The Future of Water Polo Conditioning - USWPT

Ultra-short Race-pace Training (USRPT) is a set of swim training principles researched, developed and articulated by Dr. Brent Rushall during his decades-long career coaching swimming and performing scientific studies. The results of dozens of tests are posted in his database "Swimming Science Bulletin" and I would refer you to this short article as a primer, "The Mechanisms of Ultra-Short Training". If this is not adequate in depth I would advise the longer, "Swimming Energy Training in the 21st Century". These methods have been proposed for water polo before (Water Polo Training Based on Game Metrics) but had previously failed to incorporate the optimal development of the players' energy systems and the reduction in performance-degrading fatigue. Now, a true scientific conditioning system is ready to be unleashed on your players. (Just in time for the season!)

This article continues at Water Polo Planet

Developing Your Head-Up Water Polo Technique, Part 2

Now that you have mastered some of the basic head-up drills in Head-up Water Polo Technique Part 1 you can start training your transitions. In a water polo game you will perform a water polo transition from swimming to eggbeater, or vice versa, at least two times each possession.

From your defensive end, you will perform a water polo start and swim to the offensive end where you will transition back to eggbeater. You may catch a pass early in the counterattack and then pass and swim to another position. You may also initiate a drive in your half-court and end the drive by kicking-up to catch a pass and score a goal. As you can tell, transitions are extremely important to work on. Fast transitions allow you to: 1) play mobile defense 2) counterattack quicker 3) pass and shoot from a stable and high eggbeater position 4) save energy.

Let's try some transition drills that will help you get in shape for the season.

Transition technique 121 is a simple drill to add to your water polo conditioning. Instead of swimming laps and starting and stopping on the walls, begin and/or finish each lap with some eggbeater. On an eggbeater start, make sure you are balanced with your hands out of the water and explode into the swim position with a forward breaststroke kick lunge. To finish, work on getting your knees up quickly and eggbeatering hard to the end of the lap.

Transition technique 122 adds some game situations to the eggbeater transition. If you start eggbeatering at the beginning of the lap you are in a shot-blocking position with one hand up and your palm facing the shooter. Knock down the shooter after a few yards and explode into your swim with a breaststroke lunge. If you finish the lap in the eggbeater position you should transition to eggbeater about 7 yards out and move forward high in the water with a shooting hand up looking for a cross pass. Finish the lap with a high shooting motion. If you eggbeater before and after the swim you should be sprinting head-up the middle 10-14 yards of the pool.

Transition technique 123 is a variation of technique 121. Here you will start from various positions and facing different directions. Face left, right, backwards and forwards. Start with your legs pointing in different directions as well. Each direction requires different explosive movements. Finish the laps with hard eggbeater for 5-10 seconds and at least one vertical lunge. It is up to you to make this drill harder and harder. 8x15 yards head-up sprint with 5 seconds of eggbeater at the end and 2 vertical lunges is a pretty good set! Take 20 seconds of rest between each rep.

Transition technique 124 shows you three types of water polo turns. Remember, when training for water polo you should never start with wall pushes or do flip turns. Save those for swim season. The ankle turn involves lifting your foot and leg out of the water and spinning. Notice that if you spin clockwise you will be pushing your right foot out of the water. Keep your legs high in the water and get proficient at turning both directions. The knees-to-chest turn is straightforward; just pull your knees up as high as you can and fall backward into a swim position. The hip turn is hard to master but is a very quick transition move. Watch the video and practice these turns until you feel comfortable. Proper turns will help you conserve energy in a game!

Building a Water Polo Captain

"Because there are no predetermined solutions to problems, [sic] leaders must adapt their 

thinking, formations, and employment techniques to the specific situation they face. This 

requires an adaptable and innovative mind, a willingness to accept prudent risk in 

unfamiliar or rapidly changing situations, and an ability to adjust based on continuous 

assessment."

 - Foreword, Army Leadership ADP 6-22

Many of coaches talk about the delegation of responsibility they give to their team captains: 

"When a captain tells you to do something he speaks for the coach"

But, when do your captains actually speak with your vision? Usually, this is the last expression of delegation a coach will ever give to players. As a coach you should be delegating a portion of your practice to be run by your captains. Your captains need opportunities to practice their leadership skills every day. Coaches should provide the guidance, tools, and feedback necessary to build daily improvement. This will pay dividends in games when your captains are authoritative in executing your plan. 

