The final phase of the pull is the release, when the hand moves from 9 o’clock back to 12 o’clock, precisely where it started this .85-second underwater, almost circular, journey. Since the hand/arm are now moving in the forward direction again, the objective of this phase is to slip the hand and arm out of the water with the least amount of frontal drag possible

There are two reasons why the hand/arm create lift in the first phase of the underwater pull. Discover why lift is important and how long we typically spend in the “lift phase” for both hip and shoulder driven freestyle in this Analysis of the Underwater Pull by Gary Hall Sr.

“It is a great logo, though, don’t you think?” I chimed in. We all agreed on that.

I became a little more involved in The Race Club in 2006, when its focus was more directed to helping elite athletes reach their Olympic goals, and I had just moved to Islamorada. After sending 17 swimmers to Beijing in 2008, for the first time, I took a long breath, leaned back and really started to understand what The Race Club could become and what it could offer. That is when I became fully involved and very excited.

Imagine that in 12 years, The Race Club (or its predecessor, the World Team) had helped over 30 swimmers reach the Olympic Games and collect over 20 Olympic medals. That didn’t happen by accident. That happened because we had one of the world’s finest swim coaches, Mike Bottom, shaping their training path. That happened because we figured out what was needed besides a great swim coach to reach the Olympic podium. That happened because we were able to bring all of the disciplines needed to reach that level into one environment. And it happened because we had great athletic talent to work with.

There is an abundance of swimming talent all across America. Some of those talented swimmers go on to reach their full potential, but most don’t. Usually they don’t because they never find the environment or understand what it takes to reach the highest level. They never realize what they are missing.

It is no longer possible, no matter how much talent one has, to reach the Olympic level without finding an environment that can bring all of the necessary training disciplines to the table. Fortunately, the United States has quite a few clubs or environments that can do this, but they are not available to everyone.

Gary Sr. teaching the back to breast turn.

So what if The Race Club took all of its years of expertise in training swimmers, coaching techniques, stroke techniques and philosophy and offered it to anyone who wanted to come? Who else does that? Regardless of age, ability or goals, any swimmer can come to The Race Club and get better.

• Where does one go when one wants to build a foundation of good solid fundamentals to build a swimming career? The Race Club
• Where does one go when he/she has reached a plateau and can’t seem to get better? The Race Club
• Where does one go when he/she is emotionally drained or burned out and needs to get excited about swimming again? The Race Club
• Where does one go to get extraordinary underwater swimming video footage that opens up an entirely new world of knowledge about stroke mechanics? The Race Club
• Where does one go for short bursts of high intensity training, just like we gave our Olympic athletes? The Race Club
• Where does one go to mix a little business of swimming faster with pleasure? The Race Club

It is our business to enable you to swim faster and have fun doing it…and in one of the most pleasurable places in the world, Islamorada in the Florida Keys. See you here soon.

Yours in swimming,

Gary Sr.

I drove up to Fort Lauderale on Saturday morning to take part in the 1 Mile Race. The course was setup as a straight one mile ocean swim both starting out of the water and finishing out of the water on the beach. One would think that after the Swim Miami only about a month ago I would have known better and learned how important of a role strategy and actually having a race plan is in open water swimming.

So let me tell you about the mistakes I made that Saturday morning. The one thing that was different from Swim Miami was the beach start and finish. The running start had me get all excited and made my racer instincts go crazy. Running in the ocean behind Olympian Peter Vanderkaay made me take a chance and after the first few dolphin dives I was swimming as hard as I could to keep up with Peter and the lead pack taking a right turn at the first turn buoy swimming towards the finish. It didn’t last long and even drafting off their feet wasn’t an option anymore…they had taken off. It should be obvious to anyone that a guy who swims about the same yardage a week as someone like Peter does in a single workout shouldn’t try to out swim that other person.

The other thing that made my swim harder was my position in the pack. After the running start I started to pull slightly to the left to get a straight angle to the first turn buoy. At the time it seemed like a good idea but half way into the race I found myself still on that left side of the pack swimming with the beach on our right side. We had to stay within about 50m off the beach and swimming on the left side of the pack had me getting hit by all the incoming waves first. We were about a quarter into the race when I realized how bad my decision was and still swimming with the lead pack at that time I couldn’t just swim through them and place myself on the right side. Looking at my energy levels at that point into the race, letting myself fall back and swim around the pack wasn’t an option neither. And soon after I realized my mistake, I had to let go of the lead pack and found myself swimming on my own, getting hit by the waves anyway.

