On the 10th of April, 18 Corsham swimmers spent the day at Hengrove Leisure Centre to attend a swim camp. We were all really excited about what the day would bring. When we got to the leisure centre we changed into our swimming kit and were then introduced to Tom Haffield and Danielle Stirrat. The day started with a two hour swim where we focused on our underwater kick. After the warm up we watched Tom as he showed us what we would be doing. We were taught many useful skills and the coaches showed us new turns and drills. We did underwater backstroke and then front crawl. Before taking off our fins we were doing side 360 of underwater kicking that I thought was fun!! Then we did a few 100m and 25m slow lengths, so we could focus mainly on our technique. Next, we did some more drills and watched the coaches demonstrate strokes. After lunch we went into the sports hall to do a circuit that consisted of: burpees, wall sit, diamond sit ups, jump squats, lunges, plank, high knees, squats, push ups and mountain climbers. We did that twice whilst Tom and Danielle went round helping people and showing them how it was done properly. After that we listened to the coaches tell us about their experiences with swimming and how they found the sport. They both competed in the Commonwealth Games and Tom managed to make it to the Olympic qualifiers, and also held the worlds fastest 400IM for his age (15). The last thing we did was another two hour swim session, where we focused on turns and how to take seconds off our times. The coaches demonstrated an Olympic turn that would help us in competitions. We also practised our starts, which improved our skills. It is quite hard but soon some people were doing it. We also practised our breaststroke and front crawl turns and how we could be faster at them. Overall, we all thought Bristol was amazing and that Tom and Danielle gave us a lot of helpful advice to improve physically and mentally and the coaching was very helpful and encouraging. We recommend this camp to anyone who wants to improve their swimming and land training. Thank you to the swimmers and coaches for participating, well done for swimming so well, and thank you too Zahid for organising the trip. Written by Amelia and Ella.
Swim Camp