What Thanksgiving Means For This GMA Coach

Thanksgiving is a GREAT time to be a GMA swim coach. The short course season is well underway, our training groups and coaching staff are all buzzing along with GMA energy and the bright lights of the championship season are growing brighter every day. It is at this time of year when I am grateful for the Thanksgiving holiday and the time to reflect on all of the reasons I am thankful to be a GMA swim coach.

First, I am thankful that I get to meet so many great families through my coaching work. We have families who live right down the street in my neighborhood and families who live as far as 100 miles away from the Saint Michael's College Pool. All of us are bound together by this awesome sport of swimming and the tremendous impact the sport has in our lives. We have GMA families who contribute to the team in so many ways. We have families who have devoted the last 15 years of their lives to officiating at every session of every meet. We have families who love to provide the best food concessions we can at every meet, even if it means arriving at 5:30 a.m., staying until 9:00 p.m. and visiting Costco on a busy Saturday afternoon just to pick up jars of mustard and plastic forks. We have families who not only spend endless hours driving to and from the pool at all hours of the night and day but also manage to squeeze an hour out of their hectic lives to organize and clean our overflowing storage closets. We have families who take on new volunteer responsibilities with the Booster Club and families who host team parties. Every GMA family finds ways to contribute to the team so that GMA and the great sport of swimming can be instrumental in the development of their children.

I am endlessly thankful for our outstanding and professional coaching staff. I am in awe, daily, of their undying commitment to children. Every GMA coach is passionate about teaching stoke technique, self-discipline, self-awareness and leadership to each of our GMA athletes. Our coaches bring this teaching to each GMA athlete in unique and interesting ways. Our coaches, first and foremost, care about our athletes and work to make each of the daily lessons in swimming relevant and interesting to each athlete. GMA coaches make the GMA experience a meaningful one for our GMA athletes and meaningful for me.

I am thankful for the inspiration and motivation given to me by our current GMA athletes. I am nothing short of elated every day when I get to come to the pool and work with such energetic and interesting young people. I enjoy working with our team leaders who set the standard of excellence for our team; with our committed athletes who lead by example; with our emerging leaders who are building the skills and the confidence to guide the team further; with our athletes who have recently transitioned to the senior level who are eager and anxious to find their place in the program; with our developing age groupers who continue to learn and grow in the sport as they discover their athletic goals; and with our budding developmental swimmers who are enthusiastic, energetic and ready to excel. What incredible character and charisma each GMA athlete offers this team. What a thrill to imagine where we will be at the end of the season when we all work together to achieve our common goals!

I am thankful for our GMA alumni and former team members. Thanksgiving provides our GMA alumni a special time of homecoming and sharing. We love having swimmers return to the team from their college programs. The lessons they share with us about their college experiences teach us how we can be better as team and how we can make the most of the GMA experience in preparation for college swimming. They ignite training environment with a familiar GMA energy and they open our minds to the possibilities for our athletes as they take their swimming, schooling and lives to the next level.

Finally, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to be a GMA coach because the excitement of the December meets beckons. We start with the UVAC Meet, where the majority of our team will be together to race hard and have fun at one of our favorite facilities. This year, we also get to travel to Atlanta with an athlete for the USA Swimming Short Course Junior National Championship. What an honor and a joy it will be to attend a national-level meet and see our GMA swimmer shine! We finish the December meet circuit with the New England Senior Meet. We get to travel as a team to Boston and we get to watch our GMA team leaders show New England Swimming how great swimmers from the Green Mountains are!

Thank you GMA families, coaches, athletes and alumni for providing me with purpose, passion and meaning every day of my life. Happy Thanksgiving GMA!