College coaches are not exempt. Your captains and seniors are moving into the real world. These skills are not only essential but will benefit your players the rest of their lives. If you, or the assistant coach, are running warm-ups, conditioning, or basic drills by the second week of practice you are wrong. Coach staff should be correcting individual technique and coordinating team strategy. Captains should be enforcing proper repetition and pace. If ROTC college seniors are qualified to lead men into combat your players can run the first 45 minutes of practice.

First, establish a precedent for your captains. Give them a few orders to execute such as organizing team stretching and having everyone in the water at a certain time. If players are still on the deck, pull the captains out and hold them accountable (usually push-ups, make it hurt). Show the rest of the team that the captains are the conduit between the coach and the rest of the team. Essentially, the captains should be doing the heavy lifting, and yelling, during the mundane portions of practice.

Second, bring your captains into the daily planning of the the practice. Have them stand with your assistants as you disseminate the plan for the day. What is the conditioning plan, what is the major focus of the practice? Are there any recommendations from the captains based on play the previous game? Let them feel their input is important in building the team.

Third, talk only to your captains. This is the hardest step. Stand over your captains and give them the next drill. No yelling, no loud talking, just a normal conversation. If players are lost when the drill starts pull the captains over and ask why. Are they leading the drill or expecting inexperienced players to know what to do? Captains should be vocal and learn to relay any information you give to them. Again, this will pay dividends in crucial game situations. In ROTC, the leader is given 10 minutes to accept, develop, and disseminate a formal operations order to their subordinates prior to leading a 90 minute mission. Your captains will be fine.

My leader expectations are straightforward: 

• Communicate—up, down, and laterally; understand the practice
• Build agile, effective, high-performing teams 
• Empower subordinates and underwrite risk (playing creatively)
• Develop bold, adaptive, and broadened leaders 

Your captains will thrive with the latitude you have given them. I usually transition my next year's captains/seniors the last week of season to give the current seniors a chance to focus on enjoying the end of season. This also gives the juniors a taste of what is to come.

I have trained men who have seen combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Building water polo leaders is easy but still equally rewarding. Many players have committed significant portions of their lives to play water polo and, as a coach, you should enable them to lead men in this short profession as well. Your captains will never resent you because you let them lead.

"The fastest learning occurs when there are challenging and 

interesting opportunities to practice leadership with meaningful and honest feedback 

and multiple practice opportunities. These elements contribute to self-learning, 

developing others and setting a climate conducive to learning."

- Page 9, Army Leadership ADP 6-22

Creating a Water Polo Practice Plan, Part 2

Previously, we looked at creating a daily water polo practice plan using backward planning based on identifying a tactical goal for the practice. In this post we will look at the other two parts of overall planning by creating a mid-term (operational) and seasonal (strategic) plan. Refer to Creating a Water Polo Practice, Part 1 for guidelines and terminology.

Your weekly plan should take into account your total available pool time, dryland time assigned to the week, and games scheduled. Let's look at three common situations: Hell-week, pre-league weeks, and league weeks. Create tactical goals that will build throughout the weeks and can be supported by your pool schedule and player experience. Sessions can be broken down into conditioning, water polo skills, dryland, weightlifting, scrimmaging, and any smaller combination of these parts.

Hell-Week 1: Usually 5-6 days of practice with 1-2 sessions each day.

1. morning: weightlifting, evening: conditioning
2. dryland, conditioning
3. conditioning, water polo individual skills
4. weightlifting, conditioning/individual skills
5. conditioning, group skills
6. group skills, center-based offense

H-week 2

1. weightlifting, conditioning
2. individual skills, zone-aware offense
3. conditioning, press defense
4. group skills, zone defense
5. counterattack, scrimmage/6-on-5

Now lets look at a non-league week. This will usually consist of 5 practice days and 2-3 morning sessions. It can also include a non-league game or Friday/Saturday tournament.

