Bond University Swimming coach Chris Mooney took time out from the Australian Age Swimming Championships to talk to Bond Sports media about the grand plan for the Bull Sharks swim squad.
Mooney and Director of Swimming Kyle Samuelson oversee a hectic program that will feature the Australian Open Championships next week, the Olympic trials in June and then the Paris Games while our younger swimmers are aiming to make Aussie teams for the Junior Pan Pacific Games in Canberra later this year.
Q: Your squad includes potential Paris Olympians and brilliant juniors who are building towards future Olympics. How do you keep everyone enthused while also satisfying all these different individual ambitions?
A: It is a question I ponder a bit, especially as we get closer to Paris. It is a young squad, full of talented athletes, they have great maturity for their age and they have already put some amazing performances on the board, so they are tracking really well. We have some that have no pressure on them, they are not expected to be Olympians this time around and the lack of pressure can be problematic, but we haven’t missed a beat. We’ve been very diligent in making make sure that every corner they turn there is a challenge. And they have accepted that.
And then we have others that should be there, and we expect them to be there. So, we have to find a healthy balance between realistic goals. It sounds clichéd but we set or goals around the process. We can’t control what the rest of the nation is doing around their preparation. We have a plan here that we really believe in, we know we have the athletes, and we have terrific facilities and great support from Bond University.
Q: How does the spread of ages influence your performance?
A: It is upwards pressure, no matter which way you turn your head there’s someone in the next lane that is challenging you, not just in that moment, but for a spot on Australian teams. And we have hand-selected our team, we don’t have too many athletes that swim over 200m and we have done that on purpose. So, we have nailed down on those being our focus events and that definitely drives internal competition.
Q: Tell us more about the planning that has gone into building your squad?
A: We want opportunity for everyone, and we want that longevity. The best way to create that is not just focus on the ‘now’ but also to focus on what is going to happen in eight years as well. I think we have set our program up to do that. We need to be successful at every Olympiad, so we always have our eyes on the next Olympiad just to make sure the next wave of athletes is always coming through.
Q: You’ve said your squad are predominantly sprinters but often in training the athletes swim endless laps at a steady pace rather than recreate race conditions. What is the theory behind that?
A: Ours is a science-based program and we believe that steady-state swimming for a long period of time with a certain heartrate is the best way to create aerobic capacity. And it is then having the maturity and the discipline to have good efficiency and great technique, otherwise it doesn’t work.
Q: What can go wrong?
A: There are two evils. Swimming for that amount of time, you can instinctively go too fast which takes us out of the zone we are trying to achieve. But you can also switch off and swim sloppy. If your application is there and you’re swimming connected, it is quite isometric, because you are always activated and always have those muscle groups and core switched on to achieve that. And we set up cameras in the water to monitor that. So I think it is a really healthy overall exercise. But its main purpose is to build our aerobic base.