Kick Board Bobbers

Bobbing up and down on a kick board while pushing through a 1,000 yard kick set is common on most swim teams. Unfortunately, the kick board provides a base of stability for the arms and core which is not present during swimming. Moreover, a board allows an athlete to use a pivot to propel themselves forward via the spiral line described by Thomas Myers in Anatomy Trains. 

Don't get me wrong, kick boards and kicking are essential for swimmers. Every coach knows elite swimmers have a strong powerful kick, unfortunately, I feel many coaches teach this incorrectly, especially for swimmers with low back instability. 


For injury prevention and swimming success, core endurance is essential. Unfortunately, a board promotes cheating, as many unstable swimmers are able to use their arms (likely their lats) to stabilize their body and push-off. If you take this bobber off the board, many of them are poor kickers. Therefore, does using a board with kick board bobbers improve their swimming? I know it does, because they still improve their leg endurance and strength, but I think it can be better, especially if you are a sprinter where less hip rotation and more core stability is required.  

In a recent interview with Dr. Prins of the University of Hawaii, he discussed the importance of core and hip stability in swimming. By the way, do yourself a service and buy The Swim Coaching Bible Volume II, great read! In the book and echoed throughout Friday Interview: Dr. Prins, he discusses his intriguing methods for measuring the role of stability in and out of the water. A common misconception surrounds swimming about the amount of hip rotation in freestyle, especially sprint. 

In athletes with poor core stability or those who use a heavy hip driven stroke, they rely on their rotational strength to drive their legs. However, in sprinting (swimming or kicking with a board) the athlete must use less hip rotation to keep the body in a straight line or streamline position. Too often those with poor sprint kicking and swimming ability go hand in hand and I (yes I, no research here) think it is due to poor streamline and core stability. 

For athletes with low back pain and those needing to improve their sprinting (I'm not talking only 50 freestylers, this includes those who can't change speeds in and out of walls). To improve your sprinting make sure your hips are stable, derived from a strong core. Therefore, if you use a board, make sure you are not bobbing! Keep the core locked, the spine long and finish your kick! 

If you are not using a board, the athlete must stabilize their core to move forward and speed will directly correlate with an improvement in core stability, especially in long course where the swimmer is unable to use the aid of walls and dolphin kicking. 

To conclude, kicking with a board isn't bad. It improves leg endurance and strength, both essential for swimming success. However, in those swimmers with difficulties sprinting and changing speeds or those bobbing side to side with the board, it is likely they are using the board for stability. Make sure they are not bobbing on the board or force them to stabilize without a board for improvement! 

By G. John Mullen founder of the Center of Optimal Restoration, head strength coach at Santa Clara Swim Club, and creator the Swimmer's Shoulder System.

Bonus Tuesday Interview: Dick Shoulberg

Recently I had the privilege of interviewing Coach Dick Shoulberg for our Friday interview.  Notes from our conversation follow below.  The founder and longtime coach at the Germantown Academy, Coach Shoulberg has coached eleven Olympians and been on the United States coaching staff for several international meets, including the Olympic Games.  For a more complete list of Coach Shoulberg’s coaching accomplishments, please visit his page at the Germantown Academy.


1. Please tell us how you got started in coaching
Started as lifeguard at age 16.   Many little kids at the pool didn’t know how to swim and needed instruction.  Then moved onto YWCA and summer league coaching.  Moved to Germantown Academy in 1969 and become aquatics director and started age group swim program.  In the program, we’ve been fortunate to place several kids on international teams and send many more to swim in college programs.

2. Who has most influenced your career with swimming?
High school track coach, Mr. Lewis was an early influence.  In swimming, Doc Counsilman stands out.  Also went and visited other coaches along the east coast.  Attended many clinics/conferences and learned from coaches there.  Watched great teachers outside of swimming (ballet, boxing).  From observing others I was able to from my own thoughts and design my own style.  

