Information, advice and tips from our Head Coach, Stephen Murphy
Preparation
All club swimmers should aim to arrive early to training sessions and competitions to perform a land / pre-pool warm up routine. Doing this prepares you physically and mentally for your session / races and assists in injury prevention. Performing these routines daily will assist with coordination, core strength and general stability. Consult your coach for details and advice on performing your pre-pool routine.
Preparation and lifestyle are also key to improvement and success. Take a look at the info graphics and presentation of performance lifestyle for some sound advice to help you improve!
- Swimmer Equipment List – Mid Sussex Marlins swimmer equipment list
- Land warm up routine – training and competition: 2018 06 Marlins Pool Side Warm Up 1
- Foam rolling: Read the full article on swimswam.com
- Planning for the benchmark/end of season meets: Benchmark meet
Nutrition
Nutrition and hydration are key to training and racing well day in / day out. If you fuel your body in the right way this will assist training performance and recovery as well as increase performance at competition.
Take a read through these documents to guide your nutritional intake:
- Eat well to train well: 2018 06 Eat well to train well
- Eating on a rest day: 2018 06 Eating on a rest day
- Performance nutrition presentation: 2018 06 Performance Nutrition
- Sleep recovery: 2018 10 Sleep Recovery and Illness prevention 2
The Swimming Parent – Advice and Tips
Swimming is a demanding sport and the further swimmers progress the more time you will invest in the sport. As a swim parent the best things you can do is support your child, show them unconditional love win or lose and leave the coaching to the coaches. Below are some links to some useful guides on how best to support your child and their swimming goals.
- The swimming parent lifestyle guide: 2018 06 Parent guidance-Lifestyle
- The swimming parent lifestyle 2: 2018 06 Parent guide 2-Lifestyle
- Our guide to competitive swimming: 2018 06 Guide to Competitive Swimming at Mid Sussex Marlins
Technique and Skills 
The number one avenue for improvement and, most importantly, long term improvement is to continually invest and focus on improving your technique and swim skills (starts, turns, underwater kicking, streamlining etc.).
Improving technique centres around improving streamlining (the reduction of drag / resistance) and improvement of power development and efficiency (stroke length). Below you will find some guidance and presentations on improving swim technique and skills as well as a check-list questionnaire to help you improve your training.
- Backstroke technique: 2018 06 MSM Presentation – Backstroke streamlining-techique
- Self-evaluation questionnaire: 2018 06 Competitive swimmer self evaluation questionnaire
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NASL South Premier Division Club
2018 Sussex County Champions and Top Club
Sussex League Winners 2016 & 2018
Highest number of national qualifiers from Sussex County two years running
70+ Sussex County records broken 2016-2018
24 medals @ South East Regional Championships 2018
Extensive training programme to suit all levels