Warm Up, not Mix Up

By the time a swimmer reaches day 4 with the Hays Swim Club, they should know the warm-up. Why? Because it is ALWAYS the same.

We start out with a 500, doing 200 Freestyle, 100 Backstroke, 100 Breaststroke, 100 Freestyle... every... single... time. We may do a set or two after that, and still consider them to be part of warm-up, but we will ALWAYS do the same 500 in practice and at a meet.

I am a strong believer in having a standard warm-up for several reasons:

1. It creates a sense of familiarity whether you're swimming in your home pool or the newly built Olympic Trials pool in Omaha.
2. It allows you to slowly ramp up your brain during those early morning workouts, when you don't have to think, "Now, what was I supposed to do?"
3. By doing the same warm-up every time, your body can calibrate how you are feeling on any given day

FAMILIARITY

Swimming in a new pool can be intimidating for younger swimmers, and the more familiar they feel, the better they will swim. This is extremely important at swim meets.

Doing the same warm-up everytime gives the swimmer one less thing to worry about when they realize that it takes the same amount of strokes in this pool as it does in their own pool to get across 25yards.

Getting into that familiar routine also sets the mental gears in motion to start thinking about swimming instead of any outside influencers. Not having to focus on the AWESOME new (to them) pool, with the space-aged starting blocks, million dollar scoreboard and giant wave-eating lane lines, allows them to start focusing in on what they need to do to swim fast.

EARLY MORNINGS

Whether it's morning practice or early warm-up at a swim meet, every coach deals with swimmers dragging in still half asleep. By doing the same warm-up everyday, it becomes second nature such that a swimmer really doesn't have to be "awake", yet their body can start in on its regular wake up and swim routine without having to wait on the brain.

As a coach, I know how much explaining and re-explaining I may have to do on some of the more complicated sets. I really don't need to deal with that in warm up.

BODY CALIBRATION

I like the mix of strokes in our warm up because they work virtually every swimming muscle in the body. When warm-up is done the same everyday, an injured muscle or tired muscle will immediately stand out to a swimmer, and allow them to alert the coach so that action can be taken. Sometimes muscles are just stiff, and more warm-up is needed. Sometimes they are just sore. But, sometimes, there is an injury that needs to be attended to prior to getting into a main set.

With a standard warm-up, the body can determine these things.

One drawback to this is when a swimmer feels different at a meet, whether they are stiff and sore before a meet or even partially tapered. If they feel stiff or just "funky" (from being partially tapered), they can psyche themselves out, and coaches need to be cognizant of that.

So, when workout starts up for the Hays Swim Club, every swimmer should know what to do, and unless there's a new swimmer, you won't hear a coach utter a word beyond, "Let's GO!"