When

Friday June 20, 2014 from 9:00 AM to 1:30 PM EDT
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Where

Rosenbloom Owings Mills JCC 
3506 Gwynnbrook Avenue
Owings Mills, MD 21117  

 
Driving Directions 

Contact

Bill Kirkner 
JCC of Greater Baltimore Aquatics 
443-559-3533 
swimteam@jcc.org 
 

AthleticFoodie™ Competitive Swimming Clinic With Olympic Gold Medalist Garrett Weber-Gale

You know you're supposed to eat healthy and exercise. But do you know how to do it? How to make it easy and rewarding? This clinic features Olympic Gold-Medalist Garrett Weber-Gale, his mom, and a certified sports dietitian/nutritionist. Parents are encouraged to attend to learn how they can support their athlete's growth and development.

AthleticFoodie Branding Video from AthleticFoodie on Vimeo.

"In my professional life and career as a swimmer, there has not been one single thing that has had a larger effect on the way I feel and perform than what I eat. We can only get out of our bodies what we put into them. Unfortunately, in two decades in the sport of swimming and now as a business professional, I’ve come to realize that most people (athletes, parents, kids, & working professionals) struggle with knowing how to best fuel for performance, which is one of the main reasons we started the AthleticFoodie series of events.

The focus of AthleticFoodie Events is to help people learn how to maximize their potential by doing a lot of little things right, and that food is a huge proponent of good living."

-Garrett Weber-Gale

What is an AthleticFoodie clinic?

This clinic features Olympic Gold-Medalist Garrett Weber-Gale, his mom (an Olympic Parent), and a certified sports dietitian or nutritionist. We encourage not only the athletes to attend the events, but also their parents, as a big part of our events focus on their learning and maturation in supporting their kids.

Events last roughly three to three and a half hours, and generally proceed as follows.

Olympian Talk (20-25 minute):

  • Garrett's journey in the sport of swimming and the climactic 2008 Olympic Games.
  • Stories from the infamous 400 Freestyle relay in Beijing.
  • The impact nutrition has made on Garrett's life and how he implemented it, plus advice that each audience member can implement into their life.
  • A short cooking demonstration of something kids can make the morning before a big race or practice.

Expert Nutrition Talk (15-20 minute):

  • Simple ideas and ways parents and athletes can use food as fuel to help maximize their potential in the pool, the classroom, the weight room, and in life.
  • Insight into the most important nutrients and eating habits swimmers must pay attention to.
  • Tips on specific foods athletes can eat to promote strength gain.
  • Our nutrition experts present all nutrition information in a plain and simple language that enables every audience member to understand precisely how food affects their body, and groups of foods that are most important to each at specific times throughout the day.

Olympian Swimming Technique Session (75-90 minutes) 

  • In the water stroke technique instruction which covers streamline, underwater kick, freestyle, and backstroke, and over-kicking drills.
  • Throughout the clinic there are many opportunities for athletes, parents, and coaches to watch Garrett swim. We’ve learned that in order to constantly progress in the sport of swimming you must continually refine your technique. This portion of the clinic gives athletes a chance to work directly with Garrett and refine their technique.
  • We work on specific drills that help swimmers focus on individual points within the strokes and streamline that helps them understand how to modify their stroke to best fit their body.
  • Racing: at the end of each clinic we line all the kids up and Garrett races them in groups. All the kids love racing and get excited about beating our Olympian.

Parent Nutrition Talk: While Garrett is in the water with the young athletes the Olympic Parent and the Nutritionist give a presentation to the parent group on how to best support their young athlete. Over and over we see the struggles parents have in knowing what to feed their child, how to support them without smothering them, what to say to their kids when they have a bad race, etc. (the list goes on and on.) The parent talk usually goes for about an hour, and also provides a forum for parents to ask questions. We have been blown away by the tremendous parent response.

Q & A (20 Minutes): Our goal is always to make the biggest positive impact we can on the athletes, parents, and coaches, and the question and answer session is a great way to address as many specific questions and needs as the group has. We get questions about the Olympics, Michael Phelps, what to eat before a race if you are nervous, how to handle nerves, questions about swim camps, and more.

Pictures and Autographs (45 Minutes): We provide each kid with a signed autograph card, and also sign any of the other requests for autographs which ranges from kickboards, fins, backpacks, iPhones, shoes, t-shirts, hats, etc. Every child also gets a photo with Garrett.

Merchandise: We're proud to offer custom AthleticFoodie merchandise designed to help athletes and parents better fuel for performance. We also sell fun AthleticFoodie t-shirts, hats, and aprons.