Synchro Skills Evaluations Explained

When Head Coach Leah Pinette arrived on the scene of ANA Synchro for the 2013-2014 season, one of the first things she did was implement a regular evaluation of fundamental synchro skills for all the athletes.  “I think the girls were a little hesitant at first because they thought we would use the results to select athletes for small routines and team routines,” says Pinette.  “But once I told them ‘no,’ this has nothing to do with routines, that it’s just information for them as athletes, they started to understand the value.”

Head Coach Leah Pinette uses evaluation results
to show ANA Synchro athletes how they've improved
over the year and what they still need to work on.

ANA Synchro recently kicked off its 2014-2015 season, and once again, one of the first things the athletes did was – you guessed it – evaluations!  ANA Synchro athletes are right now receiving their individual evaluation reports from their coaches, and this blog article is to help athletes and parents understand the evaluation report, the skills themselves, and why we do evaluations.

ANA Synchro:  Why are skills evaluations important?

Head Coach Leah Pinette:  Because synchro athletes need something to know how they’re doing and what their strengths and weaknesses are.  Synchro is a subjectively judged sport at competitions, which can make it difficult for athletes to see their progress.  But skills evaluations – especially repeated, regular ones like we have implemented – give the girls some objective ways of tracking their development as athletes.

ANA Synchro athletes work on "V-Up's" for a strong core.

ANA Synchro:  What exactly are they being evaluated on?

Head Coach Leah Pinette:  We measure core building block skills that are the foundation for high performance and injury prevention.  There are six land-based skills – push-ups, V-ups, right split, left split, bridge, which is like a backbend, and headstand.  And seven water-based skills – ballet leg, eggbeater, torpedo, bent-knee vertical, double-leg vertical, water split, and 200 individual medley (200-IM) swim.  I know some of those terms may be unfamiliar to parents.  Several are described in an earlier blog entry, and I encourage parents to ask their kids about them or even to demonstrate them at home.

A person who is strong out of the water
will be strong in the water!

ANA Synchro:  Why are land-based skills even part of a synchronized swimming evaluation? Shouldn’t we just focus on water skills since being in the water is what we do?

Head Coach Leah Pinette:  If an athlete is strong out of the water, they’re going to be strong in the water.  If you really look at the land-based skills, collectively, they are measuring strength, core, and flexibility.  These are the very qualities an athlete needs to hold verticals in the water, have good height in the water, and move quickly through the water.  Pretty much everything they do in the water is affected by how well they can do the land-based activities, which is why we have land-training every week as regular practice and which is why we include them in the regular evaluations.

A Synchro "Bridge" - not your ordinary backbend!

ANA Synchro:  OK, so what’s the measure of all these skills?

Head Coach Leah Pinette:  It varies by skill.  For push-up’s and V-up’s, we measure how many they can do in 30 seconds – in proper position, of course.  Right and left splits are judged 0-5, with 5 being a perfect flat-split position.  Bridge is on a scale of 0-10, with 10 being a perfect position – feet together, knees straight, arms in the 12 o’clock position.  A perfect bridge is really hard!  And it requires great back flexibility.  The headstand is also judged 0-10, with 10 being a perfect hold, with no wavering, for 20 seconds.

Bent-Knee Vertical -
one of 7 water skills.

ANA Synchro:  And the water skills?

Head Coach Leah Pinette:  With the exception of the 200 IM, which is just a straight time measure, all the water skills have multiple, measurable components to them.  Ballet leg, for example…we measure how long they can hold the position, the height of the leg, and the quality of their extension.  Some girls have good height but need to work on extension, or vice versa.  So, by giving a score to each aspect of the skill, the girls and their coaches know exactly what they have to work on.

ANA Synchro:  Who determined what a “5” or a “10” is or how high a leg should be out of the water? 

Head Coach Leah Pinette:  USA Synchro has a point system for the skills that they use to determine who gets to be on the national team, so we have adopted that.  We’re talking the “national” team here, so we are definitely holding our girls up to a very high standard.  I tell athletes all the time that they should not get discouraged if they see a zero or a low score on their report.  They are doing things they’ve never done before so everyone is going to start with low scores.  It’s just an indicator of what they need to work on.  I can’t emphasize enough that these standards are very challenging. 

