two full days of intensive, focused, cutting-edge technique training in freestyle/front crawl, led by Total Immersion Senior Coaches (includes 6+ hrs of pool instruction and 4+ hrs. of classroom instruction)

- two underwater videotapings plus analysis
- an average 20% improvement in stroke efficiency-personal attention, motivation, inspiration and all the tools you need to become a better swimmer

ENROLLMENT IS LIMITED! SIGN UP SOON!

DATE: September 15-16, 2001, 8:00-4:00pm
Location: St. Andrews College in Aurora (30 minute drive from Toronto)

For more info or to register call: 1-800-609-7946 or visit http://www.totalimmersion.net

A world-class swimmer is only 9% mechanically efficient. Taking into account the stroke-count data cited above, we see that the average recreational swimmer is only about one quarter as efficient as an elite swimmer, which translates into a mechanical efficiency of just 2% to 3%. This means that as a swimmer churns out lap after lap, trying to improve his swimming by raising his fitness level, perhaps 97 of every 100 calories of new energy resources created will be lost to inefficiency. Clearly the path to swimming improvement is not to make more calories available, it's to waste fewer of them. You do that by improving stroke efficiency. If you can raise your mechanical efficiency even modestly from, say, 3% to 4%, it will result in a 33% improvement in your swimming performance. No workout program yet
designed can produce those kinds of results. But I've routinely seen swimmers in Total Immersion workshops make gains of that sort in just one weekend.

Don't miss this rare opportunity to learn from some of the most innovative and highly respected technique coaches in the world. Total Immersion is the world leader in providing hands-on technique instruction fro swimmers of all ages and abilities, from novice to Olympian. Their work has been proven effective by coaches, age-group and Master swimmers, fitness swimmers of all ages and triathletes of every ability.

Gabrielle Whitlock
coachgabbi@hotmail.com
Western Triathlon Team Coach
University of Western Ontario
661-2111 ext. 84559"

General Information

Program information, old newsletters and the Carleton Masters records can be viewed at: http://lynnmarshall.tripod.ca/.

Your input to this weekly newsletter is most welcome, especially for the race results and "Ask the Coach" sections! To be added or removed from the receiver list, just let me know (lynnmarshall@sympatico.ca).

Happy laps!

Lynn

lynnmarshall@sympatico.ca

http://lynnmarshall.tripod.ca/