3. In 'The Swim Coaching Bible Volume II' you write about 'Power Training in the Pool', can you briefly discuss your favorite tools you use in the pool?
Five gallon bucket with six foot rope tied to swimmer’s waist attached to a belt.  It’s a form of Accommodating Resistance: the faster you go the harder it gets.  Also develops feel in addition to power.

4. At what stage of development do swimmers incorporate power training?
No specific age requirement.  Depends on swimmer’s ability level: fitness, strength, technique, maturity, among other factors).  Some high level 7th/8th graders use the buckets, while some high schoolers don’t.  When a kid graduates to bucket training it is seen as a “badge of honor” (their words)

5. How do you incorporate these tools within a practice and throughout a season?
3 days per week/28 minutes per session.  Can be morning or afternoon.  Not everyone can use them simultaneously due to lane space, which is why team is split AM/PM.  

Season planning: Increase bucket training shortly before taper.  Also, talked to physiologists with USA Swimming, who recommended maintaining some bucket training up to 24-48 hours before goal race.  We first learned of this strategy seeing how well the Soviets performed at the 1992 Olympics after training this way.  

6. How do you integrate resistance training out of the pool with power training in the pool?
28 minutes of dryland before morning practice (which is only 70 minutes during school year); 45 minutes at afternoon practice (two hours and fifteen minutes practice).  We regulate the intensity.  Dryland for us includes TRX, kettlebells, stationary bike, VASA trainer, plyometrics, and other tools.

Dryland is important for injury prevention, especially muscle groups that don’t get stressed in the water or that get stressed in imbalanced ways.  

7. Do you feel power training is important for every stroke and distance specialist? If so, how do you have these types of swimmer use the tools differently?
All swimmers in our program do 28 minute power sessions.  We vary the rest and intensity based on specialty: sprinters have higher intensity but longer recoveries; distance has lower intensity but shorter recoveries.

However, stroke and distance specialty are only two of many factors that affect our use of power training (stroke technique, body composition, etc)

8. In your chapter in 'The Swim Coaching Bible Volume II' you praise the Vasa Trainer. Please discuss why you like this piece of equipment and how it translate to success in the pool?
Best single tool available outside the pool.  We have nine Vasa trainers set up within six feet of the pool (we call it “Lane 7”).  Athletes do 16-28 minutes of work in various forms of intervals.  We monitor heart rate during the Vasa sessions and can be evaluate the athlete’s condition based on how long it takes heart rate to recover after intense efforts.  We can work on stroke technique and communicate with the athletes in real-time unlike the pool, where you have to wait until a rest interval.

9. Your programs have never feared distance.  How do you defend high yardage to those who are critical of it, particularly with most swimming races less than five minutes?
There are millions of ways to make fast swimmers.  I have nothing against low volume programs; many great swimmers did low yardage.  However, based on what we see in our program, the most accomplished athletes who achieved international ranking did high yardage.  We had some swimmers with better technique and talent, but they didn’t achieve as much as those willing to put in more volume.  

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Coach!

Should Female Swimmers Train Differently Than Males: Part III

In Should Female Swimmers Train Differently Than Males: Part I of this series, we explored differences in exercise physiology between males and females. One hypothesis emerging from that discussion was that females might demonstrate greater fatigue resistance. Though it’s a tough hypothesis prove due to the myriad of training variables, it’s worth considering for interpreting individual adaptations. Last week we discussed differences among youth and adolescents in Should Female Swimmers Train Differently Than Males: Part II. In this post, we’ll cover multiple areas, but will mainly focus on stress. Folklore may suggest females would be stressed than males (“drama queens”), but you can find many examples of high stress and low stress athletes in both genders. In truth, many differences lie in the art of coaching more than the science.  

Consider this interview excerpt with Coach Anson Dorrance of the University of North Carolina women’s soccer team, one of the most successful programs in all of college sports…

Interviewer: Could you elaborate a little bit more on the obvious differences you see in coaching males and females?