- Laura Matuszak

Keep It Simple

Like many other coaches and swimming fans, I have been alarmed by the recent analysis of Michael Phelps' performances at USA Swimming Nationals and the Pan Pacific Championships. The television commentators offered constant theories and predictions about his "conditioning", his "fitness" and his "preparation" leading into these elite competitions. Mr. Phelps, himself, offered tremendous insight into his feelings about his racing. From his facial expressions to his post-race interviews, race viewers were clearly reminded that Mr. Phelps was unhappy with his performances and was clearly out-of-shape.

It is with the utmost of respect for Michael Phelps, the athlete, that I begin this dialogue. There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Phelps is the greatest swimmer, if not the greatest athlete, of all time. He will forever be remembered as the eight-time gold-medalist. Not only did he win eight gold medals by racing tremendously in prelims, semi-finals and finals of each of his individual events, but he also chose to race in some of the most physically demanding of the swimming races. He showed pure athletic virtuosity by sprinting the 100 Butterfly and 100 Freestyle; racing the middle-distance events of the 200 Butterfly, 200 Freestyle and 200 Individual Medley; and mastering the grueling distance event of the 400 Individual Medley. In addition, Mr. Phelps represented his country with pride by racing incredibly in each of his relay events. To top it all off, he did almost all of this at world record speed. To me, he will always be the world's greatest swimmer.

I also begin this dialogue out of respect for his coach and for our great sport of swimming. I not only admire Coach Bob Bowman, I idolize him. He has fostered the greatest swimmer of all time, from age eleven into adulthood. He has continued and built upon a tremendous tradition of excellence at North Baltimore Aquatic Club. I wake up every day, inspired by this great coach, club and athlete. I work as hard as I can, every day, to try to meet the outstanding expectations set forth by our great leadership in USA Swimming.

It is from this place of deep respect and admiration that I raise my concerns regarding Mr. Phelps and the analysis of his recent swimming performances. I think that both Mr. Phelps and the USA Swimming coaching greats missed some opportunities to share their coaching knowledge with the world during the post-meet press conferences. I invite other coaches to share their views and perspectives as we prepare our nation's athletes for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Here are some of the statements that concerned me:
When discussing the challenges of coach an adult athlete like Mr. Phelps, Coach Bob Bowman stated: "Nobody knows what they are doing. We are in uncharted territory."

The Head Coach for the USA Swimming National Team, Mark Schubert stated that if a college swimmer failed to show up for training he would say: “You need to turn in your scholarship or come to practice. That’s appropriate for an 18-year-old. But for our older swimmers, we are reinventing the sport."


I am alarmed! We don't know what we are doing? We are in unchartered territory? We are reinventing the sport?

Is coaching post-graduate athletes such a grand mystery? I can't help but wonder. Don't we, as a coaching community, constantly strive to educate ourselves and learn from other coaching greats? Haven't we, as coaching professionals, seen plenty of post-college, semi-professional athletes train with incredible determination, committement and excellence on a regular basis? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that there are many elite runners, cyclists, triathletes, endurance athletes (not to mention football players, basketball players, baseball players and hockey players) who train year-round, at high intensity, for hours each day in order to reach their goals in sport. How is it, then, that post-graduate swimmers and their coaches are in such a quandry as to how to approach adult athletes and their training?

We need our leaders in USA Swimming to continue to lead us. If we are going to fund our "elite" USA Swiming training centers, then we need the coaches and athletes from our Centers of Excellence to stand apart within the sport as leaders in excellence. Perhaps Mr. Phelps' disappointing performances will help us reevaluate the current hierarchy in our sport and will help us all develop as a swimming nation. I think that the lessons learned this summer from Mr. Phelps and his racing are increbibly simple. So simple, in fact, that they are the very lessons that we employ with our athletes, in our program, every day, regardless of age.


Lesson # 1
There are no shortcuts if your goal is to improve. In order to make personal improvements in racing, one must make personal improvements in training. If athletes want to race faster this year than last year, then they must IMPROVE something in their training. That could mean that they choose to train with better technique, greater frequency, more intensity or for longer durations; but there is no substitute for improved training if athletes want to improve performance. This is just as true for a 40 year-old National Football League veteran as it is for an 8 year-old age group swimmer.

