IMR? IMX? I M Confused.

In a little over three weeks, DART will host its 5th Annual IMX Challenge Meet, but what exactly does IMX mean?  

Youth swimmers evolve as they mature and learn.  The freestyle might be a swimmer’s best stroke at age ten, but they could develop into a top backstroker later on.  Similarly, a swimmer might not realize their penchant for endurance until their coach introduces them to longer distance events.  Consequently, young swimmers should avoid specialization until much later in their development, or run the risk of never discovering their true talent.

For that reason, USA Swimming encourages all teams and all coaches to promote all strokes at all distances to all swimmers.  They covet complete swimmers.  It's good for the sport.  To support that desire, USA Swimming created two scores called IMR (IM Ready) and IMX (IM eXtreme) to assess the "completeness" of swimmers.   To acquire a score, a swimmer must have attained times in each of five or six events, that include all four basic strokes and IM events.  The specific events required are different for IMR and IMX and depend on the swimmer’s age.

IMR Events

Ages 10 & Under:          100 Free, 50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 Fly, 100 IM (SC) or 200 IM (LC)

Ages 11 & 12:               200 Free, 50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 Fly, 100 IM (SC) or 200 IM (LC)

Ages 13 & Over:            200 Free, 100 Back, 100 Breast, 100 Fly, 200 IM

IMX Events

Ages 10 & Under:          200 Free, 100 Back, 100 Breast, 100 Fly, 200 IM

Ages 11 & 12:               400 Free (LC) or 500 Free (SC), 100 Back, 100 Breast, 100 Fly, 200 IM

Ages 13 & Over:            400 Free (LC) or 500 Free (SC), 200 Back, 200 Breast, 200 Fly, 200 IM, 400 IM

An IMR or IMX score is simply the sum of Power Points for the required events.  If a swimmer had power point scores of 150, 200, 250, 50 and 300 in the required five IMR events, then their IMR score would be 950 (150+200+250+50+300).  If a swimmer lacked a time in one or more of the required events, they would have no score.

USA Swimming uses IMX and IMR scores to rank swimmers at the club, LSC and national levels.  These rankings can be seen on Deck Pass.  Also, they reward member clubs through the Club Recognition Program for having a high percentage of its membership with IMR/IMX scores.  They even conduct a series of swim meets, called the IM Xtreme Games, where swimmers must have an IMX score of 1500 to qualify.

As for the DART IMX Challenge, special awards will be presented to athletes with the highest IMX scores accrued during the meet (per age group).  Remember, one must swim (without DQ) all the required IMX events, to even have an IMX score, and the IMX Challenge is no different.

Attention All DART Swimmers

Intra-squad meets provide a forum where coaches can teach proper swim meet etiquette, a topic difficult to explain in a non-meet setting.  Swimmers learn things like ...

waiting for the long whistle, before climbing up on the blocks
staying in the water until all swimmers finish the heat
staying still on the blocks once they take their mark

All the above are rules as well as etiquette and can be subject to disqualification at a strict meet.  Intra-squad meets also provide a training ground where DQs can be caught and discussed before they become DQs in a sanctioned meet.  Practices are great for stroke technique and building endurance, but meet experience can only be acquired at swim meets, and Intra-squad meets provide a low stress meet format for inexperienced swimmers.

DART holds intra-squad meets several times throughout the season and they have one coming up this week.

What:  DART Intra-squad meet
Where:  Our beloved SHAC
When: Friday, November 15th at 6:00 PM
Who:  All DART swimmers
Why:  Meet experience

Sign up today, but you will need to log on to the DART website to see the meet listed.

Quote 'O the Month

"For myself, losing is not coming second. It's getting out of the water knowing you could have done better. For myself, I have won every race I've been in." 
--Ian Thorpe

Some swimmers get out of the water after a race, in tears, struggling with the fact they lost to someone they thought they should beat.

Some swimmers get upset when their coach delivers a harsh critique after a race.

Some swimmers feel disappointment when they fail to achieve a goal time.

Ian Thorpe suggests that putting in your best effort equals success, and that success should feel like victory ... not disappointment or other ill feelings.

If one enters the water determined to do their very best, to swim their hardest, to incorporate what they've learned in practice, to focus on pre-race strategies - then they can get out of the water completely satisfied with their effort.  They can be satisfied regardless of who won, regardless of the time on the scoreboard, and regardless of what anyone else says. Being satisfied with their own effort means ...

