Are You Missing a Puzzle Piece?

Hi All,

Great meet this weekend. I am getting a much better feel for all the swimmers and look forward to the meet coming up this weekend as well.

Don’t worry, we normally won't be doing this many meets in a row :)  I am working with other teams to see how we can get more competitive options for our LSC. Hopefully that effort will make it easier to set up our competitive schedules in the future.

Again great job at SoFlo!

Thought for the day....missing puzzles pieces ...

My wife loved to do puzzles. She would get a 5 or 10 thousand piece puzzle kit from Amazon, dump it on the coffee table and spend some time each night putting it together. I never got the puzzle bug. To me, it just seemed like a lot of unnecessary self-inflicted cleaning up. What amazed me the most is that when she finished, she would immediately break it all up and put it back in the box. If that were me, I would have bronzed it and put it up on the wall. I have a ton of patience for people...not as much with inanimate objects.

Our friends would come over often during the week back in those days. After a while, one of our neighbors started taking a single puzzle piece when we weren’t looking as a prank on my wife. When she got to the point where she needed that piece, she couldn’t find it. It made her feel so incomplete. She felt like she had worked so hard and didn’t get the full satisfaction of her efforts. Eventually the neighbor fessed up and it became a running joke.

As you will find out, I can take anything I experience and turn it into something about swimming. 

Ah, the missing puzzle piece. Frustrating, right? I feel that we can miss some pieces of your personal training puzzle when you miss days during the week. Click Here to see the entirety of the workload for next week (week 7). We have different strength & conditioning and energy zone targets on different days...lots of puzzle pieces.

So how do these two things relate?

Let's say you miss Thursday, for example. You would miss half of your Sprint Pulleys, Half of your Parametric sets and half of your Zones 3 & 5 for the week. That’s a lot of missing puzzle pieces..You would also miss the technical focus for that day as well. When you think about it, it kinda adds up.And no, there is not a good way to “make it up” as each day has its own demands and focus; all of which are interrelated to the season and long term developmental plan as a whole.

Don’t freak. An occasional day missed session because Grandma turned 80 won't destroy your career. It is the small accumulation of missed days over and over that can hurt. And again, it depends on where you are starting and where you want to be.

Look. We do not have mandatory minimums for a reason. I want the swimmers to learn why it is important to come; especially if they have high level goals. It is not up to the parents or coaches...it has to come from within them if it is to last. If you missed one day a week of school you would more than likely not do as well as those who came every day, right? 

I am not pointing this out to shame, just to enlighten. If you are not there yet, here is a great way to start. 

Try to commit to coming to every in-water session every weekday. Once that is comfortable, add dryland. Then add the Saturday option. To make it even more productive, commit to the mornings, both at the pool on Tuesdays & Thursday and doing the home based dryland on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (more to come). The more pieces of the puzzle you have, the more complete your readiness will be at the end of the season.

I know, there are some realities to consider; especially during High School Season. That is when it becomes even more imperative to come as much as possible. I mentioned that next year, the high schoolers will be coming off a big summer. That will help. For now, do your best and consider putting together as much of the puzzle as you can. As always, if you have questions, ask.

See you at the pool - Rich