The third of the North East Regional Para-swimming camps 2023-2024 took place on Sunday 11th February at Catterick Leisure Centre. 18 swimmers from the North East Region took part in the event with some swimmers attending for the first time.
The day started with a strength and conditioning session led by Paralympian Lyndon Longhorne. The hour-long session started with the athletes working in pairs with a focus on shoulder strengthening using therabands. After a short break the swimmers worked in teams around a high intensity circuit session.
Lyndon then led a classroom session and talked about mindset. The swimmers brainstormed negative thoughts and feelings they may have before racing an event and then how they might use positive thoughts and actions such as visualisation/positive thinking to overcome those thoughts. The swimmers were able to open up to the group about negative thoughts/worries they have before events and Lyndon gave advice on how to turn these into positives and not let the negatives affect your race.
With a positive mindset the swimmers headed for a 2-hour pool session led by head coach Zoe Cowan (Richmond Dales ASC). Zoe was supported poolside by Lyndon and coaches James Woods (B-TASC) and Dan Firbank (B-TASC).
The swim session focussed on medley technique, skills and drills.
The last of the 2023-2024 camps will take place on Sunday April 15th.
A huge thanks once again to all of our fantastic coaches and team manager (Kathryn Stephenson) – another great day of development for our Regional Para Squad
