Hello Marlins!

As we prepare for the upcoming County Championships, here are some tips/notes for the upcoming week to help your swimmer do their absolute best! Just like how our in-pool prep starts well before the meet, so does the out of pool prep.

1) Diet

It is a common myth that athletes should eat pasta and "carb-load" the night before a big meet. This idea is overblown and not applicable to our swimmers. Carb-loading is only useful for athletes competing for extending periods of time (~>1.5 hours). Since none of the Marlins are swimming the English Channel this weekend, eating a big pasta dinner will not give your swimmer an edge.

You can still help your swimmer via diet, however! This will require more than just a carefully planned meal the night before. For this week leading up to county, avoid junk and greasy foods, as well as sugary and carbonated drinks. Have your swimmer eat lots of fruits and vegetables, as well as healthy protein and grains. Remember: Garbage in, garbage out!

2) Rest
It is very important to get plenty of rest the night before the meet. Often overlooked however, are the nights leading up to the meet. It is impossible for your body to "catch-up" from a lack of sleep in a single night. To make sure your swimmer is well rested for the meet, make sure they're getting plenty of sleep and rest every night this week, not just on Friday/Saturday night.

3) Do not be alarmed if we end practices a little early this week.To make sure our swimmers are well rested for county, we do what is called tapering. As we get closer to the meet, we ease up on workouts so our swimmers are not sore or tired come meet day. Looked at another way: we can't gain that much more muscle/endurance with 4 days of practice left. We can however continue to polish our technique and give the muscles we have built up all the rest they need to perform at 100%.

4) The Night Before and the Morning Of
The night before your child swims, make sure they get a filling, healthy dinner (same guidelines as the diet above). As above, make sure they get a good night's sleep. The morning of, make sure they get a filling, healthy, but not glutton-level breakfast. We want our swimmers to have plenty of energy, but we also don't want them feeling heavy and bloated. Sometimes swimmers will avoid breakfast out of fear of feeling "weighed down". This is a HUGE mistake. County is a long meet. Even if your child is not hungry in the morning, they certainly will be later, and we don't want them eating too much before their races (then they will be weighed down). I can speak from personal experience, avoiding a good breakfast and/or lunch on meet day is a guaranteed way to feel tired and add time.

5) Get excited! The Olympic Trials are on, watch them and get excited about swimming fast! Or watch the most epic swimming comeback ever from the 2008 Olympics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxy920Nd7yY

If you have an questions about this week or the upcoming meet, please don't hesitate to email me.

Go Marlins!

James

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