Head Coach and CEO of Carmel Swim Club;
Carmel (IN) High School Head Boys and Girls Swim Coach - each squad won the 2015 IHSAA State Championship;
4x State Champions (boys program), 9 consecutive State Championship (girls program - `07-15); has coached multiple Olympic trial swimmers and national age group record holders. USA Swimming Gold Medal Club of Excellence in 2010, 2011,ÿ2012, and 2014, Team USA staff for the 2014 Junior Pan Pacific Championships and the 2014 FINA World Championships, Indiana Swimming & Diving Hall of Fame (2011)
Connecting with your athletes each day is just as important as standing on the deck during a workout. By engaging with swimmers, you can keep them thinking and aware of what they're doing to help improve and train at a high level.
Learn how championship high school and Gold Medal club coach, Chris Plumb, uses the philosophy of connection to help athletes stay focused for an entire practice. He stresses communication along with providing a culture where the team strives for excellence. His use of everyday items for both dryland and in-water drills will make practice fun for all levels of swimmers.
Connecting with Your Swimmers
Connecting with athletes before practice on a personal level is an important part of everyday practices. It builds trust within the swimmer/coach relationship and camaraderie of the team as a whole. It keeps swimmers engaged, honest in their effort and it makes them feel cared for.
Coach Plumb presents four core themes of connection to emphasize in every practice. Connecting with athletes on a personal level, learning how the body connects to work as a unit, connecting with the water in various skills and sets, and finally connecting all skills learned to improve and be a complete, dynamic swimmer.
Dryland Warm-Up
Within the warm-up period of practice, it's important to connect the pieces of the body to work as a whole. Improving coordination and readying the mind to swim at a high level of intensity are key take-aways. Coach Plumb emphasizes the idea of warming up the body to swim, rather than swimming to warm-up like many coaches spend the first 15-30 minutes of a practice. A quick dryland warm-up can shorten the amount of time needed to warm up in the water.
Skill Acquisition
During skill acquisition, 25-30 minutes of practice is set aside to work on particular aspects of a stroke. During a two week cycle of three days per stroke, the skill set should be full of feedback, correction and interaction between coach and athlete. Coach Plumb doesn't spend much time with drills, instead choosing to focus on swimming with intent.
Drills don't have to be boring. Coach Plumb uses everyday items (perfect for teams on a budget) to help make drills fun and give a different twist on training - in and out of the water. A favorite piece of equipment of Coach Plumb is the wiffle ball. Swimming while holding the wiffle ball in their hand, and then removing the wiffle ball, helps swimmers develop a better connection to the water by experiencing the contrast of swimming with and without the ball.
Coordination is an important aspect of training for any sport. The team demonstrates many sets of skill/swim combinations in all the strokes. They also show the use of the "kick-out buoy," a homemade device that is attached to the lane line to give the athletes a target distance for underwater push-offs.
Physiology
Athletes need to mix up their types of workouts in order to increase their capacity. Coach Plumb discusses his take on the aerobic and anaerobic power and capacity training in his season planning, why it's important, and what many coaches fail to do in their planning.
No matter how much experience you have, the best coaches have a desire to continue to learn and find new ways to help their own swimmers improve. This video will inspire anyone that is looking to develop or improve engagement with athletes to earn their respect. Coach Plumb emphasizes the need to focus on building the culture of the team and to have everyone contributing to that positive culture.
95 minutes. 2016.
MD-05037B: with Chris Plumb,
Head Coach and CEO of Carmel Swim Club;
Carmel (IN) High School Head Boys and Girls Swim Coach - each squad won the 2015 IHSAA State Championship;
4x State Champions (boys program), 9 consecutive State Championship (girls program - `07-15); has coached multiple Olympic trial swimmers and national age group record holders. USA Swimming Gold Medal Club of Excellence in 2010, 2011,ÿ2012, and 2014, Team USA staff for the 2014 Junior Pan Pacific Championships and the 2014 FINA World Championships, Indiana Swimming & Diving Hall of Fame (2011)
The concept of dryland training can be daunting because it takes the athlete out of the water and into unfamiliar territory. Without the proper education in strength and movement training, more harm can be done than good.
Chris Plumb has a simple, easy to tailor dryland program that will keep your team engaged during their workout. His simple progression helps prevent injury, prepares for the demands of swimming, and teaches connection of movements that create the explosive power needed to be the best of the best.
Coach Plumb walks you through a complete session. He explains how it's designed and implemented, and you'll see how athletes move through each exercise, fully demonstrating how each repetition is accomplished. His use of motion in three planes increases core strength, stability, and explosiveness off the block and walls.
No fancy weight room is needed for Coach Plumb's dryland program. It can be done on any budget with little to no equipment. Use of PVC pipe, small cans, or simple ropes can elevate anyone's dryland program. Your swimmers will have fun doing the coordination drills.
Warm-Up
Learn the five main things athletes need to do to fully prepare their body before a workout begins:
- Mini bands activate hips and glutes
- Coordination - Gets the body working together/connected
- Core Module - Fires the entire core of the body
- Crawling - Connects the hands and feet to create synchronization
- Lunge and Reach - Creates spatial awareness
Explosive Exercise
The central nervous system is the focus, and this is best done early in the workout. This cycle of work translates to swimmers' starts from the blocks and turns when leaving the wall. Some exercises you'll see include arm step-ups in a plank position, mixed height box jumps, and overhead squats.
Leg Circuit
The leg circuit is comprised of four foundational exercises: squats, lunges, step-ups and squat jumps. These exercises hit every muscle in the legs and build leg strength to help transition to kicking and leg strength capacity in the pool.
Upper Body
This portion is done with dumbbells and/or rings to enforce a freedom of movement to increase stability in the shoulder and the connection to the core. These exercises include pull-ups, body rows, and push-ups. As athletes progress in the season, they can move on to a dumbbell complex that includes explosive movements, push movements, leg motions, and pulling.
Core Work
In this phase of training, athletes work in the three planes of motion (frontal, sagittal, and transverse) to create stability in the body. Planks, and planks with movements, are used to develop athletes' ability to hold a streamline in the pool.
Are you in need of a new dryland program? Chris Plumb has the program you've been looking for! Plumb's easy-to-follow, progressive program takes the `guess work' out of finding the exercises that will help your team the most in the pool.
"I found Chris Plumb's dryland program was simple for me to initiate with very little equipment. The kids loved it! Best of all, each got stronger and faster. I continue to use Plumb's dryland program and will do for many years." - Customer Review
55 minutes. 2016.