Swimming and diving focus on fundamentals

Friday, October 2, 2009

With just two weeks until the Big 12 Relays and one week until the annual intrasquad meet, the swimming and diving team has been fine tuning problem areas and increasing the intensity in practices.

Coach Clark Campbell identified starts and turns as areas in need of improvement following the alumni meet Sept. 18. These two skills have been themes for the team throughout its training this year.

Photo by Weston White

Senior Danielle Herrmann swims down the lane before turning during the 50 yard breaststroke Sept. 11 at the Robinson Center pool.

“The beginning of the season was dedicated to doing starts and turns,” freshman swimmer Madi Landi said.

To improve these two abilities the swimmers have been doing plenty of repetition. In practice they have done repeat 25-yard sprints, one length of the pool, with a dive before each sprint. Also, Campbell estimates that swimmers will perform upwards of 200 turns during a normal practice.

“When you do repetition you can either reinforce good habits or bad habits,” Campbell said.

Work on turns in deep water has also accompanied the repetition. In this type of technique drill, the swimmers do a turn entirely underwater. This allows them to feel the resistance of the water much more than doing normal turns.

“Doing that really cleans things up naturally,” Campbell said.

The team has also taken its improvement in these areas into its own hands.

“There have been a lot of swimmers staying after practice to work on starts and turns,” senior diver and team captain Meghan Proehl said.

As the team centers its attention on improving starts and turns, senior swimmer and team captain Carrah Haley said that training has intensified in anticipation of the Big 12 Relays on Oct. 16.

“The first couple of weeks people were getting antsy,” Haley said referring to the team’s early season preparation.

During early season training, the team primarily spent time running and lifting, with minimal pool work. The team shifted its training primarily to the pool in mid-September as in-season training began. Now, the team works with coaches for about 20 hours each week. Most of this time is spent training in the pool.

While the swimmers strive to ready themselves by the start of the season, the divers have been working toward similar goals.

“We’ve been in the weight room and we’ve been seeing a huge improvement, especially in the freshmen,” Proehl said.

The focal areas for the divers revolve around getting height on their jumps, which the weight room work helps improve, and work on fundamentals.

“Good fundamentals lay the base for harder dives later on,” Campbell said.

— Edited by Sarah Kelly

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