When Should You Do Double Practices?

Here's a question I see coaches asking all the time: "What is the right age for swimmers to start doubles?". Or "What level of swimmer should be doing doubles?". These are questions worth asking, for sure, but they miss the real question. Because the decision for swimmers to do "doubles", or train twice a day, has to do with a lot more factors than age or ability level.

Double practices are extremely popular at high levels of swimming, and in many cases seen as a bare necessity to be competitive at those levels. However, there are a minority of coaches who even at the highest levels eschew at least two swimming sessions a day. So how do you decide? Here are the biggest factors:

1. Are the swimmers making the best use of once daily practices? An easy indicator that you may have swimmers ready for doubles is that you feel as a coach that the swimmer or swimmers are practicing with good quality on the once daily training sessions.

There is no point at all in adding practice times if you don't have quality on single training sessions. Your job as a coach is to ensure quality in these once daily sessions first and foremost.

2. Are you training in a way that the swimmers can recover from a morning practice to an afternoon practice? The vast majority of coaches are training swimmers that attend school. Therefore you must consider that between a morning and an afternoon practice, there will be little time for passive recovery (like sleep). Can your swimmers bounce back and put in a quality training.

Training programs that need to put in regularly scheduled "recovery practices" are very inefficient. Why waste everybody's time like this? Rather, make your training such that swimmers can push their fitness at each training.

3. Do you have swimmers that want to train twice a day? This is probably the one I find most disagreement with other coaches on. I mean, who "wants" to come to morning practice?

In my experience, plenty of swimmers do, but only if you give them space to make the choice. In my career I have dropped morning practice altogether (at the NCAA Division 1 level, training a swimmer who won the ACC in a 200). When I brought it back, it was only for swimmers that wanted it.

Having swimmers bring a sullen attitude to morning training is a killer for the competitive climate of your team. Swimmers that choose morning practice are seldom sullen, because no one is forcing them to be there. You need to insist on creating an environment for this level of motivation.

As a coach, you need to look at the psychological and physiological big picture when considering double practices. Too often, coaches make a simple decision based on limited factors, to their own competitive disadvantage.

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Why "Soft" Coaching Is Better

"And that's why English is the official language of America...". I was doing my thing- staring right through my seventh grade history teacher as she droned.

"There is no official language in America!" I blurted out, with embarrassed blood rushing to my face. What was I doing?

"Chris, please don't interrupt, and besides, as I said, English is the official language of the United States of America". 

I shook my head. The next day, when she admitted she checked and that, in fact, America had no official language, she didn't say I was right. Rather, she reminded all my classmates how rude it was for me to interrupt her while she was speaking.

That was the day I realized that anyone could be very wrong about something very basic, and would insist that they were right anyway.

But simply beating them over the head with the fact that they were wrong was not very effective. In fact, if the power relationship was imbalanced, it often made things worse for you. That's when I learned another way, a softer way of getting through.

A "Soft" Coach

As a coach, I've never been known for anger, or yelling, or for having the most torturous practices. In a meeting I will often speak far fewer words than whoever I'm talking to. I'm pretty proud of that.

I started my career at the University of Pennsylvania and was immediately thrust into a chaotic environment. Swimmers often got into the water late, sometimes not at all. One of my fellow assistant coaches showed up constantly late to morning practice.

Coaching there was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I learned that, if you made an engaging practice, swimmers were more likely to get in on time for it. I learned that swimmers were far more motivated by somebody that saw the best in them than somebody they feared.

I learned that drumming up the importance of a swim meet hurt athletes performance more than it helped. Much better to give a supportive hug and remind athletes every day that you care about them regardless of their swimming results. 

I learned that the less punitive force you had to put on people to get them do what "needed to be done", the better. Nobody likes being backed into a corner, they like choosing their own adventure.

Taking Your Own Medicine

I've never understood the impulse in coaching: "do as I say, not as I do". 

Why do we call young swimmers "student-athletes". Because we want to emphasize that they have a more important mission (education) than sport, even if sport is it's own education. Why then, do we just call coaches "coach"? 

Don't coaches have a greater mission? Aren't I a Parent-Coach? Why do so many coaches tell athletes that they are doing sports for something bigger than sports, all while living a life so focused on sports?

"That's Not the Way It is"

When I hear one of my peers or elders giving all sorts of weird, pseudo-masculine advice on coaching, all because that's the "way it is", I'm back in my seventh grade classroom.

But instead of blurting out an interruption, I listen. What are they really saying?