1. conditioning, set offense
2. counterattack, zone defense
3. conditioning, 6-on-5/5-on-6
4. game warm-up, zone-break offense, after-goal situations
5. Game/Tournament

League weeks usually are the last month of the season and are broken up with two games separated by practices days. This creates a challenge to build a consistent plan but also allows coaches to make adjustments after games to build on skills for the next game. A sample week includes:

1. conditioning, defensive schemes
2. league game
3. counterattack, offensive schemes
4. league game
5. individual and group skills, after-goal situations

The end of the week is a good time to reinforce fundamental skills. Players are tired and more focused on the weekend. Drilling individual and group skills depends less on tactical thinking and more on mechanics and a limited number of actions. If your players are broken-down from the week their performance in team skills and scrimmages will probably be poor and inefficient, frustrating both players and coaches. Know their limits and plan recovery days that allow for mental recovery.

Water Polo Creativity in an Uncreative World

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the USAWP Coaches Clinic in Riverside, CA and was honored to have lunch with the coach instructor, Dante Dettamanti. We discussed many topics over the 2-day clinic including offensive and defensive schemes, practice plans, and good-old polo stories. But, most importantly, we discussed creativity.

Read the rest of the article at: Water Polo Planet

FINA Water Polo Proposed Rule Changes, Canadian Rules

FINA is trying out some new rules this weekend at the Fisher Cup (San Diego) Men's NT scrimmages and FINA Intercontinental Women's NT scrimmages in Riverside, CA.

Some of the rules will open up play and allow for more scoring opportunities. 5-on-5 play will change how both offenses and defenses run their half-court tactics. This will be the most interesting aspect of the experimental rules. Women using a size 3 ball will just frustrate the poor goalies who will, likely, be yelling at their field players for better shot blocking. I haven't seen anything that specifies how the "no-ordinary fouls" will be executed but that can be a big game changer as well.

The rule change that is most intriguing here at Beyond Water Polo is the playable open areas to the sides of the change. I doubt these areas will be used a lot as I haven't seen much use of the 2-meter area outside the pipes at the international level.

But, what if Wayne Gretzky were to draw up a power play for USA this weekend. Would it look something like this:

This is a completely abnormal motion for a goalie in water polo. Hockey goalies know how to hug the post as the puck moves behind the net but how will a water polo goalie react? I would recommend that the winger waits until the goalie realizes the ball is behind the goalmouth and looks back to the middle of the pool, then make the cross pass. A good winger will look into the middle of the pool and "eye fake" the defense before making the pass over the net. Ideally, every defender is looking right and doesn't see the opposite wing dropping into the new zone. 

I hope Team Canada doesn't see this.

Follow us @BeyondWaterPolo for live tweeting of the USA-AUS experimental rule scrimmage on Monday (May 19th) at 6:00 PST.

Developing Your Head-Up Water Polo Technique, Part 1

Head-up swimming for water polo is an essential skill taught to every player beginning the game. It is the equivalent of skating in hockey or running in soccer. With proper head-up technique you can swim almost as fast, over short lengths, as a streamlined freestyler. However, poor technique will significantly slow you down and lead to increased fatigue during games and practices. Learn the correct technique the first time and jump ahead of your opponents. For more advance technique see the water polo transitions in part 2.

The first obstacle to overcome when developing your head-up technique is the fact that you are raising your upper body out of the water but you still need to keep your feet high in the water and not drag them.

Drill 101: Scull Swim Flutter Kick will keep your legs in the correct position. Perform this drill to the halfway mark in the lap and transition to head-up freestyle while keeping your flutter kick at full speed:

Now, we want to work on our stroke and a long arm reach. Strong head-up swimmers do not rotate their bodies the same as fast competitive swimmers. In competitive swimming, you roll your shoulders above and below your body. In water polo, you want to rotate your shoulders in front of and behind your head. This is a flat rotation. Drill 102: Single-Arm Head-Up Swim will teach you to reach far in front of your body while keeping your head out of the water: 

Let's work on some more body rotation in the next drill. Swimming backstroke for a few yards will come in handy on offense, defense, and during the counterattack. Drill 103: Front-Back Swim will teach you to move your whole body more effectively:

