2023 Springfield, VA Swim Camp Series For Ages 13 & over!
The St. James
6805 Industrial Rd,
Springfield,
VA 22151
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Introduction
Fitter & Faster is returning to The St. James in Springfield, VA to produce three swim camps in July and September 2023! This web page is for the camps for swimmers ages 13 & over. Click here for the swim camp page for swimmers ages 10 to 12.
SPRINGFIELD, VA: 2023 SWIM CAMP SERIES (Ages 13 & over)
-> Explosive Starts, Turns & More!- July 29 & 30
-> Individual Medley Transitions, Strategy & Execution (200 & 400 IM)! - September 9 & 10
-> Elite Speed & Power! - September 16 & 17
Click the “Curriculum Menu” below for details on each swim camp
-> Availability in each session is limited to ensure the best learning experience!
-> SAVE when you purchase the “Full Camp Bundle” for your swimmer!
Select a curriculum below
Explosive Performance: Starts, Turns, Underwaters & More! - July 29 & 30
The momentum generated from an explosive start and turns are the FASTEST that elite swimmers are moving in a race! The more efficient, powerful and hydrodynamic your swimmer is, directly impacts their speed and distance they travel in the water before taking their first stroke! This camp will be led by elite clinician & Olympic Gold Medalist Nick Thoman!
- Day 1: EXPLOSIVE STARTS, UNDERWATERS & BREAKOUTS (July 29): The better a swimmer’s technique is off the starting block, the more speed they will carry into the water. Day 1 of this swim camp will help your swimmer improve their start, underwater dolphin kicking and breakouts! This sequence is not only the fastest part of every race, but it is also the part of the race in which elite swimmers cover the most ground with the most efficiency.
- Block Starts: To ensure an explosive start, a swimmer needs to set themselves up properly on the block. The elite clinicians will work with participants on the optimal positioning of your swimmer’s entire body to allow for a quick reaction time and optimal speed.
- Streamline: The streamline - if done properly - will be the fastest a swimmer travels while in the water. Proper streamlines are even faster than underwater dolphin kicking. Even the most elite swimmers in the world are constantly working on improving their streamline. Your swimmer will get tips to improve their streamline and a better appreciation of what they need to do on every single wall in practice and in races.
- Initiating Underwater Dolphin Kicking: Elite swimmers want to maximize their streamline on every single lap. So, they don’t want to start their underwater dolphin kicking while they’re still achieving maximum speed in their streamline. They also don’t want to start the underwater dolphin kicking after their streamline has begun to slow. Your swimmer is going to learn how to time when to begin their underwater dolphin kicking.
- Powerful Underwater Dolphin Kicking: There are a few different techniques that swimmers use when underwater dolphin kicking. The common theme of these techniques is that the best swimmers kick up and down with equal power. We will show your swimmer the different techniques that elite swimmers use and teach them how to implement.
- Number of Underwater Dolphin Kicks: Figuring out the optimal number of kicks off each wall, for each race, is essential to fast swimming. Elite swimmers want to spend only the absolute necessary amount of time underwater to establish speed with each length. They want to avoid losing their breath and taking weak kicks.
- Breakouts: Many swimmers add movement within their breakout that creates drag and destroys all of the speed created during their underwaters. Participants will work on timing their breakouts to explode into each lap.
- Day 2: FASTER FLIP TURNS, OPEN TURNS & FINISHES (July 30): Quick, powerful turns and finishes are crucial to fast times and winning close races. The top age group and elite swimmers aren't using walls just for turning around - they are used to generate speed and momentum going into the next lap. Elite swimmers are constantly working their turns and looking for areas to improve them. Today, we're going to work with your swimmer on taking this crucial part of every race (and practice) to the next level!
- Momentum: At the elite level of swimming, walls aren’t just used for turning around - they are used to generate speed and momentum going into the next lap. Outside of the elite ranks, most swimmers stop or slow down while going into the wall, which kills their momentum! We will work with participants on the intricacies of approaching every wall at top speed and seamlessly initiating their “turn”.
