Category: Handbook

How to join the Swim Team

Membership for the swim team is accepted throughout the year. You can become a member by completing an evaluation of your strokes. Results from the evaluation will be used to place the swimmer into the team structure.

Coaching staff will evaluate strokes Monday through Thursday from 4:00 to 4:45 pm. You can make an appointment by calling Alicia Mckissick at Adamsville Natatorium at 404-505-3189 or by emailing Head CoachTommy Jackson at juneram64d200@gmail.com

Each workout effort should be preceded by a warm-up and conclude with a cool-down. The following effects are created by warm-up and cool-down.

Warm-up:

• Increases body temperature
• Increases respiration rate and heart rate
• Increases flexibility and reduces chance of muscular injury

Cool-down:

• Speeds removal of metabolic wastes
• Help prevent cramps, tightness and soreness

Name:__________________________________

Date:___________________________________

Meet:__________________________________

Event	Best Time	Goal Time	Performance Time at Meet	Comment

Short-range goals are benchmarks, steps along the way to the season goals, usually races at the various minor meets. Meeting short – range goals lets the swimmer know that he is on target for his season goals. In the first column list the events you would like to improve your time. Next column writes in your best time or NT if you have not swam that event. Next Column writes in your goals times for each event. Write in the times that you swam for each event at the meet under the column performance time at meet.
Write briefly about your performance in your events. You probably need to respond on a separate sheet of paper.

Importance of Swim Meet Warm-ups

1. TEAM UNITY

Please have your swimmers on deck and ready to warm up in their team suits and team caps 10 minutes prior to the start of warm-ups. It is important that swimmers are on time so that we can get in and warm up as a team. Being late disrupts the warm-up procedures and it is not fair to your swimmer, their teammates, their coaches and other teams. Immediately after warm-ups, we have a team meeting to get everyone situated, talk about any important issues and do a team cheer.

2. PHYSICAL PREPARATION

Proper warm-up is essential for maximum performance. A swimmer’s body needs to be prepared for the physical demands of competition. Warm-up increases blood flow and muscle temperature which in turn allows more blood and oxygen be released to your muscles, which means better performance. Warm-up is also plays an important role in injury prevention. Racing without warming up places stress on the body and can lead to injuries.

3. MENTAL PREPARATION

Swimming a good race also requires mental preparation. Getting to the pool early is the key to being prepared. It takes the guess work out of arriving. They have time to find the locker rooms, get changed, find their coaches and teammates and be prepared for the start of warm-up. A swimmer needs to acclimate to their environment. This includes getting to know the pool to ensure good starts and turns, acclimating to the water temperature, and having time to mentally prepare for their races. A relaxed, prepared swimmer will perform better.

Coach Marianne Countryman

Role of the Parents

The most important thing you can do as the parent of a swimmer is to love and support your child, both in and out of the pool. This support is a key factor in fostering enjoyment as well as contributing to the child’s individual success in the pool

Parents should never damn the coach in the swimmer’s presence, nor should they complain or make derogatory remarks about the program to the child. The parent should show support for the coach and abide by his or her decisions. Complaints should be addressed in private to the coach.

Parents are allowed to observe from designated areas. There should be no communication with swimmers. This can be distracting to swimmers or to the entire team as well as the coach. Continue reading →

Team Training Concepts

The purpose of the team concepts is to create an environment that is conducive for training and learning. Hopefully, this environment will maximize the personal safety of each swimmer, give direction and guidance during swim practice and at swim meets. Our team will rely on the following concepts of training in daily practice:

1. Come to practice on time.
2. Come to practice prepared with equipment and in working order.
3. Listen, look and keep your head above the water while the coach is giving instructions.
4. Follow coach instruction and direction when first given.
5. Push from the wall in a tight streamline position
6. Do not stop during warm-up.
7. Do all turns and finishes legally and fast.
8. Start repeats exactly on time and quickly.
9. Get your times on every repeat and set goals for each repeat.
10. Swim correctly all the time.
11. Focus on technique while swimming.
12. Always finish sets fast.
13. Perform each drill correctly. No talking during instructions, stroke drills and training sets.
14. Keep water bottle at the end of your lane.

City of Atlanta Coaching Staff

In 1959 Vince Lombardi was named coach of the Green Bay Packers, one of the most lackluster teams in the National Football League. The Packers had lost so many games that they had become accustomed to losing. Lombardi knew why the Packers were losers and he also knew what needed to be done to make them winners.

Lombardi imposed a very strenuous practice schedule for the team that was unlike anything ever seen in professional football. Those players that complained or ‘played around’ during practice were immediately replaced by players who wanted to overcome the image of losers.

Lombardi knew that in order for players to gain confidence and respect for themselves they would have to become a ‘disciplined’ team. Discipline in a team means a true respect for hard work and the ability to respond to a coaches’ instruction at the moment they are given. Discipline, Lombardi knew, could not be instilled on a loose group but could easily be imposed on a ‘team’. The Packers had been a loose group and Lombardi wanted a team.

Lombardi would not allow talking by anyone but coaches at practice. He would not tolerate a player taking practice lightly and he knew that the players own performance would be enough to make them realize the importance of practice.

Practice develops the mind to the point of knowing the limits of the body. Practice developed endurance. The Packers before the arrival of Lombardi could play with anyone for one quarter of any game they were in, but unfortunately for them the game had 3 quarters left.

When you see a swimmer lead for the first lap of a race and then come in well behind the eventual winner, you should know that difference between the winner and the loser was decided in practice well before the event.

All of the Dolphin swimmers need their coaches. After they have competed in the Olympics they can develop their own schedule for training and work on what they think is best for their performance-until then team practice for each individual swimmer is essential.

Those who have followed the Dolphins for the past few years are witnessing the same phenomenal transition of a loose group into a team (Didn’t you feel good cheering for Dolphins in Savannah and Augusta). Whereas just a few years ago we were only cheering to encourage the swimmers, now we cheer their outstanding accomplishments.

Parents should not send their children to practice if they are not going to practice. This can cause an unneeded distraction to those team members who came to practice. (This includes those swimmers who may suffer from any number of aliments-real or imagined, because the practice time should be used for serious development.)

Oh yes, in Lombardi’s second year Green Bay won the western Conference of the NFL and the Packers won the league championship in 1961-63 and 1965-67, and defeated Kansas City and then Oakland in 1966 and 1967 Super Bowl games.