Half Of Your Short Course Race Is Walls.

Three Key Learning Points:* In a 100 metre short course race, 50 metres of it is affected by walls.* Dive starts, turns and finishes are not skill work sitting beside your training. They are half the race.* Every dive is a race dive. Every turn is a race turn. Build it into what you’re already doing.Short course racing.Some people love it. Some people not so much.But when I talk to coaches about their short course plans, their programs and their workouts, they nearly always go one of two ways.The first group says - it’s short course, it’s a 25 metre pool, so we’ll do a lot more sprints.I get that. There’s something in it for a lot of coaches.The second group says the opposite - short course isn’t as demanding as long course, so we need to do more work. More laps. More volume heading into the short course season.You can argue either case.But I want you to consider a third option, and it comes from doing some very simple arithmetic.The Arithmetic: adding up a 100 metre race:Take a 100 metre event in a short course pool.The first 15 metres is affected by the wall - your dive or your backstroke start.Into the first turn, we know the 5 metres in and the 5 metres out are affected by the wall.Second turn - 5 in, 5 out. How you approach, how you push off, underwater, streamline etc.Third turn - 5 in, 5 out.And the final 5 metres to the wall, where there’s an enormous impact from thinking about how you’ll finish. Which arm you’ll finish on. Getting both hands on the wall in fly and breast.Now add it up.15 metres. Plus 5 in and 5 out - that’s 25.Another 5 and 5 - that’s 35.Another 5 and 5 - that’s 45.Plus the last 5 to the finish.Fifty metres.Half of your 100 metre race distance is affected by walls.Your dive, your start, your turns and your finish are 50% of the race you are preparing for.The Third Option: match the focus to the arithmetic:So group one is adding sprints. Group two is adding volume.Neither of them is addressing the half of the race that walls decide.The third method is simply this. Increase your focus in training on dive starts, turns and finishes so it matches what’s actually happening in the water.Fifty per cent of every 100 metres you race short course is walls.Your training should look something like that.Race Quality: how to build it in without rewriting your program:Before you go away and rebuild your program around doing an extra 10 or 20 per cent of turns practice - there’s a much easier way to integrate this.Every dive is a race dive.Every start is a race start.Every turn is a race turn.Every finish is a race finish.Here’s what that looks like in practice.You’ve got an easy 400 free on the workout. The athletes are moving slowly, 60 to 75 per cent heart rate, whatever zone you want.Between the flags they cruise. Relaxed, easy, flowing. Aerobic pace.They could even be doing drill work between the flags - one arm fly, whatever your favourite is.But inside the flags, it’s race quality. Every single time.Race dive. Race turn. Race finish.You’re not adding sets. You’re changing the standard of the walls in the sets you already have.Summary:Do this properly and it doesn’t just improve short course racing.Your athletes arrive at the long course season with their skills at a completely different level, because they’ve spent months treating every wall as a race wall.So for short course this year, don’t just reach for more sprints or more laps.Do the arithmetic first.Half of every 100 metres you race is dive start, turn and finish. Set your focus accordingly - so that your swimmers’ success comes from their skills as much as their fitness, their power and their speed.Three Practical Applications For Your Coaching:* Run the arithmetic in front of your squad. Fifteen, five and five, five and five, five and five, plus five. Let them add it up themselves. A swimmer who has worked out that half their race is walls will never treat a turn as a rest again.* Set one rule for the whole season - inside the flags is race quality. Every session, every set, warm-up included. It costs no extra pool time and it changes thousands of repetitions.* Film turns from the side at race pace, not at drill pace. Most turn feedback is given on turns nobody was racing into. You cannot fix what you have never actually seen at speed.Thanks for reading, listening and watching.