After coming out of his 10k race, Alex Mayer, a USA Open Water National Team member who was training down in the Keys before the event, told me that we actually had pretty calm conditions that day. I had “complained/informed” him earlier after the mile race. This is a lesson for all the pool swimmers that participate in open water events. Don’t expect the water to be flat and rely on those big wave breaker lane lines…there is no such thing in the ocean!

Start of the 1 Mile. © Jarret Streiner

After the 1 mile race, there was a 10k Pro race with some of the world’s finest Open Water athletes. Unbelievable but true, all of them found the power to stay around after their swim and offer some of their time to teach a clinic on Open Water swimming, free for anyone attending the 1 mile race earlier that Saturday. Melissa Gorman and Ky Hurst, both from Australia, as well as USA National Team Members (Open Water and/or pool) Christine Jennings, Alex Mayer, Andrew Gemmell, Chip Peterson, Chloe Sutton, Peter Vanderkaay and recently retired Aaron Peirsol just to name a few showed up with a smile and jumped back in the ocean with everyone for the clinic. I got partnered up with Melissa, who won the 10k race, and Christine, who got 2nd in the 10k race. Needless to say, I was able to pick the brains of two of the strongest open water athletes in the world right now and learned a lot during that hour. I will share some of the most important secrets for open water swimming that I learned about in an upcoming Aqua Note.

To finish, let me congratulate Maddy and Teresa Crippen and everyone else involved in this event. It was organized to perfection and an example on how to make open water a safe sport. I will be back next year and hopefully learn from my mistakes.

“Work the Dream” -Fran Crippen

Nico

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The history of Lima flowed and ebbed with America’s growth. First, there was the boom of the oil industry with Rockefeller’s Standard Oil setting up refinery business there. Then, after the Great Depression, it followed the rust belt, with emerging automotive-related businesses. Today, it actually boasts having the largest plant for Proctor and Gamble in the world, with enough employees to count as a small city. There have been some notable people from Lima, including founding member of the Beach Boys, Al Jardine, actress/comedian Phyllis Diller, sportscaster Bud Collins and Nobel Prize laureate in physics, William Alfred Fowler. This trip was not for Lima sightseeing, however. It was all about getting Lima’s swimmers faster. There was only one place to do that in town and that was the local downtown YMCA.

The pool was an indoor, eight-lane 25 yard pool, relatively newly built, but as space is always a premium, allowed for very little deck space. The YMCA pool of Lima does not have one problem for sure; usage. We started our TRC morning sessions at 5 am, to get in the first 2 hour session before school and the afternoon sessions were at 3 pm for 1 ½ hrs, before the next group of swimmers were anxiously waiting to jump in. So it went day after day from 5 am to 10 pm at night. Four different schools and a few clubs used the same YMCA pool for their swimming training.

Like I discovered in Buffalo, there was no lack of natural talent in Lima. Most of these swimmers have no idea how good they are, or how good they can become, so a lot of my job is to inform them of that and to inspire them to turn that talent into actual swimming performances. There were the usual number of stroke corrections…lots, but the swimmers adapted quickly and understood the scientific reasons for doing so. Over four days, I saw 18 swimmers graduate from being so-so swimmers to real athletes with dreams and talent and determination to live their dreams out.

Since leaving Lima, I can proudly say that seven of the eighteen swimmers have stepped up their training in a major way and have been consistently giving all for this season. My host, Erik Risolvolato, who is a dentist, is donating much time to help coach them with my advice. I am anxious to see how they do in February at their state meet. I think they will turn some heads.

My Race Club experience in Lima confirms what I had suspected from Buffalo last summer. There is a tremendous need in many areas of the United States for intense stroke technique camps and some inspiring and encouraging words.

And there is talent everywhere. In Lima and Buffalo, I saw tremendous gains in just four days. Who knows what will come out of it? If it is just one more college scholarship, or one more state title or even one more smiling face, it is all worth it.

Yours in Swimming,

Gary Sr.

Visit the photo gallery of Gary’s trip to Lima.

