fucking priceless…

Anyhoo, I print out the split cheater below just big enough that it fits on the inside of my back cover and tape it down. I made it a bunch of years ago and it is one of those invaluable tools that I keep coming back to when I am writing a complicated split or bracket set or I am in the middle of a workout and decide to change the set on the fly to an incremental interval and the math part of my brain is not awake yet.

Anyway, you can download it here…its in .xls format. Don’t have Microsoft Excel? You don’t need it..download open office (openoffice.org…its better than Microsoft Office) or use Google Apps and print away.

Anyway, I wish people would acknowledge that the suits made the difference. Yes, swimmers train harder now than ever before and they start breaking them younger than ever. Me wonders how many swimmers signed up for NBAC in September…lol…Swimming has become a race…a machine to see who can spit out the next Phelps. I wonder how many coaches looked around at their 13 year olds and said, ok, I am going to make you or break you. But its the FUCKING suits man…I dont care what anyone says, to say its not the suits is insane. To say that the suits only made a minor difference is insane. To say that 500 dollars for the suit is reasonable is insane. Put 2008 Phelps up against 1996 Dolan, both in paper suits and latex caps, and Dolan would wipe his ass with Phelps. Dolan would be on deck working his inhaler while Phelps was still finishing the 400 IM with his “strongest leg”. (Thanks Rowdy, cause we didn’t know). I get a sense of foreshadowing though by looking around at the state of sports in general…it’s all a big allegorical vacuum of retarded nothingness. Legacies, legends, comebacks… Give me the teams that had nothing to lose and won it all. THAT is who I will be rooting for every time. The swimmer who trained in a cesspool, got abandoned by his parents at a truckstop when he was 4, worked 4 jobs growing up while getting daily beatings from his stepfather and STILL made it to every practice. That guy, win or lose, will be the one I want to win. Show me THAT vignette Costas…and make sure the background music is G’n'R.

2008 was also the year that I started my own team. I lost a lot of friends in the process, (like when Dre left Aftermath to form Death Row records…lost all his friends but he signed Eminem…and he got Snoop back ) which I hoped wouldn’t happen but I was not naive enough to think it wouldn’t, but it had been a long dream of mine to create a club that simply focused on competition training. No coddling, no excuses, no showing up late, no drama. Just putting a goal on a piece of paper and then doing everything possible to hit it. I thought, no one would EVER want to commit to something like that as an adult but I wanted to do it and I said if it doesnt work, I will quit coaching forever because if I can’t do this well, I shouldn’t be on deck. Boy was I surprised as shit. We had our roster full with a waiting list before the first session even started and now our wait list continues to grow. (I would take them all today if I had more space and I think they know it) West Side is no longer a club as much as it is a mindset. I use the term Train because basically West Side is a Train…a massive, barely controllable Train and it is moving with a tremendous amount of velocity and all I can do is put all my weight into the wheel to keep it on the track. We are starting our third session in two days and anticipation for 2009 is high. We have a month of shoes training in February (the ladies also get to finally take their tights off) and we are all working towards big dryland goals as smaller milestones. We also became a USMS club team in 2008 and that is cool because we get to swim as ourselves wherever we go. Respek to the 029. We have swimmers going to all kinds of competitions, meets, etc in 09. (If you are going to Zones in Fairfax, come by and say hi or tell me I am dick…either way just introduce yourself!)

West Side has made a ton of friends in the swimming world and partnerships across the globe. We have friends in London, Hawaii, Venezuela and, as weird as it sounds, Amsterdam. Actually, that’s not so weird. Our online workouts database (also a long time dream of mine) is hugely popular and between us and Dynoswim, I would say we have cornered the market on free online workouts. I always get a kick out of the fact that there are other online workout sites that CHARGE money and that people actually pay for them. Hey you, STOP paying for workouts! Coach Ellen and I have such diverse backgrounds as long time swimmers and we have swum for many many coaches. Every single coach has taught us what to do and what not to do and we continue to learn to this day. We are ingesting everything we can get our hands on to be better for our swimmers. Every video, worthwhile article, data research…you name it. Taking chances and risks and watching success happen before our eyes…thats the kind of stuff that makes it EASY for us to get up at 3:50 every day. EASY.

