WEST Express Swim Team [Blog]

Wednesday night we received some good news buried in the Governor’s recent executive order:

Emergency Executive Order 20-63
Continuing to Safely Reopen Minnesota’s Economy and Ensure Safe NonWork Activities during the COVID-19 Peacetime Emergency

xii. If allowed by the facility owner and operator, indoor and outdoor pools
may be used by Organized Youth Sports and Youth Programs pursuant
to the requirements in paragraph 7.f and 7.g. Public pools must
otherwise remain closed to the general public.

We have passed this information along to our district and are awaiting further details on re-opening.

Day 3 of the AB/Sit up Challenge

We are getting close to returning to the pool so keep motivated, every workout you do now will transfer to increased fitness back in the water!
Here is another core workout – to do with your daily run/bike:
https://swimswam.com/daily-dryland-swimming-workouts-64-hiit-core-workout/

I really liked this workout from National Team member Nic Fink.

This workout has some new exercises that are relatively easy to do but are a great leg workout.

https://www.usaswimming.org/video-landing-page/leg-conditioning-home-workout-with-nic-fink

This workout is great all about the legs and is going to get your Hips, Hamstrings and Quads!

Also did you miss the blog for Wednesday? Check it out and start your 30 day AB and Core challenge!

Once we start swimming it is important that you have some muscle tone and strength. Push-ups were helping with that earlier in our stay at home order. Please keep up the push up routine – whatever feels like a challenge to you – would rather see shorter sets and more quality then 10 straight bad form push ups. For example if it is hard to do 3 quality push ups DO 10 sets of 2 with 30 sec rest. Then you can work on doing 3 etc. Or something like 5 x 1 min of push ups with 1 min rest or active recovery where you do some sit ups.

Once we do get back in the water our practices will be shorter than normal and that is okay as we ease into getting back in shape but you will need to do some training outside of the pool to make up for the less time.

SO let’s start a new challenge today – An AB and Sit up Challenge!
Also be consistent – it is really amazing how you can get stronger in 1 – 2 weeks!

Hopefully everyone had a nice Memorial Day Weekend – it was nice those rainy mornings gave way to a some sun each day.

Please join us today at 4:00 pm for Live Zoom Yoga with Dena Bretz!
All swimmers and parents are welcome to join. Login through the Senior ZOOM link – you do need to login to our site to have access for security reasons.

This is kind of a fun youtube follow the Fitness Blender – they have many workouts and no equipment needed. This one is advertised for those that get bored easily – it will keep you moving!

Make sure to read the weekly update as there are quite a few things going on this week even if we aren’t swimming yet.

This is a product I didn’t expect to be posting on our Elsmore team store this winter. Custom WEST Express Mask!
https://elsmoreswim.com/west-express-pleated-knit-fabric-reusable-mask-319-west-express.html

Here is a workout we did at the Senior Zoom Call a week ago:

This is good cardio and strength. The total workout will take about 30 minutes – feel free to substitute exercises you are comfortable with.

Warm up
20 Small (tight) arm circles forward and back

20 Big arm circle (big loopy) forward and back

20 Leg Swings side to side with each leg

20 Leg Swings forward and back
10 Leg Swings hurdles

2 rounds :

1 min of jump rope, Mountain climbers, burpees or jumping jacks
alternate with
1 min Vertical Jumps or step ups or box jumps

Ladder workout – 20 min total

1. Bridge/ Plank – back bridge on the lower intervals
2. Split Squat
3. Back Kicks
4. Push ups
5.  Crunches

Do EACH of the above activities for the following time with 20 sec rest between each:

10 sec
20 sec
30 sec
40 sec
40 sec
30 sec
20 sec
10 sec

Have a great Memorial Day weekend – hopefully the rain will hold off!

Did anyone watch the Last Dance? The show about Michael Jordan on ESPN over the last 5 weeks? Well it was quite good and he is quite a competitor that we can all learn from. My main takeaway was some people hate to lose so much – it drives everything they do – that drive translates to every practice, every competition, everything you do in life.
Here are some key takeaways from Olivier Poirier-Leroy:

Yoga Wednesday!
Another special guest in this yoga spot – check it out and get to know Boomer 🙂

This video finishes your yoga class off with some traditional yoga stretching Thanks to Dena for helping us get fluent in Yoga training!

Don’t forget about push-ups! I think it is easy to finish something like the Push Up challenge and put that on the shelf for a while. You worked hard to get in to shape and strong with push ups. The nice thing is push ups really are good for swimming and work your triceps – they will help you when you get back in the water.

At the end of the above workout is this challenge set – Give it a try – heck you even have all day to do it!

70 pushups – as many sets as it takes. Your goal is to get to 100 pushups. Do as many as you can in each set, take 30 seconds between each set, and use as many sets as you need. Once you hit 100, you’re done!

Happy Monday – looking forward to some sun today after that deluge yesterday!

Our team instraquad and Swim4Jenna Meet was scheduled for the end of May. Unfortunately that is not going to happen this spring – we are hoping to host it later in the summer or fall.

We did a commemorative shirt in Jenna’s honor. Please sign up to purchase one by next Tuesday, May 26th. Click on the google form link below to pick a size – you will be billed next week after the order is in.

https://forms.gle/JcSHCJdSEaZAhSdDA

If you want to get a Swim4Jenna Shirt please order by May 26th!

This is a good week to focus on some goal setting. Set a challenge for yourself – something training related. For example – I am going to workout 5 x this week with each workout being 30 minutes and followed by 10 minutes of core work. Each week as you continue to get in shape you can expand on that by adding intensity, time or distance. Write the goals down – then check back on them often!

Here is a fun blog to follow – Swim like a fish!