#improving training

Butterfly needs to have a dolphin action to swim it correctly.  The basis for the stroke is a correct dolphin action, NOT a dolphin kick.  An undulation starting from the upper part of the body is a natural body movement that I have often seen in children.  Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be taught in swimming lessons leaving most swimmers who are graduating from their lesson programme into a…

How fast would this guy swim! Huge hands and huge feet… This sculpture can be found at the Glasgow Science Centre The information attached says: SENSORY HOMUNCULUS: Different patches of your skin have different touch sensors.When you touch something, signals travel from those sensors to your brain. Your brain analyses the signals to produce your sense of touch. On the sculpture, the size of each…

by SwimCoachingBlog Parents often ask this question — how much is too much when it comes to swimming training? The truth is, “too much” can mean many different things, and it doesn’t look the same for every swimmer or every family. This isn’t an exhaustive list; other swimmers and coaches will have their own perspectives shaped by their experiences. But over the years, I’ve seen some clear…

If you have been taught how to swim correctly but constantly swim without thought, then the nuances of your stroke can change unknowingly back to your ‘normal’ and lazy stroke. A swimmer will be lost in a type of nose blindness. They may unintentionally swim poorly without feeling their error by being blind to how it feels. On a pig farm, you will immediately notice the horrid smell. Most farms…

Many coaches work hard to get their swimmers to improve their swimmers’ distance per stroke (DPS). Without a very clear understanding of ‘why’ you should have a long stroke, a swimmer will, often, slowly shorten their stroke. The ‘why’ makes the process easier for consistent application. I believe the trick is to get the swimmers to understand the underlying reason for making a long stroke so…

Every once in a while we all come across something that works very well.  This is one of those things and I want to share it.  I have found that making board games into a poolside game will get swimmers very excited about swimming.  I use this Snakes & Ladders Game for our warm ups. There are a few versions of this board game that I have made but the various deviations that are possible are…

I get tired of seeing poor coaching. It’s a scourge of our profession. The verb ‘to coach’ is not something that should be very different to ‘to teach’. So tell me the amount of information that ‘good’ or ‘well done’ teaches? Nothing. It is lazy. It is unprofessional and lazy. If you are a coach then you must be articulate. You need to translate what you saw into a learning moment. The weak…