Drill 104: Cross-Pass Lunge will add the eggbeater to our transition technique. This is a beginning transition drill where you will move from eggbeater to swimming multiple times. You perform this type of transition at least twice every possession in a game. The Cross-Pass lunge simulates catching a pass from a teammate after a counterattack down the pool. Great players can start and stop their body quickly:

The final drill to develop your new head-up swimming skills is Drill 105: Zig-Zag Swim. This drill is simple: Swim one way then swim the other way. Make 90 degree turns and work on reaching out to begin each stroke. This will also use your transition skills from Drill 104. Bring your legs up quick and use the eggbeater lunge to start each turn:

You're not done! This was part 1 for a reason. There are many more drills to improve your head-up swimming. Next time we will add a ball.

Simulating Offensives and Exclusions During Water Polo Drills

Players using poor fundamentals during drills can be a source of frustration for a coach attempting to teach or reinforce a concept during practice sessions. During many drills or practice scenarios coaches are trying to teach a skill or drill and are not looking to call offensives or exclusions even though players may do something that would warrant the call in a game. However, fixing lazy play without interrupting the drill is essential to all players having a fun and effective practice. Rarely does saying, "That would have been an offensive" fix a lazy technical problem during a training session. Setting a parameter, such as "Don't grab the driver", needs to be acknowledged by players to properly run a drill and teach strong game skills.

Some common instances of poor or lazy player fundamentals during drills are:

• grabbing an opponent with inside water
• pulling back on a center when a pass is entered
• shooting from a poor angle or before a drill parameter has been accomplished
• hand-checking a driver
• not driving ball-side when required for the drill

*some may include missing the cage on a shot but technical deficiencies should be corrected by individual coaching. Push-ups for missing the cage does not teach correct shooting form. That is essentially lazy coaching.

The best way to alleviate these problems are:

1. When conducting drills, issue push-ups or up-and-outs for breaking drill rules.
2. When practicing half-court, issue head-up sprints to the other side of the pool, sub in another player to continue the training.
3. In small group scrimmages, send the whole group off on a sprint and sub a new group. (ex. 3x3, 4x4 drills). 
4. On an exclusion-like penalty, have all the defensive players play with 2 hands straight up, no swimming, for a possession. This allows the offense to move and drive easier and penalizes the defense without reverting to a 5-on-6.

Try to have a couple substitution players ready when conducting small-unit or front court drills.

Remember, bad technique should be corrected by coaching. Lazy technique needs to be eliminated by reinforcing the correct technique or movement. You will know where your players are in the development cycle and if they understand how to do something correctly and are choosing not to. 

Water Polo Conditioning Based on Game Metrics

Using your pool time and practice time as efficiently as possible should be an overriding goal for every water polo coach. Creating efficient practices should not involve more drills stuffed into a short period of time but should focus on building from previous drills to both increase repetition of a skill and increase the intensity as the practice moves along.

A highly effective way to train your team involves using game metrics and game skills to build your conditioning program. Let's look at some common facts and stats assuming a prep varsity-level game:

1. Games are 7 minute quarters with two minute breaks between periods. Play is also broken up after goals and with timeouts. (breaks can vary)
2. 168 field player/minutes are available for your team. Starters get 75% and bench gets 25%. Some players get no pool time.
3. Possessions involve at least two transitions between swimming and eggbeater; about 112 per game.
4. Players engage each other for about 5-10 seconds almost every possession; 10-15 seconds for centers.
5. Players will swim around 1100-1500 meters per game, assuming 100% of the playing time.
6. Players do not use the walls to accelerate. Every turnover requires the player to accelerate from a standstill.

Ok, why is number 7 in bold? Because the phrase, "I'm not in water polo shape" is very telling. Players swim 10x100's on a 1:20 all offseason but they failed physics. Accelerating a mass takes more energy than maintaining a constant velocity. Flip turns and wall pushes remove the most critical swimming skill of a conditioned water polo player: quickly accelerating from a standstill. Why do you think NFL coaches also time the 10 yard split of a 40 yard dash?

