Video review

Last night the JO swimmers reviewed some video. Bill pulled out his USA Swimming DVDs with races from World Championships, Olympic trials, and USA swimmers with world records.

I had watched every single one of the races that were reviewed from the standpoint of a fan but watching with a critical eye to teaching the swimmers techniques and reinforcing good habits was a whole different ball of wax.

They started with the Michael Phelps in a 200 IM. This was back when he could still beat Ryan Lochte if you can remember that far back. Coach Bill and the swimmers broke down his start, his dolphin kick, and spent a lot of time watching his arm recovery. The breakout on backstroke was a recurring theme through the night; every single swimmer got a chance to see how important that second arm is during the breakout (keep it still!). What was amazing was that when Michael Phelps is dolphining, his head and hands do not move. Well, the move forward obviously, just not up and down.

The best race for the kids was watching Mary Descenza swimming the 200 fly. She was about a body length behind after two laps (100M) and pulled forward for the win. It was a great example for the kids of keeping your form throughout the whole race. But the part they wanted rewound and played a few times was the swimmer two lanes over who swam right out of her cap! One second she has a black cap on, an presto change-o, the next she has a pink cap on.

We'll see next week how much this video review helps these swimmers and probably start scheduling more to reinforce what Bill is focusing on in practice that week.