Charley Hartley Meet Psych Sheets Are Up

The Charley Hartley Meet of Champs Psych Sheets are up and the Piranhas are once again ranked very well. We currently have the following swimmers ranked in the top 3. 9-10 Girls Free Relay is ranked 1st, Ben Gendelmen is ranked 1st in the 50 free, 1st 200 IM, Colin Naturale is ranked 3rd in the 50 free, 2nd in the 50 breast, Alex Burns is ranked 1st in the 50 fly, Maggie Palaski is ranked 2nd in the 50 back, 3rd in the 50 breast, Janay Parrish is ranked 2nd in the 50 breast, Lena Yang is ranked 1st in the 200 IM, 3rd in the 200 free, Colin Cruz is ranked 3rd in the 100 fly, Adrian Bernard is ranked 3rd in the 100 breast, Zack Wolbert is ranked 1st in the 25 fly, 1st in the 50 free, 1st in the 25 breast.

REMEMBER THIS MEET WILL HAPPEN EVEN IF IT SNOWS. IT WILL NOT GET SNOWED OUT OR RESCHEDULED! THE LEAGUE PAYS FOR THE POOL NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS SO IF YOU ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE WEATHER GET A HOTEL!

Meet Information: Saturday 2/23/08 @ GCIT Natatorium, 1360 Tanyard Rd. Sewell, NJ 08080
Psych Sheets
AM WARM UP - 8:15am (IN POOL A)
PM WARM UP - 12:40pm (IN POOL A)
Team Hotel: Fairfield Inn, Deptford NJ (Web Site)
Meet T-Shirts (Order Online)(All orders will close on the 22nd)

Snow Plow once again was a "Hot" Meet

On Saturday February 16th we hosted our Snow Plow meet with a great success! We posted 93 best times, 4 high point trophy winners, 12 meet records and several additional YMCA District Qualfiers. It was a well run meet with excellent parent helpers we were able run a smooth meet. Also wow once again we had a great consession!!!

PFY High Point Winners:

8 & under Girls - Kailey Burns

8 & Under Boys - Zack Wolbert

11-12 Girls - Katherine Lutfy

11-12 Boys - Ben Gendelmen

Meet Records Set:

8 & Under Boys: Zack Wolbert - 50 Free, 100 IM, 25 Fly, 25 Free, 25 Fly

9-10 Girls: Emily Wolbert - 100 Free, 100 IM, 50 Fly, 50 Free, 50 Breast

11-12 Girls: Katherine Lutfy - 200 IM, 200 Free

For Complete Meet Results (Click Here)

For PFY Swimmers Only Meet Results (Click Here)

To View our current YMCA District Qualifiers (Click Here)

What meet this year will you swim your best!

We swim a lot of meets through our "long" swim season and our training at times is very hard. It is not easy to swim your best every meet. I often see swimmers on other teams get upset and even cry when they do not swim their best times or win. It is not easy to swim your best times every meet and often not possible. It is not uncommon for older swimmers to go the whole season without a best time until the District of even the State meet level.

How do we deal with this pressure to have best times? First keep in mind that it is normal to not swim all best times. Enjoy the meet and have fun with your friends during the meet; cheering, playing games, talking and doing what brought you to this sport spending time with your "FRIENDS". Many swimmer loose why they started swimming in the first place their friends. Most swimming joking a swim team for 2 reasons, their friends swim or their parents see it is as a great, healthy sport. Keep it fun, and I know that practice is not always fun but meet should be always fun! Watch the video below of Michael Phelps breaking the world record in the 200 meter fly last year and see what his reaction after the race. Does this look like he is still having fun.

No Practice on Wednesday February 12th

There will be No Practice on Wednesday February 12th due to the snow storm.

Just because we are not having practice does not mean you should just sit home and watch TV, eat chips and not help yourself improve you times. Dry-Land training is a very important part of our program. Each day we dedicate between 15-30 minutes of our practice time to this type of training.

