Zone Select Camp Closes Today! 

Interested in being an assistant coach at one of our Zone Select Camps? Applications are now available until Friday, February 15th and can be found here. 

Coaches must apply to the camp in the zone which they are currently coaching. 

The Fifth Annual #SwimBiz Marketing Conference 

Register Today for the 2019 #SwimBiz: Social Media Sponsorship & Swimming Conference

The fifth annual #SwimBiz: Social Media, Sponsorship & Swimming conference will be held in Colorado Springs, Colo. on April 28-30. The event focuses on social media, advertising, branding, communications and sponsorship. Our expert panels features elite marketing professionals who will offer insight to improve your promotional efforts for your team and brand. This is an incredible chance to learn from and network with some of the industry-leaders in swimming.

Featured Topics

• Business Intelligence: Lessons from the Professional Sports World
• How Your Club Can Be Prepared to Capitalize on an Olympic Year
• A Guide to Engage & Pitch to Local Businesses 
• Social Media: The Fads, The Fears & The Future
• USA Swimming's Flex Membership: Learnings & Next Steps 
• How to Coach Athletes About Social Media
• More than 15 sessions planned! 

Discount: Register 3 or more coaches from the same club and receive 25% discount off your registration fee.

Conference Details:

Registration:

Mental Toughness Toolbox: Getting to "Good Nervous", Staying Calm the Night Before that Big Meet

By Alan Goldberg

The skill of relaxation is a cornerstone of mental toughness training. Having the ability to consciously relax your body helps you handle the pressure of competition so that you can stay in “good nervous” leading up to your events. It also cools your body down in between races and after meets, enables you to maintain the right focus of concentration before and during your race and it properly prepares you for the use of mental rehearsal. Without the ability to relax, you can never reach your true potential as a swimmer.

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Clean and Healthy Competition: Why It Matters

By TrueSport

Why do you and your kids love sports? Maybe it’s the pure joy that comes from playing alongside teammates united by a common goal. Maybe it’s the sense of wonder in what the human body can achieve through hard work and talent. Or maybe it’s the instinctive thrill of competition and the possibility of victory. Maybe it’s all of those things.

All these reasons, however, can be threatened by the same thing – cheating. And when cheating takes the form of doping, it not only threatens the value of sport, but more importantly, the health of the athlete.

With the competitive nature of youth sports escalating, the temptation to rise above the competition through the use of performance-enhancing drugs will also start occurring to athletes at a younger age. This, and the increasingly easy access to potent substances, is why coaches, parents, and youth sport role models must help shape an environment that prioritizes clean and healthy competition.

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Clean Sport

By United States Anti- Doping Agency (USADA)

The information below should be shared with your athletes and their parents. Please distribute it via email, a club newsletter, or link to the articles on your team web page.

Resources:

2019 pocket guide gives a quick summary of the #doping control process, athlete rights and responsibilities, and much more that can help non-national level athletes comply with #antidoping rules. Download it here:

Athletes: Our 2019 athlete handbook has the info you need on #antidoping to help you #competeclean. Give it a look! #cleansport

While energy drinks may sound flashy and exciting to young athletes, reality is they aren't the best option for #hydration or health. Check out these 5 reasons why energy drinks aren't the answer:   

Supplements:

Four myths parents need to know about supplements

It's a red flag if a supplement label lists a proprietary blend or has trademarked ingredients that you can’t find legitimate information about. Make sure you're aware of all the ways to reduce your risk of consuming a tainted supplement. #Supplement411 

If You Want to Get Better at Something, Ask Yourself These Two Questions

By Peter Bregman, hbr.org

It was the last race of the ski season. My son Daniel, 10 years old, was at the starting gate in his speed suit, helmet and goggles, waiting for the signal.

“3… 2… 1…” The gate keeper called out and he was gone in a flash, pushing off his ski poles to gain momentum. One by one, each gate smacked to the ground when he brushed by. As he neared the end, he crouched into an aerodynamic tuck to shave a few milliseconds from his time. He crossed the finish line —48.37 seconds after the start — breathing hard. We cheered and gave him hugs.

But he wasn’t smiling...
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Freestyle - Ultra-Fast Turns

By Glenn Mills, GoSwim Video of the Week, February 13, 2019

Video:  Or here.

Article 

See many more flip-turn videos here.

The concept of “working your turns” is something all swimmers know about, but few swimmers take seriously. Maybe they think they don’t have the time or are too tired to create QUICK and FAST walls. Watch the drill below to help. For the younger swimmers especially, this proves to be a good drill, and fun.

Watch Video

4 Leadership Lessons from Serena Williams

By Rene Vidal, coachad.com

What is it that makes Serena Williams the ultimate competitor? How has she not only won consistently, but also established herself as perhaps the most dominant athlete of our time? And what can business leaders, high-performance coaches and top-flight athletes learn from Williams’ sustained success? The answer is leadership.

There are four simple traits that Williams has refined to perfection. By implementing these practical principles into your daily routine, you will experience an immediate “uptick” in your leadership effectiveness. You may even become the grand slam champion of your business or sport.

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The Emperor’s New Clothes: Evidence for Evidence Based Training

By David Farrokh,bigpicturesoccercoaching.com

When I first thought about writing this piece I was a little hesitant. I’m not really a fan of the hatchet-job articles on youth soccer development. After thinking about it a little more, though, I remembered a few things. I remembered DOC’s who make six figures playing the club politics but don’t care about the game. I remembered supposedly top coaches who are given the best teams but divide their sessions equally between lines and lectures. I remembered families being hustled by charismatic but manipulative coaches. Most of all I remembered the kids who got lost in this chaos.

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The Pillars of Success

By John Bertrand, Swimming Australia

I recently spent the day with the most successful sailing coach the world has ever seen, Victor Kovalenko. All great coaches no matter whether they’re from the world of swimming, or any other sport, develop their own philosophies through hard-earned experiences. And they have the ability to communicate those philosophies. Victor is one of those coaches.

Victor has coached more athletes to Olympic gold medals than any other sailing coach in Olympic history. Originally from the Ukraine, he came to Australia 20 years ago in preparation for the Sydney Olympics and is now the head coach of Australian Sailing and a proud Australian citizen.

Victor's philosophies are simple yet powerful.

His pillars for success are; time, money and ‘the system’.

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