Coach Dorrance:  Well, it would take me forever because there are so many it'd be hard for me to recount them all. But they're motivated differently. You can't lead women with the intensity of your own personality. A part of what motivates a man is for the coach to actually scream at him during the game to get him going, and that does get him going. And a lot of the times, obviously being a male I understand this, half the time the reason you start playing is you're so irritated at the criticism. And that feeds your adrenaline….

That's totally ineffective with women. What happens when you are that way with a woman, unless you have a very good and close personal relationship with her is that you are going to actually shatter her confidence. And it's a totally ineffective way to lead women athletes. And I know that what's common in sport psychology is we all want to believe the way to motivate everyone is the same way.  But I'm here to testify, John, it's not (Silva 2011).

This excerpt is only a snapshot of Coach Dorrance’s full answer, but it gives the idea that differences are often more art than science. In terms of science, there’s probably not enough evidence to support female specific training, but there is ample evidence in gender differences to refine our explanatory models and understand the nuances of the individual athlete’s adaptation.  

One area where males and females differ profoundly is in the endocrine system. We discussed how estrogen and testosterone affect adolescent development in the previous installment. Another avenue through which hormones affect performance is the body’s stress response. Is there a difference in how females and males react to different stressors, both physical and mental? Again, this isn’t something you can ever prove with certainty due to the wide variety of training approaches and individual responses, but some common patterns do emerge.    

Cortisol levels are a common stress measurement. While cortisol testing requires a lab, you can observe potential signs and symptoms of elevation via observation. In athletics, we’re most commonly concerned with training load, but school stress, social stress, and poor nutrition (among other things) can also elevate cortisol. With females, amenorrhea is also tied with cortisol levels (Ding 1988).  

Since we’re talking hormones, we’d be remiss to ignore contraceptive use. Yes, it’s an off-limits area for many male coaches with their female athletes. But it’s important enough to have been studied repeatedly in the literature (Vaiksaar 2011, Reichichi 2008), and fairly recently among swimmers. Reichichi (2012) studied competitive swimmers and found monophasic contraceptive cycle did not impair 200m swim performance, though it may affect blood lactate readings, due to increases in fluid retention, plasma volume, and cellular alkalosis.  

As for physical training differences, several studies examine cortisol levels in swimmers and other endurance athletes. Tsai (1991) studied elite male and female endurance athletes over a full competitive season. Athletes were tested three times: preseason, midseason, postseason. Women began their seasons at higher cortisol levels and increased significantly during the season compared to men.    

However, after a three day training increase, O’Connor (1991) observed no differences in psychological or physiological responses between males and females. Though cortisol levels are a sign of stress, they are not necessarily a real-time indicator of performance.  In fact, in the short term, elevated cortisol may reflect the exact response we’re seeking as part of a sympathetic nervous response to peak for racing (the “fight” part of the fight-or-flight dichotomy). It’s a greater concern when levels are chronically elevated.

In the O’Connor study eighteen female and twenty two male college swimmers increased daily training volume from 6,800m to 11,200m for the females and from 8,800m to 12,950m for males. Stroke frequency, perceived exertion, fatigue, and muscle soreness all increased. Clearly this was a taxing effort for all, but in the short term, the stress response was the same for both genders.

The results may change for swimmers on dry land. Chatard (2002) studied a mixed gender group of swimmers over a 37 week period. Cortisol increased with volume increases and as the season progressed. Athletes completed sixty eight races during this time frame.  Although they observed no link between cortisol and race performance, cortisol was a reliable marker of dryland stress among the females.  

“Dryland” is a broad label, and can mean everything from easy stretching to intense lifting. Nevertheless, given the frequent bone density problems of female aquatic athletes, it could be that dryland is more stressful, especially in an elite sample where athletes have spent much of their lives immersed in water for up to 4-5 hours a day. This is just speculation on my part, but it is one possible explanation.  