Here's a highly effective conditioning session based on improving the above metrics:

(no walls are used, all player perform water polo turns at the 2 meter lines)

• 9x50's (:50) start with hips up and forward, head-up swim to the far 7 meter line, eggbeater transition with one arm straight out of the water to finish each lap (time 7:30, 2 minute rest)
• 6x75's (1:15) start facing backwards, head-up swim to half, 3 vertical lunges, head-up finish each lap (time 7:30, 2 minute rest)
• 12x25's (:35) eggbeater to the near 7 meter line, head-up sprint finish, transition to hands on the head for a 5 count (time 7:00, 2 minute rest)
• 14x25's (:30) partners, player must swim around a partner while the partner pushes back, sprint to finish, partner chases, switch (time 7:00, break)

Results:

1. 29:00 minutes of conditioning, 6:00 minutes of breaks, no timeouts, no goal stoppages.
2. Starters and bench players complete the entire simulated "game".
3. 100 transitions between swimming and eggbeater occurred between the 2 meter lines.
4. 14 player engagements occurred (4th set).
5. 1240 yards swam between 2 meter lines.
6. 64 times players needed to accelerate from a standstill (versus pushing off the wall and gliding/steamlining)

Obviously, add more swim sets and conditioning-based drills to the practice depending on where you are in the season. Also, instead of lowering bases right away, try making the lap harder by adding more eggbeater, partner work or dribbling a ball. When they are conditioned with complex laps at a medium base go back to simple laps at a faster pace. Longer sets are also better than lowering the base.

Example of a more complex set from above:
14x25's (:30) partners, player must swim around a partner while the partner pushes back, sprint to half, 3 straight lunges, sprint to finish, partner chases and tries to pass, switch

There are tons of variations to these drills that add different elements to the workout so try some new combinations. Transitions and body acceleration should be conditioned the most and should never be relegated to post-conditioning routines or skipped altogether. 

But most importantly, Stop using walls and add transitions.

Creating a Water Polo Practice Plan, Part 1

A strategic water polo practice plan usually takes coaches years of experience to formulate, test, and perfect. Even with experience, sometimes it is hard to create a concise plan that uses building blocks to execute a final routine. For all coaches time is also a limiting factor in practice design and the efficient use of your practice time is critical to overall success.

Let's use a centuries-old method to develop a plan based on military operational planning. Military operations involve mission planning at three levels: strategic, operational, and tactical. Small-unit training and operations involve developing skills in individual tasks, collective tasks, and squad-based tasks. I'll use the unit training methods to develop a practice plan in part 1. Here are some overall guidelines for each planning tier:

Individual tasks: Eggbeater, head-up swimming, ball-handling, shooting, passing, one-on-one drills

Collective tasks: group passing (3+ players), multi-pass shooting drills, 3/4 man counter attack, drills involving both perimeter and center players. 

Squad tasks: half court movement, full counter attack, 6-on-5, 5-on-6,
Tactical planning: defensive systems, offensive systems, substitution scheme, game situations
Operational planning: weekly practice schedule, hell-week(s) schedule, dryland sessions
Strategic planning: season schedule and practice intensity plan

I'll build an example practice based on back-planning from a tactical goal and add small-unit tasks:

(Tactical) Goal for the practice: Press Defense
(Squad) Team drills: press and crash, up in the lanes, counter out of a press
(Collective) Group drills: pressure passing, driving defense with a center pass, smart perimeter fouling
(Individual) Fundamental drills: over-the-hips, zigzag swims, change-of-direction conditioning, center defense, one-on-one drive defense

Instead of planning the conditioning and passing/shooting drills first, I have assigned an objective for the mission (sorry, goal for the practice) and planned drills leading back to that goal.

This is a powerful player development method because you can always refer to a drill that was just accomplished. This can help a coach from saying, "remember that drill from last week" and instead say, "we just did that drill 10 minutes ago". And this will be accomplish by design and not by happenstance. 

Try this a few times and you will quickly feel comfortable with the method. This can also force a coach to develop new and different drills to accomplish a goal. A gap between an individual task and a team task may necessitate creating a new group drill or a variation of a drill that you have already used.