SydFit makes ‘Big Splash’ with Montreal swim club — SydFIT

KITCHENER, Ontario – June 23, 2020 – PRLog — By Jeff Hicks
Award-Winning Journalist, SydFit Health Centre

KITCHENER—

Emma Tonellato dove head-first into SydFIT training history on Monday.

The former elite swimmer and SydFIT Health Centre trainer from Waterloo greeted 22 young swimmers from the Dorval Swim Club in Montreal to a zoom training session and live interactive boxing fitness workout.

As Tonellato warmed up in Kitchener, her bilingual butterfliers stretched and strained in Montreal. This was a triple jab of front-stroke training firsts for SydFIT.

Not just the full-service gym’s first team of swimmers.

Not just the first team of swimmers FROM Quebec, either.

This was the first team of swimmers IN Quebec — a seven-hour drive and more than 600 km away, training in real-time with their Elite coach.

“Good morning, bonjour!” said Tonellato as she began her 45-minute high-intensity boxing session emphasizing the full-body power a swimmer unleashes.
SydFIT Health Centre
“This is such a great way to connect.”

Healthy connections are what the is all about. Tonellato recently connected with her old Waterloo swim coach,

Chuck Meklensek, now head coach at the Dorval club, which started a relay of events leading to the Dorval Swim Club joining her online as part of their dryland training

The pandemic was making traditional pool-and-dryland training difficult, and as a possible return to competition is still looming for the fall, a new look at how to stay in peak form was needed. The SydFIT solution? Social-distancing safe zoom sessions for the competitive Dorval swimmers, ages 11 through 18, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

The first session was Formidable!

“It really went well,” said Tonellato, who represented Canada at the Lifesaving World Championships in 2016. “I loved being able to work with them all.”

Meklensek, whose club has grown from 30 to 200 members of the last few years, sees cross-training as invaluable for swimmers.

Being able to live link his club members with a coach he knows in Tonellato and a full-service gym with a “ton of credibility” gave him the confidence to help make it happen.

Meklensek became familiar with Syd Vanderpool’s Culture of Champions legacy during his days in Waterloo.

By the end of the week, 40-50 Dorval club members are expected to join Tonellato’s army of front crawlers.

SydFIT is so much more than boxing. If a swimmer can zoom in, why not other athletes? Basketballers and volleyballers, hockey players, and cricket players can join in from anywhere in the world and train with Champions. For now, the swimmers are enjoying their long-distance dip into SydFIT’s pool of talented trainers.

“The session went really well,” said 13-year-old Gabby, a top-10 swimmer in La Belle Province.

“I liked Emma and thought she was very good at encouraging us. The workout was challenging. As they progress, I think they will really help out our swimming.”

For more information, contact:
syd@boxingbysyd.ca
http://www.sydfithealth.ca