2023 SEC SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, February 14 – Saturday, February 18, 2023
- Rec Center Natatorium, College Station, TX
- Defending Champions:
- Women: Tennessee (1x)
- Men: Florida (10x)
- Championship Central
- Women’s Fan Guide
- Men’s Fan Guide
- Psych Sheets
- Live Results
- Live Video
In his first individual SEC final, Baylor Nelson put on a dominant performance in the 200 IM, clocking 1:40.86 to lead a 1-2 Aggie finish with teammate Koko Bratanov.
The freshman from North Carolina admitted that college training was a hard adjustment for him at the beginning of the season, going from two morning practices per week in high school to five in College Station. However, once he grew accustomed to the intense training regimen, Nelson flourished, embracing the team culture and embodying the 12-man mentality.
5 mornings can mean, 4 week day before class with 1 morning off and then saturday morning
Why so many?
I feel like 5 morning practices is very typical of an elite program
i guess it depends on how many doubles per week. either you practice every day in the morning or every day in the afternoon. Then your double is either a few days in morning or afternoon.
It’s not that many. College teams have up to 20 hours per week to train and most elite programs utilize all of that, especially for swimmers who do events beyond the 50 and 100 like Baylor. I imagine most programs do 5 mornings, 4 afternoons, and 1 Saturday workout per week (perhaps interchangeable to 4 mornings and 5 afternoons). Assuming they are each 2 hour sessions that adds up evenly to 20.
You are crazy to think any of the top programs stay at 20 hours or under.
You’re missing the lifting practices though. And any sort of dryland as well.
Some programs navigate the time restraint with “optional” practices. The coach can’t require them to show up per say, but the team culture and captains can say otherwise.
A lot of college programs have their larger “main” practice of the day in the morning, before classes start. And for a double, the “secondary practice” would be in the afternoon, often with more options for when to train to accommodate for class schedules and such.
So 5 morning practices really just means practicing Monday-Friday, which is a perfectly normal.
I swam for two different SEC schools about a decade ago
School 1:
7-9am M-F (volume)
3-5pm M-W-F (dry land and technique/power)
Lifting 3-4 Tues-Thurs (“optional”)
8-10am Saturday
School 2:
6-8am M-W-F (volume)
2-4:30 M-F (lifting Tues-Thurs with focus on kick sets afterwards; sprinters lifted on Fridays also)
7-10am on Saturdays
Last ~30 min of morning practice and last hour or so of Saturday was “optional”
May have changed since then though. Now freshman like Baylor are going close to my best 200 free time in IM…