T2 Aquatics – Senior 1 Two-Week Cycle Week A

Our T2 Aquatics “Senior 1” training group is a group of 40+ athletes who generally are focused on High School-level performance. Typically, these athletes train 4 out of the 6 practices offered per week.

My staff and I have been trying to figure out the best way to convey our objectives to the athletes. Because of their relative inexperience, and the fact that very few of the 40+ athletes attend more than 4 practices per week, we decided to change a few things with our program. We addressed the following items:

  1. We added two “parachute” training days. These days are Tuesday and Friday. The hope is that
    a) we can get more athletes to practice on these days, particularly on Friday, which is our least-populated day (athletes get excited to try this type of resistance training); and
    b) we can get the athletes to dig a bit deeper with their practice habits and their sense of what “hard work” is – inside the pool arena by using the parachutes during a practice. The parachutes highlight drag aspects of our technique, so they give instant physical feedback to our athletes, and they combine excitement & power development as well!
  2. We simplified our warmup plans by sticking with a basic set of warmup procedures. The goal is that the athletes will become accustomed to our warmup and begin to do a better job with the first 15 of practice. Learning can only happen in an ordered environment, so by simplifying and essentially repeating the warmup each day, we are creating more order & less chaos – which will impact each athlete in a physical and psychological way.
  3. We are measuring and recording some of the athlete’s practice performance results. It’s our staff’s goal that the athletes begin to record their own performance through keeping a daily log book (something we have addressed briefly, recently, with the athletes – and will continue to address)…but while we go through the first weeks of this plan, our coaches are writing down some of the top performances of the workout and using the data we collect to motivate the group during the following weeks, when the practice items are repeated.

Our plan is to establish a two-week cycle (“Week A” and “Week B”), and repeat the cycle for 6 weeks (A, B, A, B, A, B). Our staff will save some time by doing this, and we will avoid writing new workouts each day in lieu of abiding within the philosophy that it’s not only ok to repeat things with our training group, but given their relative lack of experience, it’s actually going to prove beneficial to repeat warm ups, sets, and whole practices from one week to the next.

Go to the next page for the first workout of Week A.

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