"I don't know any better ways to do it, this is what I was taught".

So instead I try to show them another way. I don't expect them to take me on my word, but on the results. I'm still working on it. 

Want to learn more about "soft" coaching?

Sports Bullying and The True Fight

Over at Swimvortex, Craig Lord has published an editorial by former National Performance Director Bill Sweetenham on the subject of bullying by coaches. Sweetenham, who was himself accused of bullying but ultimately cleared during his tenure, has a lot to say on the subject.

Before we get into his arguments, I will say I do not agree with Sweetenham on several points. His defense of bad behavior by coaches communicates a message I find dangerous: that elite sports is somehow so special that it justifies behavior we wouldn't accept in normal walks of life.

In his editorial, Sweetenham begins with a cringeworthy comparison between sport and war. Both are "abnormal" to him, in terms of what must be done to best the other side. This comparison is tired, ridiculous and insulting to the real risks of armed combat. No one dies if they lose a swimming race.

The rest of Sweetenham's piece centers on the fact that athletes must be motivated and pushed to exceptional efforts to get exceptional results. 

No one would question this, but the issue of bullying in coaching is not this. Concern for the behavior of coaches is not about how hard the training they are giving is or what they are demanding. It is often not a question of "what" or "why". It is a question of "how" they are doing this "motivation".

Ranting and raving and unleashing a childish temper on an athlete at a swimming competition is not coaching. I've seen it many times, it simply shouldn't have a place in sport. I've heard it justified hundreds of times by colleagues because it "gets results".

You can scare an athlete into trying harder in the short term and maybe get a good result, but you are damaging them in the long term, and that's not what coaching is about.

I have seen so much behavior in the coaching world that is totally unacceptable, and the coaches escape any consequence because of the strange culture we have created around sport. This is the real problem, not the very small chance that athletes are lodging false accusations against coaches as some sort of revenge plot. 

Sweetenham ignorantly declares that "Any experienced coach knows that sporting administrators, theorists, psychologists, change culture experts, external motivators etc. do not possess a real feel for the athlete and the process." Which is a nice way to justify anything a coach does under the auspices "only a coach can understand what needs to be done here". 

I reject this argument. Coaches need to be held to a higher standard, not excepted because others just don't 'get it'. The next generation of elite athletes will have input from many sources, not just one "god" coach, and that will be a good thing. The world outside of sport has a lot to tell us about how we should motivate athletes positively to even higher planes of performance.

Want to learn exceptional motivation techniques that also help athletes succeed in life?

Specialized Coaching is Not Just For Elite Athletes

In the world of coaching swimming, it's dangerous to call yourself a specialist. Even in the college ranks, where there are 'sprint", "middle distance" and "distance" coaches (the most common specialties, coaches fight it.

They fight it because getting pigeon-hold with a specialist title means that you could miss out on that next big opportunity. If you're known as a "sprint coach", and "they" really want somebody who knows "distance", well you're out of luck.

The fight against specialized coaching is a silly one. It's denying reality, and good for no one involved. Imagine if Anthony Ervin was out there, insisting to everyone that he was just as good at the 1500 free as the 50. Would that be good for anyone?

No, and in the same way, it is ok for coaches to admit what they are good at (and what they are not good at). It is also far too simplistic to say that a coach is "bad" at coaching sprinters or "good at distance". Coaches have a set of skills that work in a system. The sum of those skills can mean positive outcomes for certain swimmers and negative outcomes for others.

This is where specialized coaching comes in. By knowing and admitting what your skills are, you can augment how many swimmers will be successful by having swimmers coached by coaches with different skills, skills that may connect more with them being successful. While we often think to do this at the elite level, it is actually equally important at lower levels, where we miss opportunities to move potentially great swimmers developmentally because we fear specialized coaching.

Let me give you an example. In 2015, I was with the Danish Junior National team at a meet. We had a swimmer on the team, a sprinter. She had poor skills, bad turns, bad dive and did not know how to perform a relay start (even though she was due to be a on a relay).

How was she relatively successful then? She had a coach who connected with her enthusiasm for the sport. She loved to race and compete, and she overcame a lot of her skill deficiencies with her attitude. Her coach was not perfect, but he had done a good job.

Now imagine if that coach had been able to team up with a coach or coaches who's skill set was all built around teaching the details of swimming. The more a coach brings other specialties into the mix, the greater chance for success they give all their swimmers.

At Chris DeSantis Coaching, I'm not trying to do anything that I'm ok at, or pretty good at, definitely nothing I'm bad at. I'm only working in the areas where I am exceptional, and that I know I can make a big, lasting difference in only a small amount of time. Are you interested?

