Over a long career as a competitive swimmer, I have won a few and lost a few over the years. But, most of my favorite things about swimming have...
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One of the most important uses of drills is to change muscle memory. To maximize the effectiveness of drills I recommend changing your drill patterns around. No one of...
Managing pool chemicals can get confusing and more complicated than most non-pool professionals realize. Read on to bust some of the myths I hear all the time: Your pool...
On a regular basis I cruise the internet, looking for swimming blogs, videos, educational material, articles, well pretty much anything. I have learned one important lesson that I want...
The dictionary defines resilience as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. Resilience is an important concept for a successful multi-day meet. When you are training hard, your...
“Regular exposure to chlorine and minerals can cause lasting damage to your hair. Chlorine strips your hair of the natural oils that lubricate and protect it. Once the oils...
Swimming is constantly messed up by human’s unfortunate need to breathe. Think how much easier and faster we would be if we just didn’t need to breathe. Breathing, in...
Muscle memory is a function of each muscle in our body. Each cell in our muscles remembers position and tension. These muscles allow us to make complex motions like...
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The Value of Paddles
Paddles are my favorite training tool. They are great for teaching stroke mechanics and are also an important tool in training. For as much as I like paddles, it...
Many of you have heard from your coaches, or individual reading to work on your distance per stroke. Distance per stroke is generally defined as how far (space) you...
Last week when I sat thinking about the breaststroke for my blog, I struggled with what others will think about my emphasis on adduction (that is, the motion of...
In the 60s, I remember hearing breaststroke called “rest stroke” and was often seen being used by ladies who did not want to get their hair wet as they...
There are a few items I want everyone to understand about training snorkels: First, don’t go grab your standard scuba snorkel and use it as a training tool. Non...
Paddles are my favorite training tool. They are great for teaching stroke mechanics and are also an important tool in training. For as much as I like paddles, it...
Bilateral breathing is a freestyle term made popular in swimming circles by Total Immersion, but the idea is much older. Pure bilateral breathing is when you breathe every third...
Race Pace Training or RPT has gathered a lot of attention over the last few years. But what does that mean and does it work? Let’s start with the...
Many of my triathletes over the years have commented to me: “Why should I bother learning to flip, I swim in open water. We don’t have walls”. I quickly...
Do you skip the warm-up and jump in during the preset? You know who you are. Warm-ups and presets are not the same, each serves a distinct purpose. Here...
Really, pull buoys are not one size fits all. Don’t just grab anyone from the bin on deck and jump in. There is such a thing as the wrong...
Pull buoys are a great tool. As a coach, I have my swimmers use them regularly, but I have seen many swimmers who are addicted to the buoyancy they...
Distance freestyle the 5th stroke. Most folks talk about the four competitive strokes, butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. While not formally recognized, in reality, there are two freestyles, sprint...
Interval, interval, interval! Most of us have hear the old adage in real-estate; The three most important aspects of real-estate are location, location, location. In much the same way,...
Where to start? I always found writing the first sentence of anything the toughest part. I guess I should start by telling you why I’m starting a blog and...