Para Training Day at Catterick

The club had a busy weekend with Sheffield Premier meet running for our top squads and the John Harriman Championships entertaining the younger end of the programme. While that was happening, a number from Performance 5 took part in round 2 of their England Talent Programme on Zoom, and Lucas Lee (Ros) was invited to attend his first taste of the North East Region's para-swim training run by Richmond Dales coach Keith Hall.

So a weekend with lots of things going on involving lots of people.

As we haven't been involved in the para side of the sport for a while, let's take a look at Lucas' day. Based at Richmond Dales' home pool of Catterick Garrison, this was the third in a four event series that was discussed among North East coaches over lockdown. It was aimed at bringing together the top para-talent from around the North East to establish camaraderie and awareness among the community.

Lucas was one of 20 atheletes taking part, and it followed a similar schedule to the regional talent camps. They started out in the sports hall for some land training. The familiar topic of RAMP warm ups was discussed, the constituent parts described, and various examples of suitable exercises presented for each bit. More than likely, it didn't have a scary voice-over in the style Coach Dave adopted for the video below, which was filmed during lockdown (he probably had gone mad by that point), but the principles are the same and it's always good to see which exercises different coaches through in to the mix.

A 20min practical followed split into groups to give everyone experience of applying all those RAMP components.

Next up they were in the pool for 2 hours to practice various race skills such as starts and turns and breaking them into smaller pieces to improve them. Plenty of opportunities to practice dive starts and the importance of underwater work were covered in detail.

As we always tell those on the various talent camps, you need to return home and apply what you've learnt to your day-to-day training. But more than that, you need to promote the new skills and knowledge around your training groups too. Spread the knowledge, and raise the level within among your peers.

Now we apologise for the voice-over, but here's everything you need to know about RAMP warm ups ...