worcester-county-camp

We spent our 3rd full day with Worcester County ASA last weekend, and had a blast! It was a fun filled day with lots of technical drills in the pool, exciting land training, & team building. There was also an interactive classroom session to help swimmers look at how to set their individual long & short term goals, and bite-size ways of achieving them.

This time we focused on Butterfly & Backstroke in the pool, & we are now looking forward to working with the same group on Breaststroke & Freestyle in the pool at Malvern College in September!

coalville-swimming-club

Last weekend saw us visit Coalville swimming club, a local club just down the road. This was the second visit to Coalville since Swim Swift Elite began in 2014, and this time we focused on Breaststroke & Freestyle in the pool, nutrition & pre-race warm up in the classroom session. We had a great time working with the swimmers both in and out of the pool, even though there was quite a bit of sweeping up to do after our interactive nutrition session! Thank you for having us back at Coalville!

big-splash

Joe & Amy were asked to make an appearance at the re-launch of Leicester City’s Learnt To Swim Scheme. Unfortunately Amy was out of the country with the GB Para triathlon team, so Joe attended on behalf of Swim Swift Elite.

Swim Leicester know the benefits of being confident in and around water, and how their swimming lessons can help overcome fear and nervousness. The Big Splash event offered an appearance by Olympian Joe Roebuck, who spoke the crowd about his career and the physical and mental benefits of learning to swim. There was also an appearance by the new mascot ‘Snappy the Shark’! The free taster sessions, led by Joe, was finished off with a mini gala and splash disco!

Great time had by everyone! Good luck to Leister Swim with their re-launch!

para-triathlon

This was Amy’s 4th trip with the British Para triathlon team as part of a PT1 athlete’s transition crew, a soft tissue therapist, and general team support. After a long period of training & fewer competitions, it was fantastic to get back into the swing of things again and be part of the team. It was a tough course for the athletes, but all had travelled there with high expectations, and the team delivered! More spots were secured for Rio, and we have a number of European champions! You can find out more about the event through this link…                 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/disability-sport/36397594

para-canoe

After working with the British Paracanoe team as a soft tissue therapist since February, Amy was lucky enough to be part of the staff team that travelled to Duisburg in Germany for the athletes World Championships! It was great to be part of such an upbeat and driven team, and learn more about how the sport works. The team delivered what they had set out to, and are now full steam ahead toward Rio! You can find out more about the event through this link… http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/disability-sport/36336176

birmingham-uni-swim-club

It is always great to be invited to work with new people and a new swim team. This was the first time we have worked with a University squad before and it was a really positive and interesting dynamic to work with more seasoned swimmers. Our Starts & Turns Master-Class was designed for the University squads and ran with two different groups. After two pool sessions we finished off with a group presentation delivering some key messages to the swimmers and the opportunity for them to quiz us about our international careers.

The new swimming pool will soon be built at Birmingham Uni, something that head coach Gary is extremely giddy about! So we will look forward to visiting the swim team in their new pool of dreams soon!

st-marys-001

It was fantastic to be invited to attend the Sports Awards dinner hosted by St Mary’s Independent Girls school in Cambridge this year. Amy was joined by two amazing athletes, Claire Cunningham & Serita Soloman who are both competing for their seat on the plane to Rio later this year! Amy was sat on a table with some very inspirational year 7’s for dinner, and was able to find out much more about the students, their amazing school, and what they love about taking part in the variety of sports available to them with the support of the school. Claire, Serita & I were then asked to take to the stage and answer some questions that had been prepared by the students, about our own journeys, challenges we came across, how we fit our training around studies, and much more. Every student in the room had achieved so much and should be very proud of themselves. It was brilliant to see how much support is offered to each and every student, not just from the school, but from every other girl there. The local paper even wrote an article on it! Here is the link…  http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/St-Mary-8217-s-celebrate-successful-year-sport/story-29299512-detail/story.html

Mansfield-SC

We were invited to join Mansfield Swim Club and ran a Butterfly and Breaststroke Master-Class. The event even made it into the local papers! (Mansfield & Ashfield Chad). Where we were praised for delivering an “inspirational visit” and helped “further their development”. Our masterclass was described as being “educational and motivating”. High praise indeed!

Many thanks to Mansfield for hosting the event, we look forward to working with you again in the future!

leicester-sharks-4

Our second Masterclass with Leicester sharks swimming club had the same focus as the previous masterclass, Starts, turns, & Freestyle, but was with a new group of swimmers this time. It was fantastic to see how enthusiastic every swimmer was, wanting to improve their skills and give the new drills a try. Again, some parents got involved to make sure that everyone was as quick off the block as possible! In the classroom, we allowed the swimmers to look at day to day nutritional choices interactively, and some of the answers were quite a shock to them! We loved working with everyone at the club again, thank you for inviting us back!

active

In April, Amy travelled to Yarborough Leisure centre in Lincoln to attend an event hosted by Active Nation. Active Nation is a charity that promotes physical activity & a healthy lifestyle to the nation. Amy was asked to speak to the children who attended this free event about not just her journey leading up to the London 2012 Olympic Games, but how she got into swimming, and everything she has gained from it. After chatting, we all headed over to the pool for an hour of starts & turns practice with some fun new drills for the swimmers to try, and even some t-shirt relays at the end! It wasn’t just the swimmers that Amy worked with that day, but the teachers too. Many of the teachers got in the water with Amy to try out some different drills that could be used with their swimmers, & went through technical points of each stroke. We looked at ways to use drills on land before transferring them into the water, and how we could use different pieces of equipment to aid the drills. It was great to see that the teachers were so enthusiastic & willing to try the drills out themselves.