SwimSwam wants to give you an inside look at what a normal day-in-the-life looks like for any given swimmer, and how that differs from team to team or city to city. We send our head of production, Coleman Hodges, to be a fly on the wall at practice, then relay what he discovered back to you over pancakes. Or at least breakfast.
SwimSwam went to Southlake to visit the North Texas Nadadores, just before the high school sectional meet for Texas (read how it went here). In August, 15-year head coach Bill Christensen retired, and the senior group was passed to the hands of Dan Balint.
Since Dan has taken over, he has kept the structure and practice routines fairly similar to how Bill ran it. Dan focuses a lot on technique, underwaters, and fast kicking, particularly during the short course season. A normal practice ranges from 5-6k, so the emphasis isn’t to pound yardage. On the day I came, the practice wasn’t anything crazy: Some warm up, some 25’s focusing on fast kicking and underwater, then a main set where you get a few fast swims in.
3x
4×25 kick @ :30
2×50 drill/swim @ 1:00
50 FAST (75 on rd 2, 100 on rd 3)
It might not look like much, but make no mistake that there was some serious speed getting thrown down. After that, they did a set of fast 50’s to keep the speed going and sharpen details up.
Coaches Dan and Kevin throw down for Carroll ISD!