Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Swim squad: tips (pet peeves)

Squad swimming is much better than normal pool swimming. You all do the same workout, and you don’t get people doing breaststroke in the fast lane, or aggressive pass-ers in the slow lane.

But it’s not perfect, and as a somewhat competitive, easily annoyed person, I thought I’d share some tips, and see if anyone else has anything to add (who knows, I may be doing something heinously annoying without even realising)...

-If someone is faster than you, let them pass. You don’t need to stop for them, but keep left and don’t flail around too much. Make it easy for them.

Even if that someone’s usually slower than you, they might be a much stronger kicker, and it might annoy them having you change to BREASTSTROKE kick so they can’t pass, then turning around super fast so they’re stuck behind you doing your slow, flailing kick again. Hypothetically.

Oh- and they will be especially annoyed if after all this, you decide to cut off half a length so you can beat them back at the end of the set.


- Don’t race the warmup. No-one appreciates being rushed, and no-one’s impressed. It’s a warmup. Same goes for DPS/easy sets.

-If someone is consistently passing you in the first few lengths of each set, let them go first on the next set. Yes, they can pass you, but it’s easier on everyone if you just start in the right place. Not Rocket Science.

What are your pet peeves?

7 comments:

Britt said...

Hahah! How true! I hate the people who refuse to let you pass. So irritating. I'm so glad I'm swimming in the lake now :) Lots of room to pass everyone I please!

Unknown said...

Ha! Nice work Kate... you tell those ignorant peeps out there!
Squad sessions are good but yes you have to keep your ego in check. No racing when you should be training. The dicks who like to 'win' the warm-up or drill session for that matter are normally the ones DNFing in the actual racing or coming up with the same old excuses as to why they didn't perform as well as they do in training... ;-)

JenC said...

I hate it when someone shows up late to the workout and insists on starting from the beginning instead of wherever the rest of the group is.

Of course, I no longer swim with a squad, but I do remember that being a pet peeve along with several you mentioned.

Kate said...

JenC: Totally agree- I'm often late, and always just slip in.

Aaron said...

What's the typical format for your swim squad in terms of sets rest periods and so on?

When I was a kid we used to do swim squad - best part were the squad names e.g. sharks :)

Kate said...

Aaron- format changes heaps! In my lane we usually do a warm up between 500m and 1200m. Then it might be 25m sprints, kick fartlek sets, or long technique and medley sessions. We don't usually have much rest (20-30s between sets) unless we're doing sprints, when we might do 25m on 1:00 (35-40s rest each 25)

rauparaha said...

I can't stand people who can't use the clock and can't pace themselves. Whatever the interval or pace of the set they just go as fast as they can until they die and take 10sec breaks at seemingly random times. Gah!