Coaches evaluate ANA Synchro athletes about three
times a season to help them track their development.

ANA Synchro:  Is it just you evaluating the girls?

Head Coach Leah Pinette:  We try to have three coaches to give independent scores, and then we average them together for a final, combined score.  The report that people get will show the three scores as well as the average.  And, in some cases, the report will also include some judges’ notes and comments to help the girls – things like distance off the floor, if a move was performed too fast, etc.

ANA Synchro:  Is all this really worth it?  Don’t evaluations just take time away from working on routines and figures?

Head Coach Leah Pinette:  Evaluations do take time out of practice, that’s for sure.  But I definitely think it’s worth it.  When you just do routines, you can go all season without knowing if you individually made any gains or not.  By regularly evaluating the girls, they get a good sense of where they were when they came into the season and how they progressed throughout.  Having that knowledge should be both satisfying and motivating at the same time. 

ANA Synchro:  You have a whole year of data from last year…did people improve measurably?

Head Coach Leah Pinette:  Yes!  This has been a great experience for me, too, seeing where we were as a team at the beginning of last season and where we are now.  Together, we’ve come very far on torpedo, verticals – everything really.  You know, no one becomes a great athlete overnight, no matter what the sport.  And, you can ask any accomplished athlete – they’re always working to improve on something.  When I was competing, I always had to spend extra time and effort on height.  At only 5’2”, I had to be the highest to be even with everyone else!

These evaluations are just one part of a bigger process to develop these young girls into not just athletes, but successful young women.  The lessons they get out of it – acknowledging weaknesses as just something to work on, accepting coaching help, making goals, working hard, celebrating accomplishments – are life lessons.  True, they’ll help their synchro season today, but they’ll benefit just about anything they want to do later in life as well.

Synchro Terminology – Competition & Performances

In Part 1 of this two-part series, ANA Synchro defined the terms used to describe our sport’s most basic moves.  In this final part, we define competition and performance-related terms.

Routine - a choreographed sequence of moves that a swimmer performs to music. Routines can feature one swimmer (solo), two swimmers (duet), three swimmers (trio), 4-8 swimmers (team), or 8-10 swimmers (combo).

Combo - a special type of team routine featuring 8-10 girls that is choreographed to showcase a blend of traditional team swimming and small routine swimming.  Any combination of the 10 swimmers may perform different parts of a combo, which opens up some neat possibilities for story-telling and choreography and makes combos both interesting to watch and challenging to perform.  Combos used to be done rarely – only at particular meets that allowed them.  But USA Synchro has added combos to the Junior Olympics (the new name for the age group national championships), so more teams, including ANA Synchro, will now be doing them.

Walkout & Deckwork – refers to how the athletes walk out onto the deck when it is their turn to swim at a competition and the pose they strike on deck.  How a team walks out and their deckwork are not usually judged, but it is the first opportunity for athletes to show judges who they are as a team.  Therefore, the athletes will choreograph and practice it just like everything else to make it as impressive as possible.  Deckwork is limited to 10 seconds, and all athletes must maintain contact with the deck with at least one extremity, but other than that, teams can be as creative as they want. 

Pop-Up, also known as Boost - the move when a synchronized swimmer uses her strong leg muscles to propel herself straight up out of the water (without touching the bottom of the pool, of course!).  Judges look for how high the athletes get out of the water, along with how much control they maintain throughout the move.

Lift - an exciting move where one athlete is lifted out of the water by her teammates who are still underwater.  A lift can be stationary, where the athlete on top remains in contact with her teammates throughout the move, or it can be a “throw lift” where she actually launches away from them, allowing her to dive, flip or do some other move to thrill the judges and the audience.

Head Coach Leah Pinette demonstrates
a back flip at last year's annual show!

Base - anyone underwater, at the bottom of a lift.  Girls who take a turn as a base quickly learn the strength and coordination needed to propel someone out of the water, all without touching the bottom of the pool!

Flyer - the person on top of a lift.  Our own Head Coach Leah was the “flyer” for our USA National Team, which meant she routinely did back flips and other exciting moves.  Athletes interested in being a flyer often do additional specialty gymnastics training to learn and perfect the acrobatics.