- Flip Turns: Flip turns are an opportunity for your swimmers to increase momentum in the middle of a race! Flip turns in which the athletes slow down or have “mechanical” movements negatively impact the speed at which a swimmer comes off the wall. We will work with your swimmer to produce fast flip turns so that they can explode off the walls at maximum speed.
- Open Turns: Elite butterflyers and breaststrokers utilize speed from their last lap to create momentum and even more speed at the beginning of the next lap. Their open turns are actually not “turns”, but more like high-speed pivots. Participants in this session will work on these techniques to have much faster open turns!
- Streamline, Underwater Dolphin, Breakout Progression: At this session participants will continue to work on the progression covered on Day 1.
- Finishes: Setting yourself up for a fast finish is very similar to setting yourself up for a strong turn in any race. Races are won and lost by hundredths-of-a-second at every swim meet. Many races come down to the last few strokes. At this camp, your swimmer will learn techniques to set themselves up for a well-timed finish when they are still about 10 yards from the wall.
Individual Medley Transitions, Strategy & Execution - September 9 & 10
Fast racing is all in the details. Over two days, swimmers will focus on each component of racing fast in the IM! Participants will work with our elite clinicians to develop a deeper understanding of high-performance concepts that are incredibly important to racing at an elite level.
- DAY 1: IM TRANSITIONS & UNDERWATERS (Sept 9): The turns throughout an IM are essential! On day 1, participants will work on different IM transitions and underwaters to maximize momentum into and out of every wall!
- Crossover Turns: The back-to-breast transition has a couple of ways that swimmers can approach it. At this camp we will focus on the fastest and most common back to breast turn at the elite level: The Crossover.
- Open Turns: Swimmers will work on transitioning all of their speed and momentum from the butterfly leg into their backstroke leg and from breaststroke to freestyle through a snappy, tight open turn.
- Underwater Dolphin Kicking: The fastest swimmers weaponize their dolphin kicking in their IM's. It is the fastest way to move through the water!
- Breaststroke Pullouts: The best breaststrokers are faster under the water than on the surface! Proper body position and timing in a pullout is so important for the breaststroke leg in your IM's.
- DAY 2: IM RACE STRATEGY (Sept 10): Go out hard or go out strong? Which IM leg should be pushed harder? We will help participants understand different types of pacing and strategies for IM events to race smarter AND faster!
- IM Strategy: Every IM swimmer has a different strategy that they have developed over years of practice and racing. At this session, we will work with swimmers to develop a deeper understanding of utilizing their own unique strengths and weaknesses to build a customized race plan that will help them swim faster!
- Stroke Pacing: There are many ways for a swimmer to adjust their strokes to maximize efficiency or speed. Lengthening distance per stroke at critical times in an IM can help conserve energy. Swimmers can also prioritize tempo in their stroke to try to accelerate or finish strong! Elite athletes know themselves and how they need to adjust their strokes. Participants will learn how to seamlessly change these elements within their strokes to maximize the effectiveness of their strategy.
- IM Racing: Many swimmers have different strategies while racing, especially when in the IM’s! Swimmers will need to adjust their racing strategy based on how they stack up among their competitors during the race. Swimmers will work on balancing energy expenditure while competing against others to find the ideal combination for IM races!
- Strategy Reinforcement & Training: Swimmers will work on finessing different IM racing techniques learned during the session. They will also go through a training set developed by our clinicians and the Fitter and Faster coaching team to help swimmers maintain their strategy and technique through fatigue!
Elite Speed & Power - September 16 & 17
Due to the advanced concepts covered in this camp, this camp is exclusively for swimmers ages 13 & older. Swimming fast requires good technique, efficiency, power, and a hard working athlete. Elite swimmers are always working on this. At the Elite Speed and Power Camp, participants will advance their skills that apply to fast swimming in every stroke.