Lesson # 2
If an athlete is going to truly COMMIT to personal improvement and the effort that is required, then that athlete must be invested in the process. The season plan for any athlete must be based on meaningful goals for that athlete. Atheltes who genuinely want to improve will be able to commit to challenging training, every day with very little prodding from the coach. Athletes who are not invested in personal improvement and are unsure of their direction within the sport will often struggle with practice attendance, training focus and workout intensity. This is just as true for the highest payed Major League Baseball power hitter as it is for a first-year high school swimmer.

Lesson # 3

Positive reinforcement is the best coaching tool in the world. Coach DeSantis is right on target in identifying the role of human psychology within the athletic training environment. To expand on his thoughts, I reference some basic learning theory concepts. While punishment typically decreases the likelihood that a person will repeat a particular behavior, positive reinforcement has been found to be far more effective in guiding behavior. Positive reinforcement is applied in order to increase the likelihood of a particular behavior. In the case of coaching athletes, positive reinforcement is much more powerful in encouraging athletes toward their goals than punishment is in discouraging athletes away from behaviors that negatively impact their goals. In other words, rather than punishing athletes for failing to meet the training expectations, coaches are far better off rewarding athletes for meeting the training expectations. Don't we as coaches want to spend our time praising, encouraging, celebrating and rewarding our athletes for performing at their best? Don't we want to focus our coaching on the positive rewards, rather than on the punishments? Positive reinforcement is an incredible coaching tool. This is just as true for a National Basketball Association point guard as it is for a world record setting, post-graduate swimmer.

Let Phelps' performances this summer serve as a reminder to all of us in the USA Swimming family. The only way to increase the likelihood of outstanding performances is to train with outstanding effort, every day. The only way for athletes to train with outstanding effort, every day is for athletes to genuinely committed to their goals. The best way for coaches to encourage outstanding effort, every day from their motivated and goal-invested athletes is with positive reinforcement and rewards for acting with excellence. I am confident that this is the simplest way to achieve success as a swimming community, regardless of age, experience, fame or fortune. Thank you Mr. Phelps, Mr. Bowman and Mr. Schubert for inspiring us all to remember these simply lessons.

GO USA!

Maximize Your GMA Experiences

Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of coaching at the New England 14 and Under Championship Meet at Harvard University. The crew that was there represented the best of our young swimmers! I was interested in the differences between a championship meet like this one and all of the other meets we go to during the year. There was definitely a lot more energy from all of the kids at the meet. Anyone who had qualified was fired up to race fast for their team and for themselves. It created an atmosphere of excellence and focus enhanced by challenging competition.

I think that what makes kids successful at this level is a combination of things. First and foremost is preparation. As those GMA athletes who attended the meet know, there is no substitute for the confidence you get knowing that you are prepared well and capable of doing your best. That part is huge and the GMA workouts are carefully planned to ensure just that. That confidence is key in sustaining the mood and tempo of the meet.

If you set a goal to achieve championship cut times, it is important to assume you will be at the meet and train accordingly. It is not enough just to get there…you have to be ready to race fast when you arrive! We see a lot of athletes who work to achieve the qualifying standard only to be overwhelmed when they actually arrive at the meet and find they are in the first heat. What can take that athlete to further success?

It’s fun to win at regional and Jenny Thompson meets but what gives meaning to a race swum in heat one of champs with maybe only four other kids? That is the power of effective goal setting and daily reflection on the goals. As athletes, it is critical to keep the hard work you do relevant. It is critical to imagine swimming at the championship meet, no matter your seed and using the opportunity to become a better racer. It is critical to have more practice warming up properly, swimming in a long course pool, and navigating the always crowded, sometimes painful open warm-up with 30 kids in your lane. It’s critical to ALWAYS maximize your experiences. With this focus, it is inevitable that you will find a reason to go fast, improve your time, improve your seed and make you a better racer. If you are a better racer, then you will go faster. It is a very simple formula.

