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Mission Statement
Desert Thunder
Aquatics is a competitive swimming team organized for the purpose
of providing swimmers with the opportunity to reach their finest
potential. It is the goal of Desert Thunder Aquatics to develop a
nationally recognized USA Swimming program by providing an
environment where an age group swimmer with the appropriate talent
and desire can develop into a world class competitor. At the same
time, Desert Thunder Aquatics is committed to offering quality
programs that will provide a fun and rewarding experience for
swimmers with less lofty goals.
In order to provide such an
environment Desert Thunder’s program are built on a
developmental coaching philosophy. Our training programs are
tailored to the physical and emotional development of the swimmer,
and incorporate state of the art applications of research in the
areas of biomechanics and exercise physiology. Our approach is a
highly motivational one which focuses on individual improvement and
relies on a cooperative effort between the coaching staff, the
swimmer and the swimmer’s parents.
Why Desert
Thunder Aquatics?
DTAC’S Age Group to Elite
Philosophy Recognized in USA Swimming Magazine Article - Click to
Read
We
have built our program around three important building blocks that
make us different from other teams:
Innovative Stroke Instruction - based on the principles developed by Coaches Bill Boomer
and Milt Nelms, Desert Thunder is developing a new way of teaching
stroke technique that focuses on body alignment, balance, core
strength, and functional movement. Coach Boomer was the stroke
coach for swimmers training at Stanford prior to the Olympics, most
notably with Jenny Thompson and Dara Torres. Coach Nelms, who has
been working as a clinician presenting these ideas at clinics in
this country, Europe, and Australia. DTAC has been involved in a
joint project with Coach Boomer, Coach Nelms, and USA Swimming to
produce the Boomer Chronicle Stroke Video series. Our swimmers were
filmed to produce tapes 3-6. Our involvement in this project has
put us on the leading edge of teaching the "New Paradigm" approach
to stroke technique.
Parametric Training - a
training methodology brought to this country from Eastern Europe by
Genadjius Sokolovas, USA Swimming’s Director of Exercise
Physiology and his colleague Alex Nikitin. They have developed
career training parameters for swimmers that provide for age
appropriate training volumes so our swimmers develop appropriately
and continue to improve when they leave us to go on to college. The
idea is to not over train at too young an age, but not under-train
as they get older. We utilize software designed by Alex Nikitin to
create training plans for swimmers based on their age, gender, and
distance orientation. Obviously, for our developmental swimmers,
these programs aren’t really necessary, since the emphasis at
this level in on stroke development, but as the swimmers age up and
move through our program we are able to make sure they train
appropriately from season to season to keep the correct levels of
work for continuing physiological adaptation.
DTAC’s Goal Award Program - This program was developed to reward swimmers for
meeting OUR criteria of success. To us, success equals
improvement. Rather than focusing on winning, or comparing one
swimmer to another, we provide swimmers with incremental goals in
all of their events, BASED ON
THEIR INDIVIDUAL LEVEL OF ABILITY. These goals
encourage our swimmers to focus on improving their times, and to
swim all events, rather than specialize at an early age. At the end
of each season swimmers receive awards (t-shirts, medals,
embroidered towels, etc) based on the amount of time improved. This
allows swimmers to develop at their own rate and allows for
swimmers of all abilities to earn awards.
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