You can put on your running shoes and go for a run, jump on your bike for a lifeguard course if you want to do a cycling workout, but unfortunately, this is slightly different with swimming. You depend on the times of the pool, so it is not exactly the hour that suits you, but especially the hour where there is space and space in the pool.
This demands something from your planning skills. The time schedule for the pool (most hours for the front crawl are just not ideal, in the middle of the day, late in the evening, or in the middle of the night before people get up) also means that you have to make a plan for your diet for lifeguard course. Besides a bathing suit, swimming cap, swimming board, and glasses, you can’t finish your training without fuel either!
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Balance
With a simple calculation, you can actually come a long way. If you want to perform optimally, you must ensure that you take in as much as you use with the lifeguard course. If you consume more than you eat, you will lose weight, which is at the expense of your muscle strength. If you eat more than you consume, an unnecessary amount of energy goes to your digestive system and you get an extra layer of buoyancy.
If you also keep that energy balance balanced by eating a good combination of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, then you are already one step further in the right direction for the lifeguard course. For someone who regularly sports, the ratio of 50% carbohydrates, 25% proteins, and 25% fats is recommended.
Time planning
Yet it does not stop with planning your diet. In addition to what you eat, it is also important to take into account when you eat something for the lifeguard course. Your body needs the energy to process your food.
The clever thing about your body is that it has created an order of importance on its own. Processing food (parasympathetic system) takes precedence over supplying energy to your muscles (ortho sympathetic system).
This ensures that if you have eaten a plate of pasta half an hour before you dive into the pool, you have the idea that you are sinking to the bottom like a brick!
To work for the lifeguard course!
So do you want your ideal preparation for your training? Then consider the following advice:
- Maintain a standard diet, even if you don’t go into the pool for a day. Think of a meal three times a day, but don’t forget to eat something in between. This provides a good foundation.
- Have the main meal no more than three hours before your workout, so that your body has enough time to process this. Just before training for a lifeguard course, you can certainly take something high in carbohydrates, to get that little bit of extra energy. An egg cake, a currant bun, but also a few wine gums can help you with that.
- Are you done training? Then top up your energy supply as soon as possible with protein-rich food. If you have trained in the morning, start your breakfast with a nice egg and a cup of milk, if it is after your evening training, a bowl of cottage cheese with unsalted nuts is a welcome addition to your energy supply. Of course, there is a lot of advertising with protein shakes and protein bars, fast products, but if you have a good basic diet, this is certainly not necessary to supplement your proteins.
- Do you train early in the morning? Then you will benefit from a standard diet. Because you have kept your stock of energy at a good level on all other days, you prevent shortages and you can do your morning training on a banana. After the training, you will of course sit down for a good breakfast.
- Make sure you have enough fluids during training, but actually throughout the day. You lose almost an extra liter of fluid during an hour of exercise. A lack of fluids increases the risk of injuries, including cramps. And don’t forget that every cup of coffee you drink extracts moisture and must therefore be made up with double the amount of water!
Science and sport know each other well. The start of Nike Kaman on the BMX in Tokyo during the Olympic Games was the moment in the race where the difference could be made between winning or losing and lifeguard course.
Starting technique has also been analyzed down to the last detail (read: degrees) to dive into the water at the best possible angle. Will you win the race at the start? No, often there are many more factors of influence.
But a good start is certainly important to make a difference with your competition. The same goes for the turning point for the lifeguard course. I can still hear the trainer from the past say ‘Marti, a turning point is not a resting point!’.
START AND TURN: FEEL THE ENERGY FLOW FROM START TO FINISH
The technique for starting and turning has changed a lot over the years. It is now hard to imagine that the back crawl turning point was without a roll-over not so long ago! Or that you were standing on the starting block with two feet together with a lifeguard course.
The back-to-school medley turning point has gone through most of the transformations. And the ‘blow’ of butterfly legs in the underwater breaststroke phase is also relatively new.
As a child, I enjoyed nothing more than learning a (new) turning point. On vacation, I was busy practicing the rollover turn. As a trainer, I notice that students also get excited about starting and turning in a lesson.
Water in your nose, landing flat on the water once, your glasses full of water… All the discomfort that comes with it. But once you master it, you notice the flow of swimming even more. The underwater speed when you’ve just left the starting block, the energy from the roll-over and take-off that you use to swim back.
Practicing starting and turning is fun and especially something different. In addition to the technique, there are many fun creative variations you can think of, for example turning around your longitudinal axis after the dive or during the take-off for the lifeguard course.
Or do you make an entire course with flexible hoses, hoops, and/or clothes with holes to dive over, dive through or drop off? Or release a ball during the back crawl start as the swimmer dives back into the water: can you get the ball kicked away? As a trainer,
I always get a lot of energy from these kinds of lessons. And usually, the students can (or dare) more than they think. Getting familiar with diving, turning, and being underwater in a playful way often helps if it is a bit exciting.
If you can dive and turn, then there are some etiquette rules. Never dive into the water when someone is close to the shore with a lifeguard course. Also, check whether the person who is hanging on the side does not want to drop off.
This way you prevent accidents. When turning, it’s nice to sort the last meters to the left ahead. You then make your turning point to the left of the middle of the lane and you end up in the right place after your take-off (and because of a good underwater phase you are not in the way of the swimmer after you).
As with the swimming technique, the technique of starting and turning consists of small steps. Build something further every time; it’s a little easier, a little faster lifeguard course. Feel that the water moves with you instead of against it. To hold that flow of energy from the block to the finish. Do you also want to learn these small steps? View our range of courses.
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