Fire, Water, and Trust
Below is one of my favorite parables. It is simple, yet hugely impactful. While coaches may be tempted to share this message with their...
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- Aug 14, 2018
The Strokes Simplified II- Backstroke
As with all strokes, great backstroke is the result of the same principles for fast swimming- increased propulsion, reduced resistance,...
- Aug 7, 2018
Loaded Up
As swimmer’s progress through their career, performance improvements become harder and harder to come by. To overcome this challenge,...
- Jul 31, 2018
The Strokes Simplified I- Introduction
Technique gets complicated. Teaching technique gets more complicated. If swimmers of any age are to improve, they need to improve their...
- Jul 24, 2018
The Trinity
The training process can be very confusing. Seemingly opposite approaches to training have produced equally impressive results across...
- Jul 17, 2018
Conflict in Coaching
In the coaching context, conflict arises over our ideas, our desires, our intentions, and our goals. Constantly. For those in leadership...
- Jul 10, 2018
It's All About The Finish
As training is a cumulative process, each practice is linked to the previous and subsequent practice. As coaches, we often overlook these...
- Jul 3, 2018
Different is the Difference
Verbal instruction and repetition. Teaching towards and then prescribing numerous repetition of an idealized model. These are the...
- Jun 26, 2018
Goal Directed
In nature, most systems are goal-directed. They are constructed and organized to accomplish a goal. The goal comes first and the...
- Jun 19, 2018
What's The Cost?
Bobby Hurley compared to Bob Ladouceur. Bobby Knight versus John Gagliardi. All four coaches have experienced unparalleled success. All...
- Jun 12, 2018
The Big Question
When interacting with swimmers, or any athlete, there’s one question every coach needs to be asking, often. What are you working on,...
- Jun 5, 2018
Efficiency, Effectiveness, Effort
For every lap of every swim of every set, swimmers have the opportunity to evaluate their swimming progress, simply and quickly. By...
- May 29, 2018
One Thing
Swimmers, particularly motivated ones, seem to want as much technical information as possible about how they can get better. They want...
- May 22, 2018
Errors are the Way
Practice make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. The above statements, particularly the latter version, are part of the dogma of...
- May 15, 2018
A Lesson From Literature
A Lesson From Literature Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Mother Night, tells the story of Howard Campbell, infamous Nazi propagandist and...
- May 8, 2018
What’s In A Word?
It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. When considering skill acquisition, this remains true as well, often in ways we fail to...
- May 1, 2018
On A Roll
Momentum. Whether in training or racing, we’ve all seen the swimmer who can do no wrong, as well as the swimmer who can do no right....
- Apr 24, 2018
Break it Down
Previously, I have advocated for a technical approach that relies heavily on full stroke swimming and the use of tasks that nudge...
- Apr 17, 2018
Lessons in Leadership
Everything starts at the top. Assistant coaches and athletes will mimic the head coach’s (HC) attitude, work ethic, commitment,...
- Apr 10, 2018
Cause or Effect?
Inputs and outputs. Both are critical to performance. The energetic cost of swimming is tightly related to velocity, with velocity being...
- Apr 3, 2018
Time For a Change IV
Stabilization Having acquired the desired technical skills, it’s time to make sure those skills are robust enough to hold up under the...
- Mar 27, 2018
Time For a Change III
Channeling Skills During the first stage of the skill acquisition process, a large amount of variability was introduced. At this point,...
- Mar 20, 2018
Time For a Change II
Destabilization As described in the introductory article, facilitating technical change is best effected through a 3-step process where...
- Mar 13, 2018
Time For a Change I
As any coach can attest, technical change is a very difficult process, particularly in older age group and senior swimmers. The typical...
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