The SwimMastery Blog
How Are You Feeling?
Your swim coach may well get you to perform a drill and then ask you how it felt. And although that sounds like a simple question it’s one that many of us are simply not used to answering with any level of detail.
Robbed of Olympic 100m glory ? The Lance Lawson story
Swimming has never been particularly noted for controversy but that’s not to say that it hasn’t had its moments.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
The acquisition of new skills is recognised as being as much in the mind as it is in the body. But it is perhaps less obvious that a significant part of this is simply to recognise one’s own level of competence.
Wetsuits: a beginners guide
Those that prefer a birthday suit to a wetsuit will tell you that nothing beats the feel of the water directly against the skin. However, for newcomers to cold water swimming, using a wetsuit can be a very useful intermediate step – and one many folk never get past. And there’s absolutely no shame in that…
Getting into cold water swimming. And getting out again.
If you stand on the shore, dipping in one toe at a time you’ll probably never pluck up the courage to get in. However, to take the “Geronimo” approach and leap with gay abandon from the jetty is equally ill-advised.
Taking the plunge: why you should be cold water swimming
You rarely see someone who has just completed a swim in a freezing river, lake or coastline who isn’t grinning like a maniac
Don’t worry, swim happy
Factors such as time and strokes per length are so ingrained into our coaching and training that it is easy to think that they are the be-all and end-all when it comes to measuring performance
Filming Swimmers: An Opportunity with Challenges
With heightened awareness of child protection and data privacy rules one has to be mindful of the situations where filming is restricted or simply not allowed. The rules are vital for protecting the rights of the swimmer but there is no doubt that they present difficulties for those people who have legitimate reasons for filming.
How Is SwimMastery Different From An ‘Elite Program’?
I was asked recently how we would distinguish SwimMastery from, for example, a program such as 'X' led by a famous Olympic swimmer. My response went something like this... That's a good question regarding comparison between SwimMastery and something like Program X....
Lessons from the Dark Side.
Darth’s helmet looks impressive but is massively impractical for day-to-day living, restricting, as it does, both vision and movement. However, for the swimmer this is no bad thing.
Don’t pay attention to your hands. But know exactly what they are doing !
Turning off muscles is often more difficult than engaging them. Go to any public pool and you will see hands doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things…
Location!, location!, location!
Surely the whole point of doing drills is to try and repeat the same actions in the same way, over and over, in order to imprint them into ‘muscle memory’, isn’t it? Yes, it is. And this is why you should try changing something else about the drill.