Between the Christmas and New Year festivities, we spent 3 sessions with 3 different groups over 2 days at Wyre Forest Swimming Club, which is also Amy’s home swimming club! During each session, the focus was on starts, and Butterfly. Not only did the sessions include many new drills to break down the aspects of the stroke or skill, but everyone also seemed to have fun despite being a little chilly at times! We explained to the swimmers that swimming fast isn’t actually that difficult, but it’s about getting the little things right day in day out to culminate to more efficient swimming. We even had time for a ‘selfie’ with each group using our new ‘selfie stick’ (Thanks Mum & Dad Smith) at the end of each session! Thank you to everyone at Wyre Forest for inviting us to be part of your Christmas training, and for a very enjoyable couple of days. Keep working hard!

Just before Christmas, Swim Swift Elite held their 4th successful Swim camp for competitive swimmers from around the country to attend. After the swimmers getting to know each other in the gym, we made sure that they were all stretched out, and their core & other important muscles were activated & warm before getting in the pool, a great way of preventing those unwanted niggles or even injuries. With 17 swimmers attending the camp, everyone had individual pointers when working on drills for Freestyle, tumble turns, the underwater phase, and Freestyle breakouts.

Everyone did a fantastic job, we had a great time working with you all.

Thank you for attending, and we hope to see you on our future camps, keep an eye on the website and social media pages. Thank you also to the staff at Welbeck Defense College in Leicestershire who allowed us to hire their wonderful facilities for the second time, everything ran very smoothly.

November took us up to Ulverston swimming Club in Cumbria! We had a great time working with two different groups of swimmers both senior & junior, with Starts, Butterfly, and Freestyle being the order of the day.

Fantastic talent from such a small area, and after speaking to the swimmers, a great deal of dedication too. We were made to feel very welcome, and Paul is not only a great coach, but was a keen photographer for the evening with many great photo’s of the swimmers in action. The local press, North-West Evening Mail were even there to cover the event.

We also chatted to the swimmers and coaches about our own career’s & journeys towards the London 2012 Olympic Games, and some of the challenges that most swimmers will come across at some point. Not only that, but about how we chose to deal with them, and not before the swimmers were refuelled by hot dogs and GB decorated fairy cakes that parents and coaches had ready for them! Thank you to everyone at Ulverston for inviting us to your club and being so welcoming.

After qualifying as an ITEC Level 4 Soft Tissue Therapist in April 2015, Amy has landed herself a fantastic position working with the British Para-triathlon team. When away on teams, not only is she working in conjunction with the Physiotherapist as a soft tissue therapist, but is there to generally support the team, and also be a handler for one of the male PT1 athletes during transitions. So far, Amy has attended their European Championships in Geneva, their Paralympic test event in Rio de Janeiro ready for next year, and is due to attend their World Championships in Chicago in September. It’s fantastic to be part of such a friendly, cohesive, and successful team.

Our second club visit to Warley Wasps began with a land training session focusing on activation, injury prevention, correct movement patterns and core strengthening. After the swimmers were thoroughly warmed up we headed into the pool to examine Breastroke technique and efficient swimming. We also practised the new rule changes on Breastroke pull outs, and Backstroke to Breastroke medley flip turns. Having completed all this we also ran though drills and skills for Freestyle and some fantastic demonstrations from Amy. It was a hugely enjoyable visit and we can’t wait to see the guys again!