Advanced Swimmers To Have Winter Training

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30452, 28 May 1964, Page 6

Advanced Swimmers To Have Winter Training

The formation of an advanced- group of swimmers to undertake a concentrated dry land training programme during the winter and take to the water as the Canterbury representative squad next summer is favoured by the management committee of the Canterbury Swimming Centre. With this in mind, the committee created two new posts—officer in charge of training and centre training organiser. To the first position it appointed Mr R. W. H. Luscombe; it was decided to ask Mr B. E. Mackenzie to accept the other post. Both are Canterbury selectors. Summarising a 90-minute discussion among committee members, amateur coaches and Mr A. J. Donaldson, convener of the carnivals’ committee, the president (Mr M. R. Duckmanton) said that an advanced group would be formed and the eight clubs conducting calisthenics classes would be asked to absorb swimmers from other clubs seeking this type of training. A Centre Task Mr Luscombe was asked to confer with his fellow selectors (Messrs Mackenzie and D. W. Cain) on the number and type of swimmers desired for the advanced group. The Canterbury centre was on the right lines in having its top swimmers training together in the water two sea-

sons ago, said Mr Donaldson. A similar plan was needed for dry land training during winter. This, he said, was clearly a centre task. . . “Clubs can’t do it,” sard Mr Donaldson. “They have a tremendous cross : section from babies to competent swimmers to deal with.” The nicest thing that could happen to a club, he added, was to be able to send its top line swimmers to a collective group and so be free to concentrate on the babies. Clubs carried out the spade work and the centres built on the foundation by giving a select group of the top competitors the best of tuition. Running would form an im portant part of this winter’s training, said Mr Luscombe. There would be two nights of calisthenics and games each week, supplemented by group running. This, he asserted, was the foundation of fitness. The suggestion that running tightened a swimmer’s legs was fallacious; Miss R. A Johnson (United States), one of the world’s leading women freestyle swimmers, was an ardent cross-country runner and repetition sprints and jogs over 440yds played a big part in the Japanese men's training.