Coach Leah wants all the older girls to learn how
to knox themselves (left).  First-time knoxer (right).  

Knox - the gel-like substance in the swimmer’s hair to keep it in place during a routine performance.  The swimmer’s hair is put up into a tight bun and then secured with bobby pins and a hairnet.  Knox is prepared by mixing packets of unflavored gelatin with hot water to make a gel, which is then combed into and painted onto the hair.   ***Pre-team members do not have to knox!***  Intermediate and Age Group athletes knox for all meets and the show.

A routine's music will often inspire the design of the suit.
The duet on the left swam to "Sailor" music, and the team
on the right swam to the pirate-themed music from "Hook."

Routine Suit & Headpiece - a swimsuit, often decorated with glitter and gems, that a swimmer wears during a routine performance or competition.  Routine suits are designed to match the routine’s music selection and choreography, so they can help tell the story.  A matching headpiece is typically worn around the bun to complete the look.  The coaches welcome input from creative swimmers with ideas for routine suits!  We even did a blog entry on this very topic! 

Are there more synchro terms you wish you knew more about?  Email us at synchroana@gmail.com or write your ideas in the comments section below, and we’ll try to feature them in an upcoming blog!

Synchro Terminology – Basic Moves

It doesn’t take long for a synchro swimmer to start talking a new language at home!  Does this sound familiar?:  “Hey Mom and Dad!  Today I learned how to scull to hold a vertical so I can one day do a nice hybrid.  And I’m really tired from all that eggbeatering!  What’s for dinner?”  The language of synchro!

In this first of two parts, ANA Synchro demystifies the terminology used in our sport for its most basic moves.  Our youngest athletes start learning these techniques right away for a solid foundation from which to grow.  And our most experienced athletes continue to strengthen their basic techniques so they can more effortlessly do the more complicated and flashy synchro moves.

Eggbeatering under the water allows athletes to perform
artistic movements above the water.

Eggbeater - the alternating, circular movement of the legs that keeps a swimmer’s upper body steady and out of the water during a routine.  Some people may think it is simply “treading water,” but it requires much more core than ordinary treading and involves a specific technique – just like the motion of the eggbeater in your kitchen – that allows for athletic and artistic movements above the water.

Sculling - the propulsive moves a swimmer makes with her hands and forearms.  In synchronized swimming, we have about 10 different types of sculls for different purposes.  Some enable you to stay stationary while executing a move with your legs; others allow you to spin; still others enable you to travel through the water.

Athletes accomplish the difficult vertical position
by support sculling underwater.

Vertical - the position where both legs are together and above the surface of the water.  Athletes achieve this difficult position by engaging their core and using the support scull motion with their arms.  Many increasingly difficult moves are possible once an athlete has mastered a basic vertical.

The Ballet Leg Position - athletes are laying on the
water with one leg perpendicular to the surface.

Ballet Leg - a position where the swimmer is ‘laying’ on the surface of the water and one leg is perpendicular to their body.  Requires flexibility, core control, and strong sculling technique.  Anyone who doubts whether synchro is hard should try a “simple-looking” ballet leg next time they’re in the pool!

Athletes spend much time working on figures because
they account for 50% of their score at competitions.

Figures - a collection of the most basic moves of synchro which are performed in a very slow, controlled fashion in competitions.  Figures are important to practice because they account for half of a routine’s final score at a competition.  There are 8 different figures for each age group, and they get progressively more difficult as girls get older.

Hybrid - a sequence of leg movements performed while the swimmer is underwater in a routine.  A typical hybrid can last 10-15 seconds, with the most challenging lasting about 30-40 seconds.  Hybrids, especially long hybrids, require synchronized swimmers to have a high aerobic capacity as well as flexibility, core control, and strength to maintain muscle control throughout the movement.

Readers – are there other synchro terms that you’re wondering about?  Write to us in the comments section below or send us an email to synchroana@gmail.com, and we’ll try to feature them in an upcoming blog!

And stay tuned for Part 2 of Synchro Terminology where we’ll define terms used in synchro competitions and performances.