Courtesy of VASA, a SwimSwam partner
At the 2014 ASCA World Clinic in Jacksonville, University of Tennessee Head Coach Matt Kredich presented how he uses Vasa Trainers and Vasa Swim Ergs to teach critical skills on land.
Matt first started using Vasa Trainers in 1991 while assisting Richard Quick at Stanford, and he has been using them ever since. He likes the utility of Vasa Trainers and Vasa Swim Ergs because it goes beyond swim-specific strength & force production. He uses these tools to teach 3 important swim technique concepts to his swimmers: high elbow catch, proper pull pattern and efficient body posture. One of the most valuable assets of coaching with Vasa Trainers is the ability to isolate positions, teach concepts and communicate in the moment with the athlete while on deck, which are difficult to do while they are in the pool.
Over the past 2 years Matt has collaborated with Coach Bill Boomer to improve his swimmers’ biomechanics in the water. They focused a lot on creating better posture in the water.
However, after awhile, Matt realized that the concept of anchoring had diminished for his swimmers. “We were creating good posture in the water but the idea of slowing down the arms and the hands so the body could move over it had really leaked out of how we were swimming our strokes. We renewed our focus on (using the Vasa Trainer to teach & train) this concept and saw that by slowing down and not trying to rip through every arm stroke we were now starting to combine that great posture which put us in a better position to create better impulses in the water.”
To learn more specifically how Coach Kredich uses the Vasa Trainer to teach great body posture while training his swimmers, see the full video presentation here:
Very interesting. Coach Kredich is a very thoughtful coach.