Training Regime
SCHEDULE:
The Varsity Blues swim team have a dozen swim workouts to pick from each week.
MORNINGS = 6:30-8:15am
AFTERNOONS = 3:00-5:00pM
SATURDAYS = 8:00-11:00am
There are also later workouts on Monday nights (5-7pm), as well as later mornings for those with better class schedules: Wednesdays (8-10am) & Fridays (7:30-9:15am).
NUMBER OF WORKOUTS TO ATTEND:
Team members meet with the coaches to determine which sessions to attend.
STRENGTH TRAINING:
Strength training is organized to be Tuesday morning 6:30-7:30am (prior to swim); Thursday mornings 8:00-9:00am (post swim); and Saturdays 8:00-9:15am (before swim). There is also the ability to coordinate with the strength coach to do strength training at alternate times. There are some days for on-deck cords and core work. The sprinters will do some power tower work and parachutes as part of their weekly schedule when needed.
NUMBER OF METRES PER WORKOUT:
The Varsity Blues training sessions are tailored to the needs of the swimmers. The coaching staff firmly believes that swimmers training for 50m events and 800m events should not be doing the same type of work. While such training is often the case for clubs, the varsity team has three distinct groups that operate year around. While there will be times when the groups will swim together, and will often warmup together, there is always the opportunity and desire to have specific needs addressed. The usual metreage totals would be 4-5km for the sprinters; 5-6km for the stroke (100/200) people; and 6-7km for the swimmers whose best races are 400m and longer.
There are, of course, different times of the year where different metreage will be needed.
TRAINING CAMP
The team goes on an annual training camp over the December/January school break. Post Olympic year is usually to the islands (Barbados) and the remaining three years of the quadrennial are to the Ft Lauderdale area. The alumni cover most of the on-site costs like vans and pool rental and coaches costs, with the athletes just responsible for hotel room and flights.
The team has also had some swimmers go to an altitude camp the past few years and that would usually happen in late April. Also instituted this past season was a Spring Nationals boost camp after the CIS championships, for a week in Florida for those who could afford the time and were going to the Olympic Trials. This too may be come a staple of the program.
SPORT MEDICINE
The Sports Medicine clinic is 20 metres from the pool so any injuries are easily taken care of. There is a physiotherapist assigned to our team and he travels with the team to the big meets. We have had very good success rehabilitating our swimmers with injuries and getting them back to racing condition.
REPRESENTING YOUR HOME CLUB AT MEETS
All swimmers that come to U of T are encouraged to remain loyal to their home club and swim for them at club meets like Canada Cup (November) and Swim Canada Nationals. There is one club meet that we require swimmers to swim for U of T--the Ontario Cup in January hosted by U of T. Other than that, you are encouraged to swim for your home club.
TRAINING WITH THE NATIONAL CENTRE GROUP
The expectation for this coming quadrennial (2012-2016) is the same as the past quadrennial--the first year will see about 80-90% of the sessions together; then reductions will follow to be 60-75% in year two; and 25-50% in year three and less than 25% in year four.
