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Strokes for Success

This summer at the Olympic Games in Beijing, Michigan likely will have more competitors in swimming than in any other event. Learn from two locally trained pros how to pick it up in the pool. Peter Vanderkaay Olympic veteran Peter Vanderkaay, of Rochester Hills Photo by Julian H. Gonzalez/Detroit Free Press Archives Kara Lynn

By Nicole Adamson

Kara Lynn Joyce

Peter Vanderkaay

You've gotta wonder if there's something in the water. Michigan lapped up attention after the 2004 Olympic Games, when swim phenom Michael Phelps snagged eight medals - six of them gold. But Phelps is just one of 13 swimmers on the U.S. National Team with ties to the Great Lakes State and one of more than 35 Michigan swimmers who qualified for the U.S. Olympic team trials.

Peter Vanderkaay, of Rochester Hills, and Kara Lynn Joyce, formerly of Ann Arbor, are among those with Michigan connections eyeing the 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing.

Vanderkaay, a University of Michigan alum and member of the 2004 Olympic gold medal 800-meter freestyle relay team, swims for the nationally acclaimed Club Wolverine in Ann Arbor.

Joyce, a 2004 Olympic silver medalist in the 400 freestyle and 400 medley relays, was a Wolverine during her high school years and also competed for Ann Arbor's Pioneer High School. She now lives in Athens, Ga., where she trains with the Athens Bulldog Swim Club.

Both swimmers have intense training regimens: Vanderkaay swims 60,000 to 80,000 meters a week, with practices every day plus weight training and cardio workouts. Joyce racks up 55,000 meters a week, swimming every day except Sunday, and lifts weights three days a week.

Most people wouldn't even think of following these swimmers' routines, but we can learn from their experience - even if it's just finding motivation to get in the pool. We caught up with Joyce and Vanderkaay (on land, of course) to get advice for swimmers of all levels, whether they're guppies or sharks.

Kicking bad habits

Check out your local YMCA pool and you'll see that many amateur swimmers have one goal: to get to the other side. But this isn't crossing the road we're talking about.

"Technique is really important," says Joyce. "You can be the strongest person in the world and still not be a good swimmer."

The main reason for this is drag, or resistance. The more you try to push through water, the more it pushes back, which means swimmers should aim to slip through the water rather than attack it. One key way to do this is through proper body position.

"You want to keep your body straight and lengthened the whole time, as if there's an imaginary line from head to feet," Vanderkaay says.

He also stresses the importance of body rotation. When swimming freestyle and backstroke, you should rotate your body side to side from your core. Many beginners struggle with this motion, according to Vanderkaay.

"Instead of rotating their body, what they tend to do is move their hips. So they'll kind of wiggle through the water like a fish instead of paddling like a canoe," he says. He suggests doing rotation drills to get a feel for the correct movement (see sidebar).

Another challenge - even for seasoned swimmers - is maintaining a strong kick, says Joyce. Many people assume a big kick will make them faster, when in fact it uses too much energy and creates drag. The key is to keep your kicks small, getting power from your hips.

"Kicking is really hard. It's like a rhythm you have to get in your stroke," Joyce says.

She recommends using a kickboard to get used to kicking and build leg strength. She does a kick-set ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 meters every practice, but beginners can start with 100 yards (four lengths of a 25-yard pool).

Both Vanderkaay and Joyce work on technique every day - and that's after 17 years of training for each swimmer.

"There's always something you can do," Vanderkaay says. "There's really no one out there with perfect technique."

Picking up speed

Joyce says three ingredients are key to being a sprinter: good technique, strength and fast tempo, also known as stroke rate.

Along with lifting weights, Joyce often uses paddles and a pull buoy to help build arm strength. As for tempo, she recently started using a tempo trainer (sort of a metronome for swimmers), which clips onto her goggles and beeps to keep her on pace (about 1 or .9 seconds per stroke for a 50-meter sprint). If you don't have a tempo device, find a clock, and count how many strokes you take in a minute, and aim to reduce this number.

Keep in mind when trying to increase your tempo that you should strive to maintain your stroke length, or how much distance you cover per stroke. The world's best swimmers are faster not because they have superhuman speed but because they travel farther with each stroke.

"The hardest thing for me was lengthening out my stroke to the point where I could be more efficient," Vanderkaay says. "It took me awhile to get where I am now."

He suggests counting how many strokes it takes to get across the pool and trying to lower that number.

Sticking to it

If you'd like to get serious about swimming but shudder at the thought of jumping in a pool at the crack of dawn, you're not alone.

Even the top swimmers struggle with early-morning motivation. Joyce says waking up in the morning is the toughest part of her swimming career.

"I think about my goals and why I'm waking up so early. I give it a purpose and don't just go through the motions," she says.

For those of us whose goals aren't quite as lofty as winning an Olympic gold medal, motivational strategies can include creating a workout schedule, setting weekly distance targets, and finding a training partner, which Joyce says is a great way to intensify your workout.

Often, Vanderkaay's biggest rival in the pool is himself. "I think it's just trying to see how fast I can go. I love to race, and I love nothing more than dropping time and having that feeling of success," he says.

He motivates himself by setting shortterm goals in practice, something he says anyone can do. "For recreational swimmers, a goal could be going a certain time in practice or making a number of repeats on a certain interval."

The key, he says, is never to settle for where you are. "You just have to be focused, and remember there's always something to work on, and keep that attitude."

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