Consistency Kills Part II
Consistency is a habit and consistency is a skill. Swimmers who are consistent in training will not only perform better, they’re more...
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- Nov 28
Consistency Kills Part I
Everyone can agree that the more consistently a swimmer trains at a high level, the better the training outcomes, and the more likely the...
- Nov 21
Top Gear
From the very beginning, equipment has been used in swimming training. While the quality and variety of training equipment has certainly...
- Nov 14
Bias
As coaches, we all have biases or preferences based upon our experiences as swimmers, our experiences as coaches, our innate personality,...
- Nov 7
Emotional Control
Emotional control is critical to performance for both coaches and swimmers. When the pressure is on in training and competition, our...
- Oct 31
Strengths and Weaknesses
‘You win because of your strengths and lose because of your weaknesses.’ -Bill Sweetenham While quote about may be paraphrased, the...
- Oct 24
Winning Ugly
Janet Evans swam ugly. Many coaches were critical of her unorthodox recoveries, her high breathing action, and her bouncy rhythm. Janet...
- Oct 17
Training to Race
She’s a racer. It’s a compliment thrown around by swimmers to describe someone who steps up on the blocks and knows how to throw down. ...
- Oct 10
In Defense of Language
I’d like to return to the idea that small changes in language can have big impacts on coaching practice. I originally explored this...
- Oct 3
Mirrored
As coaches, we have a lot of influence on the individuals we work with on a daily basis. They will begin to believe what you believe, if...
- Sep 26
Dangers of Discipline
It’s commonly accepted that the more disciplined athletes are, the more successful they’ll be. Swimmers are often encouraged to ‘be...
- Sep 19
Coaching is Acting
One of the most under-appreciated skills in coaching is that of being a great actor. Who do I need to be right now to get done what needs...
- Sep 12
Pre-Loading Part II
As discussed in Part I, pre-loading can be an effective strategy to create novel stimuli while also accomplishing multiple training tasks....
- Sep 5
Pre-Loading Part I
When a swimmer has been exposed to a particular type of training, that type of training loses it ‘training potential’. In short, the...
- Aug 29
Know Enough
As coaches, particularly in the collegiate and professional setting, we are typically working as part of a team that supports the...
- Aug 22
Do What You Have To Do
Periodization, performance planning, preparation periods. Macrocycles, mesocycles, microcycles. Anaerobic and aerobic capacity,...
- Aug 15
Slow Cook It
The impact of slow losses in critical training components was discussed previously in Bleeding to Death. I would like to shift the...
- Aug 8
The Root
As discussed in great coaching, the X Factor in coaching is separating the important from the unimportant. In a vast sea of choices, the...
- Aug 1
Easy As 123
As has been touched upon before, coaches are constantly engaged in identifying, engaging with, and solving complex problems. To combat...
- Jul 25
Bleeding to Death Part II
As discussed in PART I, the effects of training can operate at divergent time scales, with the positive and negative impacts of a given...
- Jul 18
Bleeding to Death Part I
One of the biggest challenges in coaching is managing training over long time scales. In other words, the effects of your decisions...
- Jul 11
The Dryside Part III
As discussed in part I, life stress can significantly impact performance and health. In part II, we discussed how coaches can manage...
- Jul 4
The Dryside Part II
As discussed in part I, life can have a tremendous impact on the training program, including the rate of improvement, injury risk, and...
- Jun 27
The Dryside Part I
As coaches, we tend to be very focused on the importance of our training sessions and training plans. We feel that the specifics of the...
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