- DAY 1: GENERATING POWER! (Sept 16): Developing power will help your swimmer be more efficient and stronger in the water! To strengthen swimming specific movements, the elite clinicians will work with participants on improving power in their strokes, using resistance training and dynamic warm-ups to their advantage.
- Gear to Bring with You: Please bring a t-shirt to swim in, your snorkel, paddles, fins and a pair of gym sneakers to this camp!
- Dynamic Warm-up: In order to go fast, you need to be warm! The clinicians will take participants through a combination of light cardio exercises and dynamic stretches to get the blood flowing to the muscles and loosen joints in preparation to SWIM FAST! Remember: Bring your Gym Shoes!
- Establishing Your Catch to Maximize Power in Your Stroke: The only way to generate maximum power in your stroke is by “holding” as much water as possible. That process begins with “your catch” at the top of every stroke. At this camp your clinicians will work with you to ensure you are grabbing onto and holding water throughout your stroke.
- Resistance Training: Resistance is an excellent method of building power - especially in the water. It also helps to expose areas within your technique that can be strengthened. The clinicians will take your swimmer through resistance training methods! Properly swimming with hand paddles and a T-shirt will add resistance and develop power! Remember: Bring a t-shirt to swim in and your hand paddles!
- DAY 2: CREATING & MAINTAINING SPEED (Sept 17): Your swimmer is going to learn how to swim at top speeds while continuing to leverage the powerful stroke that we worked on the day before! On Day 1, participants swam slower than they normally swim because of the resistance we added to establish a “powerful stroke”. Today is about swimming FASTER than you normally swim with assistance from fins and paddles.
- Gear to Bring with You: Please bring a t-shirt to swim in, your snorkel, paddles, fins and a pair of gym sneakers to this camp!
- "Overspeed Training": Practice how to swim with good technique at speeds faster than you’ll ever go in a race with the assistance of fins and paddles. We will utilize overspeed drills in and out of turns, in their breakouts and finishes. Remember: Bring your fins and hand paddles!
- Tempo: One way to increase efficiency is to take fewer strokes. Improving technique to decrease the number of strokes your swimmer takes will enable them to go further faster - that’s when times DROP!
- Maintaining Technique Through Fatigue: When swimmers get tired, their technique can break down. We are going to work with participants on how to handle fatigue. Competitive swimmers who focus on technique through fatigue in practice and in races reap the rewards of faster times.
- Speed Set: At the end of this session your swimmer will do a short and fast swim set to practice everything they have learned over the past two days.
START TIMES FOR ALL THREE CAMPS: Check in 12:30 PM, Camp 12:45-3:45 PM Suggested Participants: Our top priority is to provide a world-class learning experience for all participants at all of our camps. This camp has sessions for swimmers ages 13 & older. Participants will range from one-year of competitive swimming experience to AAAA times and faster. If you are the parent of a child under the age of 13, CLICK HERE!
ASK QUESTIONS
Swimmers and parents are invited to ask the clinicians questions during a Q&A session. Gain insight into their training regimen, diet and nutrition, and recovery tactics.
WATCH THE CLINICIANS
Observe clinicians swim at full speed and demonstrate a progression of perfectly executed drills to achieve powerful, efficient and fast swimming.
PUT YOUR SKILLS TO THE TEST
Swimmers will get to practice what they've learned by taking their stroke to your top speed with some of the best swimmers and coaches in the world! They'll work on holding onto their form while challenging themselves.
Take a photo, get autographs, and chat with your clinicians!
Nick Thoman
Size matters so much less when you have great technique... and your clinician is living proof of that. At one point, Nick Thoman was known as the world's greatest short course swimmer in the world. His starts and turns were a weapon - he was shorter than most of his top competition, but HE was the world record holder in the 100 short course meter backstroke AND he is an Olympic gold medalist. Learn to weaponize great technique, no matter your size or strength, to improve at this clinic with Nick Thoman!
Inquisitive, Educated Swimmers are Faster Swimmers! Sign up today!