A coach's harsh words become a valuable learning opportunity

Getting beat becomes an opportunity to be gracious in defeat

Falling short of a goal becomes incentive to work harder

Ian Thorpe, aka The Thorpedo, lead a vocal and talented Australian team in the 2000 and 2004 Olympic games winning three gold and two silver medals.  He continues to swim competitively but failed to make his country's 2012 Olympic team. 

Power Up, with Power Points

Swimming, often called a "black and white sport", has an impartial scoring mechanism based on precise timings to the hundredth of a second.  Swim meets don't determine winners based on judgement ... and there are no points for style.  The swimmer who touches the wall first, wins ... period ... the end ... black and white.

But what if a twelve year old barley out touches an eleven year old in a race?  The twelve year old wins the race, but the eleven year old likely had the better performance given his/her younger age.  Enter the Hy-Tek company, with their concept of Power Points (tm).

Hy-Tek developed an algorithm that attempts to quantify the "quality" of a swim.  The algorithm calculates a normalized point value between 1 and 1100, given a swimmer's gender, age and swim time for a specific event.  The higher the power points ... the better the swim.

In theory, power points can be compared across gender, age and event boundaries.  200 power points equals 200 power points, regardless of who swam what event.  That means a ten year old girl swimming the 50 backstroke could race a thirteen year old boy swimming the 400 IM, and use power points to determine the winner ... in theory.  In reality, it seems the more dissimilar the swims, the less accurate the comparison would be ... but maybe that's just my skepticism.

Try out USA Swimming's  Power Point calculator for yourself.  Warning:  A swimmer's power points will be one (1) until the swimmer starts approaching the 'B' time standard for their age.

Web Page O' the Month

Last month's Web Page O' the Month introduced you to Deck Pass, which among other things, contains all your swimmer's meet times.  Yesterday's post showed you how to look up your swimmer's meet times on the DART website.  Last Thursday's post mentioned an easy way to see your swimmer's personal best times with this line ...

The Top Times Report on DART's website under the Swimmers tab (must log on to see it), displays the personal best times for every active DART member, and their highest achieved time standard.

 This month's Web Page O' the Month presents you with yet another path to your swimmer's meet times.  USA Swimming Individual Time Search page lets you find the times for any USA Registered swimmer since 2001 ... including your swimmer(s).  Here's what the search looks like ...

With a bit of luck, and a unique name, the page will display the times for the entered name and criteria ... like Missy Franklin's top 200 Back times from last year ...

If you search for a name that is not unique, the results will list all the USA registered swimmers with that name, one of which you must select to continue.  Did you know there are multiple swimmers named Michael Phelps?

The Michael Phelps we all know hails from Baltimore, so he would be the last entry in the list.  Clicking "Continue" next to his entry would display his times.  Hmmm, his middle name is Fred?

Track Your Times

If you're one of those Microsoft Excel gurus, you probably have all your swimmer's times neatly row'd and column'd, sorted and formatted, with the top times highlighted. The rest of us will just have to look them up, old school.  Here's one way ...

After logging on to the DART website, click My Account, then My Meet Results, and all your swimmer's times will appear, most recent on top.  If you have multiple swimmers, use the Member drop down box to select which one to display.

After just a few meets, the list can start getting long and cumbersome ... time to use the Search feature to slice and dice results.  For example: Specify a date range and get times from only that period ... or see only times for a single event by specifying a stroke and distance ... or see your swimmer's top times by setting the Top Times option to "Top 1".

To see how far your swimmers is from qualifying for JOs, use the Time Standards feature and select "[UT] 2013: 2013 AG State".  Doing so, will compare your swimmer's times to the State qualifying times, then display the deltas.  The delta will be highlighted green if your swimmer qualified or orange if they haven't.  Like this ...

Another useful Time Standard is the Motivational time standards option "2013: 2013-16 AG MOT SCY".  It's the first item in the list.  It calculates two deltas, one in green for the highest standard attained, and a second in orange for the next standard not yet attained.  See below ... Tina has an "A" time in her 50 yard freestyle and she needs to drop 0.78 seconds to get an "AA" time.

 Let's see your Excel spreadsheet do that!

November Birthdays

The crystal ball goggles foresees cake and ice cream in the near future for several DART swimmers ...

Jonathan Parker turns 8 on Monday the 4th, just in time for the first Tuesday of the month.

Daxton Green hits double-digits on the 13th.  Happy 10th, Daxton.

Savannah Longmore celebrates her 14th on the 14th.  How cool is that?

Helene Morford ages up to the 11-12 age group on the 21st.  Congrats on turning 11.