So come Friday, 2008 will be largely irrelevant and the only thing that will matter will be that day and the next….and of course, Phelps.

Cheers!!!

West Side!!!

P.S.
It occurred to me, very recently, that all of life’s mysteries are answered within the first four Rocky movies. There is no longer a need for man to continue his pursuit of understanding. It’s been in front of our nose the whole damn time.

Training for a big swim? Need to get back into shape? Feeling guilty from too many holiday treats? Just plain old competitive?

On January 1st, JANUARY JAM participants from all over the world will track their yardage on Dynoswim.com for the entire month to see who can “jam” the most yards into 31 days. The St. Vincent’s Medical Center Foundation’s January Jam: MS Plunge for Parcells was created to promote fitness through swimming while raising money for the Dave Parcells MS Fund. For more information and to register for the event, go to http://www.dynoswim.com/januaryjam/.

(from swimming world.com)
Blueseventy Becomes U.S. Masters Swimming Sponsor

LONDONDERRY, New Hampshire, December 22. U.S. Masters Swimming is pleased to announce that starting January 1, 2009 blueseventy will become an Official Gold Medal Partner of U.S. Masters Swimming.

The multi-year partnership will see blueseventy become the official swim skin of U.S. Masters Swimming which will feature event signage, presence on www.usms.org, a special member discount purchase program, co-branding promotion at blueseventy triathlon supported events and a season long print advertising sponsor in SWIMMER magazine.

“We’re very pleased to be able to put something back into Masters swimming – investing in swimming is something that blueseventy is very serious about. The U.S. Masters Swimming community is tremendously loyal and we look forward to helping each member meet his or her objectives,” blueseventy vice president and a USA Olympian Roque Santos said. “The Masters swimming community has been a big supporter of blueseventy for several years, helping us to launch our ‘Nero’ suit, so we’re excited to support their workouts, competitions, clinics and workshops.”

“blueseventy has become a commonly seen brand at many of our competitions,” USMS executive director Rob Butcher said. “We are thrilled to have their global brand committed to giving back to our membership. Their member incentive program we are developing extended exclusively to U.S. Masters Swimming members will more than pay for ones entire year membership. In addition, their desire to promote U.S. Masters Swimming at open water and triathlon events they sponsor will really help extend, grow and strengthen our brand.”

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/12/21/finding_songs_to_swim_by/

i love the word forbid. sort of final-like…

True words indeed from a man who walked the walk. If you do not know who Herschel Walker is or what he did, you don’t need to look far on the interweb. Not only is he regarded as the top collegiate running back of all time (among a ton of other career highlights), he is well known for his training regimen and for never having done a single day of weight training in his life. To this day, Walker (now 46 years old) still does the exact same training regimen he has done since high school. Every morning, before the rest of this lazy-ass nation wakes up, Herschel does 2,500 situps and 1,500 pushups. Yeah that’s right, 1,500 pushups.

West Siders have been doing pushups for a few weeks now each morning (usually 100 but sometimes we only have time for 50). I consider it to be both an important training tool (need a quick heart rate boost? - there ya go) as well as an important strength training tool. It also forces the upper body major muscles as well as core muscles into immediate action. As a strength tool, a pushup develops the pectoral muscles and triceps, with ancillary benefits to the deltoids, obliques, triceps and the core midsection. So West Siders not only get the strength and heart benefits, they get the aesthetic benefits as well.

Here is a link to a great article on the “pushup” from the NYT (3/11/08). Hopefully as West Siders continue to work on pushups, they too will be able to make it part of their lives and will see the benefits not only in their swimming but also in real life (that place on the other side of the pool door).

I also want to add that in addition to pushups, I took a leap of faith with the ab wheels that have become quite popular on tv infomercials and let me tell you, HFS…these things WORK. We use them every morning as well as doing pushups and there is not a single West Sider who will say that they do not work immediately. I got a bunch from Amazon but you can get them almost anywhere. Dollar for dollar one of the best dryland tools I have ever purchased for this club.

http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/gallery/phelpsboston/