During warm-up each day it was incredibly crowded in our lane. Our polite GMA athletes were kindly stopping to let people go by and stopping three yards from the wall when a gang of kids from another team was hanging on in their way. Part of the tone and attitude of the meet is confidence and getting better at the championship experience. I talked to the kids and reminded them that they deserves a good warm-up and while I don’t suggest being rude or mean, they needed to take care of business! If the other kids in the lane aren’t willing to move, flip turn anyway! Act like you belong there, warm up like a champion and prepare your body to race fast. By the end of the meet they were weaving through the lane cloggers during warm-up like the dedicated athletes they are!

I was proud to watch our young, inexperienced kids bond, strengthen and learn this weekend. They went to Harvard as a group of qualifiers and left as a Championship team! Great job GMA!

- Coach Eileen Hall

GMA Racing . . . What Matters!

Several weeks ago, over 30 GMA swimmers traveled to Harvard University to race in our first local long course meet of the season. It was a joy to have so many GMA swimmers at the meet, excited about racing with their teammates. Now that we have had a chance to look at our performances from the meet and break down the strengths and weaknesses in our racing, I have some thoughts about what really matters at meets.

Since each swim meet provides our athletes and coaches with many opportunities to learn about our racing, the Harvard May Classic taught us much about what is required to perform at one's best:

1. First and formost, athletes must be prepared for the stress of racing. This stress is best managed by many hours of focused training prior to the meet. Each training session at GMA helps athletes focus on various racing skills, racing speed and racing strategy. Every practice matters and every training session prepares our GMA athletes for the stress of racing.

Beyond the preparation gained through GMA training, the athletes receive verbal and written communication regarding the small details they need to remember in order to race their best. Using the GMA meet information packets that are posted online and printed for the athletes, we outline the key things that every GMA swimmer will need to do prior to the meet to be prepared to race their best. With advanced planning and preparation, athletes can arrive at the meet with all of the equipment, food, drinks and comfort items that they will need to race with confidence and security.

2. The stress of racing can be alleviated by focusing on the team during the competition. Socialize with your GMA teammates, focus your energy on supporting GMA swimmers and take some time to get to know your teammates better. Nothing is more distracting than great social interactions with others. Moreover, when we take the time to focus our energy on our teammates and their successes, we feel better about our own racing. Give it a try at our next meet GMA . . . socialize with your teammates, encourage their efforts and watch them race with pride!

3. Maintaining the proper focus throughout the competition is essential to racing one's best. It is so important to focus on one race at a time. Focus on what YOU need to do in order to be successful. Take the focus off of the things that you cannot control. You cannot control the pool conditions, the flow of the meet, the atmosphere on deck, your parents and teammates or the other competitors. However, you have total and utter control over yourself and how you race. Before each race, be certain of your race plan. While you are racing, stay fully engaged in the fun of what you are doing and feel yourself racing your best. Focus on the most important person and the most important thing when you race - you and your race!

4. Of course, one of the many the challenges that athletes face is to race with excellence at every opportunity. Every single race is a chance to have fun pushing your physical limits and pushing your body to new and different levels of performance. Whether we are racing at the beginning of the season or the end of the season; whether we are racing at the best facility in the United States or our home pool we can decide to race with focus, effort and excellence EVERY chance that we get.

Outstanding athletes are athletes who challenge themselves to be better and to race faster at every competition. There is no need to hold back or save your energy at a particular meet or in a particular race. You are a GMA athlete! You have been trained to perform your best for an extended period of time. The progression of our training groups, the progression of our daily workouts and the progression of the commitment levels that are expected on this team ensure that our athletes maintain a great level of fitness. With great fitness, our athletes are primed to race five or six events per day with excellence! Trust your training and trust yourself. Sieze every opportunity to race your best.

