Following a beautiful drive along the shore of Lake Michigan, and a few more miles south, I arrived in the suburbs north of Indianapolis to visit Carmel Swim Club (CSC). After my previous week with New Trier Aquatics, I had high expectations on what else I could see and learn, and this stop did not let me down one bit!
One of the elements that has made Carmel famous on a national scale is their commitment to general Athletic Development on land, in the form of dryland. It was great to see that program being put into practice. I was impressed by the pace and quality of work their HS-aged athletes put in the weight room, and by how often I saw groups following a standard, simple dryland routine, including as part of their warm-ups (one of their usual sayings is “warm-up to swim, don’t swim to warm-up“).
Most workouts I observed had a “skill” section planned (a short set focusing on a specific stroke, turns, etc). While for the most part kids kept moving (not a lot of time with long explanations), the amount of feedback the coaches offered during those sections was pretty amazing. Every single coach was actively engaged in offering individual advice, including getting a few kids out for better understanding here and there, and showing some videos to help paint the picture. I’m pretty sure every kid in each of those workouts got at least one piece of individual feedback, and most got quite a few more.
Coaches are also all very adept at making use of unusual pieces of equipment: kick-out buoys (in about 80% of the workouts I’ve watched), paddles used for grab paddles or push paddle drill, laneline buoy and wiffleball for head position, and quite a few more. Head Age Group coach Chris Pfaff explained to me along these lines: “I love using equipment that offer immediate feedback, and do all the coaching on that aspect for me.”
The club operates out of a 50m by 25y pool owned by Carmel High School – that’s right, a HS that built an Olympic-Sized pool! – and they are very good about using that space. On a Wednesday afternoon, the Senior groups were all going LCM. In order to fit over 100 kids in LCM, they figured out a way to transform their 8-lane pool into a 10-lane! While 10 lanes LCM is a pretty good chunk of space, once their 400+ age groups start flooding in, the SCY set-up still works much better, so their kids have figured out how to turn the pool back in about 5 minutes. The top-notch facility helps, but this was another example I saw on this trip of a club making the absolute best possible use of the space they have.
One final item that caught my attention was the end-of-practice ritual: swimmers thanked coaches for the workout. In fact, even though I was only observing for a couple workouts, quite a few of the kids still came and thanked me! They did put me to work on deck and help with practice on my last evening there, which I was happy to do again – and at least then I felt like those “thank yous” were earned!
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