Love Your Weakest Member
In the last post I shared some transcribed parts of Rich Roll’s podcast that covered one coach’s way of establishing healthy and injury-free athletes. There was one point in that discussion that may have drifted by too fast – it is so subtle but so...
The Discipline Of Restraint
One of the ways you can detect truly elite coaches is by the emphasis in their teaching and marketing on ‘going-smarter’ rather than ‘going-harder’ (though this is required also). Mature coaches seem to echo the refrain: listen to your body. If...
Can You Practice When Injured?
This title will likely attract attention because injury seems to accompany serious swimmers who persist in the sport long enough. The questions are common: should I practice when injured and if so, how? Injured By Swimming The first scenario to address is when...
Just Listen To My Body
Hungry For Knowledge Like many of you I have quite an appetite for knowledge. I make time in my week for reading, listening, studying, and for writing (which includes drawing diagrams since I think mostly in pictures) to process the treasures I find. Part of my...
Your Abilities Expand
It is easy for us to agree that expertise takes time. We see examples of this fact in biographies of masters admired in every field. But do you believe you too can become an expert of swimming? You can. At your age. Over time, with Deliberate Practice, not only will...
Expertise Takes Time
As I near the end of this discussion of Anders Ericsson’s principles of Deliberate Practice which he laid out in his recent book Peak, I will give you the punch line right at the beginning: You get masterful swimming in return according to your investment of...
Practice Involves Feedback
Along with the previous article in this series describing the role of focal points (mental representations), we are getting to the heart of the practice with the feedback loop. If you have ever learned to play an instrument (or tried to) or just listened to music...
Form Better Mental Representations
Anders Ericsson declares that “the main purpose of deliberate practice is to develop effective mental representations.” (page 75). It would therefore be very important that we figure out what mental representations are in the context of our deliberate swim...