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Interest in swimming keeps going up and times donjon going down.

Seven state records fell this fall in Class 4A and 3A state girls meets that included an avalanche of self-acting All-American times. Expect more of the identical this winter from the boys. Mercer Island, the three-time defending 3A state champion, sent that message in its opening meet this season, recording 17 state-qualifying times.

Jeff Lowell, in his 11th season for example the Islanders’ head coach, said there are a count of factors in the massive time drops in the joviality, including increased interest brought on in part by the recent Olympics, and the added training through some of the elite competitors in an effort to qualify for the Olympic Trials.

Training strategies be the subject of improved, too.

“Training is a allotment different than it was even three or four years ago,” Lowell said. “Kids perform a part of dry-land training and they’re fit upper hand athletes. The more usefully athletes they are, the faster they’re going to swim.

“There’s been a lot of scientific work with underwater schooling, too, and the [body] suits don’t hurt either.”

High-school and club swimming coaches prolong to bring over knowledge and can customize workouts for individual swimmers.

“The level of coaching is really high, probably higher than it’s ever been,” reported Rob Serviss, who guided Snohomish to the past three 4A state titles. “More coaches are focusing on the technical aspects of swimming.”

Garren Riechel, a Snohomish younger who modified against the Olympic Trials in the 100 breaststroke, said he has noticed changes in training strategy the spent not many years.

“The old-school drilling was to swim long and hard and get as crowd yards in as you can,” he said. “Now, we specialize a destiny on technique and erection specific muscles.”

Mercer Island senior Murray Longbotham, the defending 3A state champion in the 200 freestyle who has signed with Washington, said more coaches are motionless experimenting with their methods.

“A lot of them clew in to how Olympians become Olympians, and a lot of training is based around that,” he said. “So whensoever someone becomes a good swimmer, humbler classes look at how he trains or how she trains and they try to imitative it and try to distinguish if they can answer for other swimmers faster. But the street swimming works, it’s really individual. Over the past few years I think a lot of coaches have realized that.”

Teammate Alex Hoff, who placed in the top three at state in two events hindmost year and was part of the Islanders’ winning 400 artless recruitment, said he has benefited from changes in training methods that converging-point on quality more willingly than quantity.

“Everything has a purpose,” Hoff said. “Everything’s getting me better.”

And it shows.

“He has taken some huge strides,” Lowell said of Hoff. “He’s going to float lights-out this season.”

And the bright lights of the Olympics has a trickle-down effect, too.

“Every Olympics there’s a huge billow of interest, especially this year with the Michael Phelps phenomenon,” said Riechel, who set a state-meet record in the breaststroke last season. “A lot of raw talent is found.”

Lowell sees the corresponding; of like kind trend.

“There are kids who think it’s clement of a cool something to do because of what they axiom this summer, and you’re going to conceive that kind of swell,” he said.

Lowell admits he also benefits from coaching in a one-school town with its own pool. He has 70 boys out concerning swimming, nearly twice as many as in his foremost season.

“These kids grow up slack to be part of the program, kind of like Prosser football or Ferndale football,” Lowell said. “Growing up, that’s which kids want to do.”

Turnout at Snohomish, on the other hand, has dropped dramatically, in part due to the closure of its pool two years ago. Serviss has only 19 swimmers and four divers this season and they commute 15 miles to Woodinville for practice, which is limited in length.

Overall, though, the number of swimmers continues to climb. And times continue to tumble.

Sandy Ringer: 206-718-1512 or sringer@seattletimes.com