Another explanation could be the heat dynamics of land exercise versus aquatic exercise.  Filaire (1996) conducted a female-only study, but compared swimmers to handball players.  Handball players had higher cortisol levels, with one theory being the natural cooling provided by water for swimmers.  

Training and racing can induce emotional stress too (see, The Cause of Choking and How to Avoid It). In a fairly lengthy study, Raglin (1991) followed 84 female and 102 male swimmers over a four-year period to examine psychological stress. Ratings for depression, anger, vigor, fatigue, and confusion all correlated with alterations in training yardage in both genders. Tension was higher in the female swimmers each year and did not abate with yardage reductions.   

Kivlighan(2005) studied collegiate male and female rowers and observed that cortisol levels rose in preparation for competition. Levels remained elevated over pre-event baselines and forty minutes post-competition. The sample included both experts and novices in both genders, with the only significant differences in the novice females.

Conclusion
Remember, not all stress is bad, so long as we have appropriate opportunities for adaptation to occur.  There’s probably not enough evidence to create gender paradigms for all, but knowledge of physiology and reported findings unique to each gender can help individualize based on the athlete’s characteristics, whether female or male.      

References

1. Tsai L, Johansson C, Pousette A, Tegelman R, Carlström K, Hemmingsson P.  Cortisol and androgen concentrations in female and male elite endurance athletes in relation to physical activity.  Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1991;63(3-4):308-11.
2. Kivlighan KT, Granger DA, Booth A.  Gender differences in testosterone and cortisol response to competition.  Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2005 Jan;30(1):58-71.
3. Chatard JC, Atlaoui D, Lac G, Duclos M, Hooper S, Mackinnon L. Cortisol, DHEA, performance and training in elite swimmers.  Int J Sports Med. 2002 Oct;23(7):510-5.
4. O'Connor PJ, Morgan WP, Raglin JS.  Psychobiologic effects of 3 d of increased training in female and male swimmers.  Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1991 Sep;23(9):1055-61.
5. Raglin JS, Morgan WP, O'Connor PJ.  Changes in mood states during training in female and male college swimmers.  Int J Sports Med. 1991 Dec;12(6):585-9.
6. Filaire E, Duché P, Lac G, Robert A.  Saliva cortisol, physical exercise and training: influences of swimming and handball on cortisol concentrations in women.  Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1996;74(3):274-8.
7. Silva J.  Psychological Aspects of Competition: An Interview with Anson Dorrance Head Women’s Soccer Coach at The University of North Carolina.  Journal of Excellence.  Issue No. 11.
8. Ding JH, Sheckter CB, Drinkwater BL, Soules MR, Bremner WJ.  High serum cortisol levels in exercise-associated amenorrhea.  Ann Intern Med. 1988 Apr;108(4):530-4.
9. Rechichi C, Dawson B.  Oral contraceptive cycle phase does not affect 200-m swim time trial performance.  J Strength Cond Res. 2012 Apr;26(4):961-7.
10. Vaiksaar S, Jürimäe J, Mäestu J, Purge P, Kalytka S, Shakhlina L, Jürimäe T.  No effect of menstrual cycle phase and oral contraceptive use on endurance performance in rowers.  J Strength Cond Res. 2011 Jun;25(6):1571-8.
11. Rechichi C, Dawson B, Goodman C.  Oral contraceptive phase has no effect on endurance test.  Int J Sports Med. 2008 Apr;29(4):277-81. Epub 2007 Sep 13.

By Allan Phillips. Allan and his wife Katherine are heavily involved in the strength and conditioning community, for more information refer to Pike Athletics.

Weekly Round-up

1. Brettzel stretch
2. Listening To Music During Running Improves Performance By Up To 15% – If You’re Not Already Good.
3. In Defense of Distance.
4. Stiffness is a Strategy.
5. Bananas as an energy source during exercise.