Swimmers like Phelps and Lochte don’t come along every day. I can’t imagine anyone winning nine gold medals in the Olympics, but I didn’t think Spitz’s record of seven Olympic golds would be broken, either. One thing I am sure of is that there is an abundance of talented swimmers in America working their way up the ladder, dreaming of taking over the roles of Phelps and Lochte.

Most of the credit for creating this pipeline of talent should go to USA Swimming and the thousands of affiliated swimming clubs across America. It is not that the schools, YMCA’s and summer recreation leagues don’t have a role. They do. The real development of talent, however, is largely due to America’s swim clubs.

A few weeks ago I witnessed this first hand in Buffalo, New York. It was the first time I have conducted a Race Club camp away from home in Florida. At the invitation of Greg Herzog, a passionate swimming parent in Buffalo, several clubs assembled 20 swimmers for one of the best weeks I have enjoyed in swimming.

The beauty of doing a five or six day camp, as opposed to a one day or half day clinic, is that one really has enough time to make some significant improvements in technique. In Buffalo, I had five days to teach 20 very talented young swimmers some critical fundamentals. More importantly, we had time to practice them and drill them so they became more comfortable with them by the end of the week.

Teaching swimming technique is my passion. In a sport where technique makes such a big difference in one’s success or lack of, it is really a pleasure to help swimmers get faster. No matter how great the coach, it is very difficult for him or her to spend any significant time studying technique in the midst of a busy and crowded practice. But in a Race Club camp, our focus is primarily on technique, analyzing above and below the water, working on drills that have a singular purpose to help improve speed.

Ryan Lochte grew up in Rochester, New York; not too far from Buffalo. There were some incredibly talented swimmers in our camp in Buffalo last month. Perhaps one of them will be the next Lochte or Phelps or Coughlin or Soni. Who knows? All I know is that America has an abundance of talented kids that are willing to work very hard to realize their dreams. Even though superstars don’t come along every day, it is nice to know we have a strong foundation of swimmers coming up and a good pipeline of talent. Somewhere out there, another Phelps and Lochte are just getting started.

Yours in Swimming,

Gary Sr.

Visit the photo gallery of Gary’s trip to Buffalo.

Circuit Training with the athletes of the Race Club Fiji.

There are certain events in our life that remain vivid in our memories. What we were doing when we watched in horror the events of 9/11 unfold before us, where we were when JFK was shot (for those of us old enough to remember) and for me, sitting in the bleachers awestruck over Mark Spitz breaking American records in this very same pool. It was as if it had happened yesterday, and frankly, other than moving the blocks from the shallow end to the deep end, the place looked identical.

So when Bobby Patten, coach of the Dallas Area Masters Swim Team, and I were reminiscing about this storied pool, admiring the rich tradition and heritage and the great swimmers’ photos mounted on the front entry salon walls; like Steve Lundquist, Jerry Heidenreich, Ken Merten, Jim Montgomery and Martina Moravcova, the thought occurred to us that some facilities should just be kept up as they are.

In fact, the facility has been well maintained. The little white tiles in the locker room, the white painted wooden doors, the varnished bleacher seats, even the old fashioned urinals that likely one could never find again were pretty much in original mint condition. Clearly, recruiting top-notch swimmers to a University whose home dual meets are in a 6 lane, shallow-end-going-to-deep-end, old-school pool is not the easiest task in the world. But somehow, this Perkins Natatorium needs to remain as it is.

To commemorate this pool, Bobby came up with a brilliant idea. “Next year”, he said, “Let’s host a retro meet. These would be the rules:

1. Nylon suits only
2. No goggles or caps allowed
3. Both feet forward on the start, hands in front or back (trophy start)
4. No touching the block with the hands on the start
5. Dive entry must be either pike position or flat as a pancake
6. Must touch the wall with the hand on all freestyle and backstroke turns
7. Cannot let your head go underwater on breaststroke
8. No underwater streamlining off turns or starts allowed
9. No underwater dolphin kick on breaststroke turns.”

For some of us ‘old-timers’, swimming by these rules would be easy. For the younger swimmers, it will take some serious practice in order to master these ‘Pearls of Inefficiency’. At the very least, all of us would walk away from a meet like this having had some fun and a new found appreciation for how far we have come in the sport of swimming.

Yours in Swimming,

Gary Sr.