5. Recall the racing tools you have used in the past to race with success. Before each race, remember what you LOVE about racing and remind your body and mind of how fun it is to move at high rates of speed and skill through the water. Utilize the skills which you have used before to make you the excellent racer that you are. Use those skills in each race and adopt new and different racing techniques in order to push your physical and mental limits. Build on your racing strengths to be better and faster. Few experiences in life are as rewarding as racing your heart out to achieve your goals. Race your heart out GMA!

Ryan Lochte said it best when he remarked that he "LOVES to RACE". That's the key. Love the competition for the thrill of the moment, for the connections that are made within the unique environment of a swim meet and for the lessons that can only be learned from putting your best effort into challenging and stressful situations. As we embark on the remainder of the long course season, we hope that each GMA swimmer will learn and grow through the love of racing!

GO GMA!



Laura Matuszak

Coach Tim Blogs About Spring Swimming . . . and Volunteering!

What: GMA Water Station Volunteers Needed!!



When: May 30th 2010


Where: Vermont City Marathon mile 25.5 Water Station

It is exciting to see the long course season come into full swing and it is great to see the new and old faces starting in the clinic, eager to work on their technique in the pool. For those of you who don't know me, I am Tim Bard, a regional coach here at GMA. I started our water station at the Vermont City Marathon two years ago and it has been a lot of fun since!

This will be the third year that GMA has come together to support each other and the Vermont City Marathon, providing a valuable service to the runners handing out vital liquids on the home stretch of the run! As you may know, a marathon is 26.2 miles and we have the honor of being at mile 25.5. It is a point of pride for me that the runners coming by, see our GMA banner and hear the cheers from our team for the last push of their race!

The marathon committee has commented the last two years how they have received such great feedback about our water station and how energetic and supportive our team has been! The runners have given a lot of very positive feedback too about helping them finish strong with the cups of water and gatorade and with the great enthusiasm and support our team has shown. It is awesome to show other sports and organizations that GMA swimmers aren't only supportive of swimming and their team mates but they are also supportive of athletes in other sports!

I want to thank you all who volunteered the last two years and am very excited to see some new and returning GMA faces at the marathon!!

The structure will remain the same. There will be two shifts, so if you can volunteer for one or both shifts that would be great! Last year the two shifts started at 9am and 11:30 a.m. with about 30 minutes overlap during the time when the greatest volume of runners go by. The marathon will probably go until about 2:30  or 3:00 p.m. The sign up is now posted on the GMA website, so you can sign-up electronically today!  Here is a link to the main information page on the team website:  http://www.teamunify.com/EventShow.jsp?returnPage=%2FEventsCurrent.jsp&id=77440&team=negma

The fun starts with cheering on the wheelchair division and then the elite runners.  The race finishes with the main pack of runners, some of whom are running the whole marathon and some of whom are running as part of a relay. It is great to see all the training that people have put into getting ready for a marathon pay off. It is also entertaining for us to see runners in costume and runners with a variety of goals and ambitions for the race.  I am sure that this year, as in years past, we will see plenty of former and current GMA swimmers, coaches and parents running the race as well!

All volunteers, whether that be swimmers, family members or friends will get a Vermont City Marathon T-shirt! So when you sign up I will need your t-shirt size as well as address and email. Vermont City Marathon sends out a thank you each year!

If you have any questions please contact myself or Laura.

Thank you and see you on deck and at the Marathon!
-Tim Bard
Contact me at wyltbam@gmail.com

Mike Gustafson's "The Life of the Competitive Swimmer" on Swimnetwork.com

Numerous GMA swimmers, coaches, parents and alumni have commented on various social networking sites about this blog by Mike Gustafson on Swimnetwork. You, too, are invited to read along, chuckle and enjoy Mr. Gustafson's fun perspective on the life cycle of a swimmer!