When Internal Motivation Is Bad

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about why hard working athletes often struggle with "rest" and "taper" season. At the core of this is that many of these athletes can present as self-motivated, but because this self-motivation is not healthy, we can miss the problem as coaches. 

A reader rightly questioned: how can you identify when athletes internal motivation is poorly wired? This is a crucial question, because if you can do this, you have the opportunity to intervene as a coach well before the end of a season when this problem presents itself. Here is an explanation of how this situation may present itself as well as interventions you can make:

Unrealistic self- evaluation. An athlete's self-evaluation is a great insight to their motivational system. Can your athlete determine when they are doing a good job? Once I asked all of the athletes on my team to rate themselves on a scale of 1-5 on how well they were using practice to get better. 

Many athletes reported a three or lower, which shocked me. When I pressed further, two big things came through: they were scared to rate themselves higher because they assumed I was going to think they were overconfident, and they couldn't see a way they could push the rating up.

When you have athletes that are both worried about your critiques (instead of seeing them as opportunities to get better) and feeling helpless, alarm bells should go off. Many coaches make the mistake of stopping feedback to these swimmers, who in turn take that as reinforcement that their coach does not care about them.

Instead, when delivering feedback (critical or not), make sure you are communicating that you care about the athlete, regardless of performance. Tell them the things that you value about them, so that they can see that they have value regardless of specific performance. Then, you must give them actionable steps that they can take to improve their own self-rating of their performance.

It will take pro-active and consistent work within a trusting relationship to help an athlete change their motivational structure. Many athletes have wired their motivation this way based on relationships with their parents or previous influential coaches, and feel it is "right". They will be scared to change and may believe that they will "lose" their motivation if they do so.

Like any swimming skill, the earlier in an athlete's life you can intervene, the better. Coaches of beginning athletes can set up a lifetime of successful swimming by building a healthy motivational environment. 

Stop Doing General Warmup

Today, I'm swimming in my first swim meet for four years (more on that in another post after the weekend). I will not be attending the general warmup sessions. This is something I haven't been doing for the entirety of my post-college career, and a practice that trickled into the college and club swimmers that I coached.

General warmup is just one of a large group of things that "we do" in swimming that don't make a lot of sense. What is the purpose of a general warmup? To get you ready to race in the subsequent events, right?

Let me use my own meet this weekend for an example. General warmup is taking place as we speak, from 8:00-9:00 AM. My race is due to jump in the water at 2:57 PM this afternoon. There is no way on earth that a warmup from 9:00 in the morning will carry forward six hours to my race.

"But wait!" you say. What about getting accustomed to the blocks at a new place, learning to sight the walls, etc. I happen to be swimming at a pool (Harvard University) where I have swam so many times I've lost count.

Chances are, many swimmers that you bring to a particular meet will be familiar with the facilities. If not, consider organizing some way for them to familiarize themselves with the pool well in advance of an early morning warmup that will not actually warm them up for their race. After all, you wouldn't be trying to teach them a whole knew technique the day of the meet, right?

Lastly, don't even get me started on the "wake-up swim" people. There are plenty of ways to get somebody fully awake well in advance of their race that don't include some useless laps. Oh, and please, please do not swim timed sprint or pace 25s in the warmup. I'll have to write an entire different post on that subject.

The real reason to skip general warmup is not what I've written above, dismissing some of the common reasons people do it. People who choose to do general warmup often see only the benefits without realizing the great costs that general warmup inflict on swimmers. Let me summarize

1. These warmups are often early, and interrupt the natural sleep cycles of athletes, therefore interfering with recovery. The longer the meet, the bigger the impact. Seriously, try no general warmup at your next three or four day meet and see how much fresher everyone is by the last day.
2. Time spent on the pool deck is not healthy, particularly at crowded meets where there is often poor air quality. 
3. With anxious athletes, general warmups can often build tension for them, as they spend hours at the competition site waiting to compete. Bringing them to a competition site without a clear progression leading directly to the race can cause problems.
4. Most swim meets are way too long. This causes cascading problems for us, as parents and swimmers start to weigh the cost of endless hours on the pool deck versus other things they could be spending their time on. Finding a more efficient way to do a swim meet can be a welcome boost.

All that said, there are some situations where you might find it best to have a particular swimmer or set of swimmers at a general warmup. I think those situations are fewer and farther between than what I witness at most swim meets.

