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.

After Joe’s visit in 2015, Amy was asked to make a return visit as Swim Swift Elite to 2 different Primary schools up near York, working with Sporting Start who aim to ‘Empower Children through Sport’. The purpose of the trip was to encourage students to become involved with sport & physical activity in an attempt to enthuse, enliven, & empower children towards success, whatever that may look like for them. Not all students were necessarily ‘sporty’ by nature, but through Sporting Starts programme that had identified each student as possibly benefitting from being involved in sport in some way, many had found that playing an important role within a team & trying something new & energetic has given them the opportunity to shine & boosted their confidence. Amy gave an inspirational talk to students at each school & was part of an after-school group where a mixture of students from each school came together to talk about how the programme had helped them, what further activities they would like to be a part of, & voluntary services they could offer to sporting groups in the area, and their schools.

January saw many of the countries competitive masters swimmers meet in Loughborough for a day of workshops for various land based yet swimming related topics, and a two and a half hour pool session. Swim Swift Elite were on poolside working alongside Great British Swimming Coach Glenn Smith, to deliver 3 different sessions. Breaststroke, Backstroke, and Starts & Turns. The group was split into 3 so that we could rotate, getting the most out of each smaller group of swimmers. We broke down each skill right back to basics, and then built it back up again, hopefully making the focus points clearer. Some swimmers tried skills for the first time, which was great to see. Enthusiasm is key to making better swimmers!

We hope that the drills were not only helpful in informative, but enjoyable too, we definitely had fun working with everyone, and felt privileged to be asked to be part of this development day.

This was the second of our two days with Worcester County Talent squad!

We have been extremely happy to have been given the opportunity by Worcester ASA to host both of their Talent Camps this year! This second day was again held at the King’s School, in Worcester, and we would like to say thank you to them for letting us use their facilities. Clubs from the whole county were in attendance. The pool focus was Breaststroke and Front Crawl, and on land we ran Pilates, Stretching, Injury Prevention all related to swim performance. After lunch a fantastic and interactive Goal Setting Strategy session was completed by the swimmers, hopefully leaving them thinking more clearly about their training and targets they wish to accomplish!

Thank you to everyone involved with the organising and all the swimmers and coaches who attended for their efforts and making these two days highly enjoyable!