The Heart Of It

"Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

As we delve into a new decade, I am driven to evaluate my life. What I can say, with ease, is that I LOVE my life. While I have literally hundreds of more goals to achieve in this lifetime and I don't have all of the comforts and security that I desire, I do, nevertheless, LOVE my life. I love coaching, I love working with our GMA families and I love building a stronger GMA team. Moreover, I feel so lucky to live with such passion and I hope to share this passion through my GMA work.

As coaches, we have the opportunity to work with our athletes for many hours each week and many years out of their lives. We hope to promote enthusiasm for life in each of our GMA team members through the sport of swimming. We encourage our developing young people to bring great energy into their lives. We do this in several ways. First, we try to foster a love for the water. We teach our athletes to move with strength and confidence in the water. By celebrating our athletes' successes and improvements, we share the joys of competition. Our athletes discover, through their efforts on GMA, that it's fun to spend time working hard in the water to achieve meaningful goals with caring teammates. In learning to love the sport of swimming, GMA athletes bring great energy into their daily experiences.

Second, we ask our athletes to love GMA and our GMA teammates. We help our athletes learn about themselves and their teammates. As they gain this interpersonal knowledge, GMA athletes are better able to appreciate and care for their teammates. We want our GMA team members to recognize how fortunate they are to spend hours each day around people who care so much about them. GMA teammates and coaches value hard work, goal setting, focus, commitment and excellence. They are also unique, smart, funny, insightful and compassionate people. When our GMA teammates learn to love each other, they develop their love for life.

Third, with greater experience in the sport and more time invested on the team, our GMA athletes incur greater responsibilities. Our oldest athletes and our most seasoned competitors are expected to serve as team leaders. While some young people could consider these team obligations with disdain, our best GMA leaders embrace the challenge of serving their teammates. We teach our older GMA athletes not only to love the water and to love GMA, but also to love dedicating great energy and time to reach tough goals. One approach that we try to teach our athletes is to stay focused on doing their best “in the moment”. This is an excellent technique for maintaining focus and enthusiasm, even during a long, hard set; a long, hard season; or a long, hard swimming career. We help our athletes recognize that what we are doing right now can help us achieve our short and our long term goals. When GMA athletes learn to stay present and focused in the moment, they learn to love the challenges in our sport and to embrace the work ethic that is required for success in any endeavor. It is with this enthusiasm for putting great effort into each and every moment that our GMA athletes can serve as terrific leaders in life.

Finally, we ask that our GMA athletes bring a positive outlook into all areas of their lives. We want to know what is going well in their lives, what their favorite part of the week has been and what they do well in training. We ask that our athletes appreciate the good in their lives. With that appreciation, we ask that our athletes work hard in the areas of their lives that they want to improve. By acknowledging the good and working on areas of improvement in their lives, GMA swimmers approach their lives with passion.

If there is one feeling that I want to bring to all of my work and all of my interactions within our GMA team, it is LOVE. We work to foster love in our swimmers by teaching them to love the sport, love their teammates, love the moment and love life. I hope that 2010 is a year in which GMA swimmers learn how to train and race with enthusiasm. 2012 draws closer and more GMA swimmers have their eyes on the 2012 Olympic Trials. No doubt, it will take tremendous focus, energy and passion to reach our team goal of having four GMA swimmers race their best at the 2012 Olympic Trials. We are working together today with love and energy, so that we are ready to celebrate the joy of Olympic competition in the future. GO GMA!

GMA Year In Review 2009 Video

Congratulations to our GMA swimmers for a fantastic 2009 and a terrific start to 2010! We are looking forward to a great New Year filled with valuable hard work and excellent team effort toward our goals. We love helping each of our GMA swimmers improve every day. We are certain that with continued improvements, we will have many GMA swimmers primed for the 2012 USA Swimming Olympic Trials! Keep up the good work GMA!

Please note that there are a few sensitive words in the music ("Why I Am" by Dave Matthews Band) on this video. Additionally, the video is primarily of the GMA Senior, Sectional and National Group swimmers.