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Visit www.usms.org today!
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| Greetings!
Summer is coming to an end and it is time to retain your swimmers and find new swimmers this fall. Be sure to order new U.S. Masters Swimming marketing materials and help us spread the word!
Swimming for Life!
Your friends at U.S. Masters Swimming
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Reminder: Add the USMS Join/Renew Button to Your Website and Link Up! |
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 Encourage your swimmers to become U.S. Masters Swimming members by copying and pasting the Join/Renew button to your club website. Link the graphic to http://www.usms.org/reg/ so that your swimmers can register with one easy click.
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Drills for Thrills: Tarzan Drill
by Sara McLarty
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Sara McLarty, noted open water and triathlon coach and world class triathlete, contributes this month's training tip. Swim and water polo coaches have long used the Tarzan drill to strengthen the trapezius muscles on the back of the neck and the back itself. McLarty points out that this is especially important for open water swimming, as the demands placed on the neck and back muscles due to the need to sight buoys, especially in rougher water, are much different than when swimming in the pool with your head down.
How To Do It:
Swim freestyle with head and face held completely out of the water; keep head/face pointing forward; don't rotate neck to breathe to the side; arch back to keep legs and feet near the surface of the water; engage a strong kick to keep lower body from sinking.
Suggested Use:
No more than 25 yards at a time for beginners, 50 yards for advanced swimmers; alternate laps with regular, face-down swimming; performed at easy and strong efforts to simulate race pace; example sets: 8x50 as 25 Tarzan Drill/25 Swim; 500 smooth swim where every 4th 25 is fast-pace Tarzan Drill.
Purpose:
The Tarzan drill is specific for open water swimming. Most swimmers and triathletes perform 90-100% of their swim training in a pool. On race day, there is no black-line on the bottom of the open water. All swimmers must lift their head up and look forward to sight for the turn-buoys. If the trapezius muscle on the back of the neck is not trained and strengthened, it will be sore and strained before the race is over. Incorporate the Tarzan drill into practice once or twice a week, even more often for open-water-specific swimmers. As a result, the trapezoids (and upper and lower back muscles) will be strengthened and ready for prolonged use on race day.
Sara McLarty (www.saramclarty.com) is a professional triathlete based at the National Training Center (www.usantc.com) in Clermont, Florida. Check out her upcoming "Swimming for Triathlon" camps. |
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How to Market, Advertise and Promote Your Program for FREE
by Ashley Gangloff
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| Marketing, advertising and promoting your Masters program may sound difficult, time-consuming and expensive, but it doesn't have to be. Retaining members may be important, but recruiting new members will help you to keep numbers high, a bottom line heathly and your lanes full.
Three simple and free solutions to your marketing, advertising and promotion woes are outlined... Read more |
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Online Club Management:
An Organized Club is a Happy Club
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Coaches, how do you keep your swimmers happy? Did you know that some of the best methods of making members happy begin with back-office organization? Here are a few ideas from Club Assistant's experience with hundreds of U.S. Masters Swimming clubs.
- A clean, attractive website with organized and categorized information will keep club members happy. Consider your website a public view of your office with 24/7 office hours. Club Assistant can help you freshen up your website or develop a brand new website.
- Published workout schedules make swimmers happy. Show your club's organization by publishing an easy-to-read chart of daily workouts on your website. Add workout themes, coaches of each workout, and locations of each workout to the chart to really impress your members, as well as those who may be "shopping around." Club Assistant can help you prepare an organized workout schedule and publish it online.
- An organized coaching staff is a happy staff that brings a great attitude to the pool deck, in turn making happy swimmers. Coaches like to work a pre-determined schedule, log their hours, and get paid on time. With a Club Assistant account, you can publish work schedules to your coaches, have coaches log in and record their hours in their timesheets, and keep accurate accounting of salary payments. Even volunteer coaches benefit from recording hours in timesheets.
- Organized member billing procedures keep your swimmers very happy. With a Club Assistant account you can inform members of an upcoming billing cycle, then bill member credit cards and issue receipts. Your Club Assistant stores special member rates, such as a senior discount, and bills accordingly.
- Email and text alerts to your members keep them well informed and happy. Be organized with a Club Assistant account that stores all your member email addresses and text messaging numbers; just a few clicks gives your swimmers a quick update on schedule changes or pool closures.
- U.S. Masters Swimming logos and links shown on your website promote solidarity among club members and across clubs nationwide. USMS spirit and solidarity makes happy swimmers. Club Assistant has all the USMS logos and valuable links, such as the Join/Renew link and links to current member lists, and Club Assistant will help you put them on your website.
The friendly and knowledgeable Club Assistant staff is available at 800-SWIM-638 for help organizing your club and keeping your swimmers happy.
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| On Deck: August/September/October |
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| August
08/31/09
Approximate mailing date for September/October issue of SWIMMER
Final call for Mentor Coach and Swimmer Clinics for budget year 2009 (coaches@usms.org)
September
09/01/09
Rule book cover submissions and bids to print the rule book are due to the Rule Book Coordinator (Susan Ehringer; rulebook@usms.org)Period for 2009 reduced swimmer registrations fee begins
Applications for Mentor Coach and Swimmer Clinics support through the Coaches Committee are due to Chris Colburn (coaches@usms.org)
09/12/09
09/15/09-11/15/09
09/16/09-09/20/09
USAS Convention; Hyatt Regency O'Hare, Chicago, IL
October
10/15/09
Approximate mailing date for SWIMMER
10/28/09-11/01/09
Pan American Swimming and Open Water Championship; Veracruz, Mexico
10/31/09
End of 2009 registration year; all registrations after Nov. 1 will be for 2010 |
Support U.S. Masters Swimming partners because they support you!
Click here for a complete list of partners
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About U.S. Masters Swimming
U.S. Masters Swimming, founded in 1971, is a membership-operated national governing body that promotes adult health, fitness and wellness through aquatics. It does so by partnering with more than 1,000 adult swim clubs across the country that offer swim/fitness programs, promoting information via a bimonthly member magazine and www.usms.org, and sanctioning and promoting pool, open water and virtual competitions. Nearly 50,000 adults are registered members of U.S. Masters Swimming.
About "News from the Deck"
U.S. Masters Swimming encourages all U.S. Masters Swimming coaches to subscribe to "News from the Deck", however if you would rather not receive this update, please do not click the unsubscribe button, as that will remove you from all other U.S. Masters Swimming National Office mailings. Rather, please click on the "Update Profile/Email Address" link at the bottom of this email. Here you can select to discontinue your "News from the Deck" service.
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