There are several way to improve swimming performance:

• Improve swimming technique - If you are not swimming your stokes correctly your performance will be effected. Proper stroke technique can not only help performance but it can also reduce the risk of injuries.
• Increase Endurance - If you do not have stamina to last the race it is impossible to show improvement. It should never go into a swimmer's mind during a race the following thoughts; "Will I die at the end?", "Will I be able to hold this fast pace?", "Am I going to finish?", "Am I going to be able to hold my breath on my turns?", Am I going to be able to perform my 5,3,1 on my last turns?". These are completely negative thoughts that can only be removed by proper and consistant training. Swimmers who put the time and work hard in practice are confident in their ability to swim a fast race and they do not think of losing their stroke or getting tired. Being in good shape also allows swimmers to be able to keep stroke corrections and make changes in their stroke technique that will not only benefit them but that will last.
• Increase physical strength - If a swimmer cannot move their own body on land they will have trouble performing well in the water. Basic exercises such as push ups are very important exercise to help swimmers get stronger. Some of the fastest swimmers are also very strong and are able to do at least 30 pushups with perfect form. Some of our fastest swimmers on our record board we great dry-land trainers. They could do well over 70 pushups in a minute. There are other exercises that will help swimmers get stronger and faster. Chin Ups, V-Ups, Strait Leg Kicks, Crunches, Strait arm circles. Do these in your free time it will help.

Are you in front of me or behind me??

Many of us over the next several weeks at our various championship meets will see athletes that we have competed against for quite some time now. Some of those athletes will be from our own team. Many times we get up on the blocks, and right away think "I can't swim faster than this person", and we immediately psych our self out.

This all starts back at practice. How hard are you really working at practice? There is no magic to it. There was a great quote I found on another team's web blog earlier today which said.

"You don't get in front of people that are already in front of you by doing less than they do".

Doesn't this make sense?

This does not necessarily mean going in front of a person at practice, but it means more about doing more work at practice, and not always in terms of actual volume of work.

If you want to be faster than someone that is already faster than you.....how are you going to do it?? This person is already in front of you, SO you better figure out how to work harder than they do??

You need to commit to faster kicking in practice. How about faster intervals on certain practice sets. How about improving your push ups? How about doing extra dry-land training at home? Use your imagination, and do not think you are going to improve simply by magic? It does not work like that. Keep your focus in practice, and allow yourself to work hard. It will not be easy, and sometimes it may actually be uncomfortable, but hey.....when you were learning how to walk, I am sure you fell a few times, or when you were learning how to ride a bike, I am sure you fell a few times.

If you want to be "in the front", you need to work harder than the others. Set up your plan and then follow it on a consistent basis.

Piranahas Crack the Top 16 in the Country!

Our 9-10 lady Piranahas Crack the Top 16 in the Country!

YMCA National ranks all swims each year and publishes a top 16 in the country. This list is in the proccess of being built "real time" with over 10,500 swimmers and 195 YMCA teams in the database. As of Feb our 9-10 girls are ranked 4th in the United States with thier record breaking swim last weekend.

Lady Piranhas 200 Medley Relay: Emily Cabral, Emily Wolbert, Maggie Palaski and Alexis Kemp swam a team record shattering time of 2:22.36 which ranked them 4th in the YMCA swimming for the United States. In addition they are also ranked 13th in the 200 free relay.

Other Top 16 swims include:
Emily Wolbert (10): 50 Free ranked 9th, 100 Free ranked 9th, 500 Free ranked 3rd, 50 Back ranked 11th, 50 Breast ranked 10th, 100 Breast ranked 16th, 50 fly ranked 6th, 100 Fly ranked 8th, 100 IM ranked 13th, and 200 IM ranked 12th.
Maggie Palaski (10): 50 Fly ranked 13th
Katherine Lutfy (12): 1,650 Free 13th
Alex Burns (11): 1650 Free 15th
Colin Orlowski (10): 500 Free 8th
Samuel Velez (10): 500 Free 10th
Colin Naturale (9): 500 Free 11th
Lascelles Dunn (9): 500 Free 16th
Benjamin Gendelmen (11): 1650 Free 16th
To view the Top 16 list (click here)

No Practice at Pocono Mountain and Lehman

There will be no practice at Pocono Mountain West and at Lehman Friday February 1st. The poor weather has closed the local schools.

The will be practice at the YMCA today 5:30-6:30 pm and all competitive and pre-competitive swimmers can attend. The pool may be crowded but we will work on kicks and drills.