Advanced Team Building: Going Beyond Activities

I cringe whenever someone uses the phrase "team building activities". Not because there isn't some value to setting aside a specific time and place for working on being a team. In fact, far from it. I cringe because team building is an everyday, every practice activity. 

Coaches talk a lot about creating an "environment" for success. When you are a leader on a team, the bulk of team building is what kind of environment you create for others. You need to create an environment where a diverse set of personalities come together for a unified cause.

Sounds easy right? But many teams struggle with building a cohesive unit. One area that frequently causes conflict is the athletes perception of team values.

Let me give an example. "Work hard" is one of the most obvious values a team can have. But what does it mean? Unless the coach communicates and leads the way, athletes will fill the space with their own interpretation of hard work.

I once had two swimmers in my group that didn't get along. Both thought the other wasn't "working hard".

One swimmer was consistent- never late, always the first in the water, always repeating times like a metronome through pace sets. He attended morning practices (doubles) no matter what. He was always serious at practice- like an adult showing up to work. Let's call him Mr. Consistency.

The other was a wild card. He got into the water last- but then finished warmup before half his teammates. When it was time to give a "max" effort, no one was better. He laid everything on the line, and often paid for it later in practice. He could never gauge his own effort- his paces were inconsistent. If something was off, he was sick or something hurt, he took a more cautious approach and sometimes missed training. Let's call him Mr. Wild

As a coach, I knew that both swimmers were working hard. They both fit into what I valued as a coach. Were they perfect? Of course not. I wished Mr. Consistency would take a day off once in a while- he often concealed when he was sick knowing that I would send him away from training. I wish that Mr. Wild would learn to pace himself a bit better so he wasn't so useless for parts of training.

One of the things I would say to bring these two swimmers together was to remind them of something that swim coaches often say to each other but forget on their own teams. "There are many ways up the mountain". Coaches can get trapped by their own "philosophy" about "how things should be done" and fail to include athletes who are actually embodying their values, just using a somewhat different looking process. 

Instead of valuing "hard work", we valued self-improvement. Were the swimmers doing what they needed to do to get better? In this case, both were, so much so that both would go on to be NCAA Division 1 Championship qualifiers. Eventually they learned that even though they could poke holes in each others approach, they both had a lot to learn from one another.

This is just one example, there are many more situations where you can be inclusive with your values as a leader without compromising high standards. If you do so, you will create an environment where a diverse group of personalities can co-exist and thrive, making you look very good as a leader. 

The 2017 Easterns and Why High School Swimming is the Best

By the end I could barely croak out a few words. My vocal chords were spent and quite lucky that the competition was only two days long.

The 2017 Eastern Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championship was the dawn of a new era for what is still America's top private school competition. Although the meet may never match the glory days of Olympic contenders squaring off, it shouldn't try either.

The world has changed, and elite swimmers have gotten much older since the days when Gustavo Borges could swim at the Bolles School one year and then earn a silver medal in the 100 freestyle the next. Although Borges held on to his 100 freestyle record (now 26 years and counting), his 50 freestyle was finally broken, by Alberto Mestre, a senior from the Hill School.

So what can Easterns hope to be now? Well we started to see it this weekend at Franklin and Marshall. Easterns can and should be one of the most competitive high school meets in the country. The meet had a dramatic improvement of depth from a year ago. It took 4:38 to finish in the top 8 in the men's 500 freestyle, and 57.51 to do so in the men's 100 breaststroke. 

But a meet like Easterns should be judged by more than just the times on the clock. High school swimming is the most consistently underrated area of our sport. In fact, our sport suffers from a great inversion, where the parts of our sport that are actually inherently fun and would help to grow the sport are given the least serious attention from within. 

High school swimming taps into the natural, human love of competition. We love to see individuals and teams go head to head. We like to see a team champion, at whatever scale. Also, in a world where 3 hour plus baseball games test our patience, we like a flow of action that ends in a reasonable amount of time. 

The final crescendo of the weekend was Reece Whitley's high school national best in the 100 breaststroke. It seemed as if the whole pool, swimmers, coaches and spectators, were standing on their toes for it. Two events later, I realized I had the worst headache of my life. I sat down, dizzy. 

After drinking about 1.5 liters of water, I started to feel a little better. I had gotten caught up in the meet- the excitement of the swimmers and coaches, the joy on the faces of not just the winners but that first heat swimmer who went a massive personal best. This is swimming at its best. 

Are you interested in having an announcer bring new life to your competition? If so, use the contact button to send a message. References will be provided!