Your Potential At Other Distances

by Coach Mat | 27 Feb, 2016

This post is related to my 100 yard Sprint Improvement Project I discussed in the previous post. It is not common for swimmers – elite or regular citizen athletes – to train on both ends of the event spectrum – short sprints (like 50, 100) to long...

A Sprint Improvement Project

by Coach Mat | 21 Feb, 2016

Since I am back in Oregon USA and back to the short 25 yard pool, my interest has been drawn back to short distance work for these winter and spring months, until open water season arrives again. In Antalya I enjoyed year-round sea swimming, but I am now back to a...

Breathing Better… On Land

by Coach Mat | 14 Feb, 2016

It’s apparent that making breathing easier is one of the top concerns for swimmers. And so, virtually all programs and methods offer some ideas for how to improve it. I’ve written several posts on breathing for swimming that several seemed to have...

Appropriate Advice

by Coach Mat | 6 Feb, 2016

My last blog post Longer Length Or Faster Rate? attracted many thoughtful comments from regular readers. Those comments brought up many more enticing blog topics. I would like to lay out one of them in this post. Here is a scenario that seems to happen eventually to...

Longer Length Or Faster Rate?

by Coach Mat | 30 Jan, 2016

I’ve had this discussion behind the scenes with some swimmers recently and felt their challenge to bring up this topic more in the open. So here it is… I want to address ‘the elephant in the room’ (as one of them put it) regarding the apparent...

Pain And Peace

by Coach Mat | 23 Jan, 2016

Is there pain and suffering of some form in your training experience? For many, this is not only a common experience, this is the expected experience. After all, they say you must be tough to be a real swimmer, right? Perhaps. But what kind of toughness are we talking...

Strengthen The Weaker System

by Coach Mat | 16 Jan, 2016

This is an addendum to the post Special Stamina Part 2. I encouraged certain swimmers to test for the weaker system in Test For The Weakest System. The next logical topic is about strengthening that weaker system. Which one is your weaker system? Can you handle the...

Special Stamina Part 2

by Coach Mat | 2 Jan, 2016

Continued from Special Stamina Part 1 Incremental Increase In Challenge Let me describe briefly how to adjust just one of these variables at a time to create a gradually equalizing and increasing challenge upon your performance systems… Intensity When the...

Special Stamina Part 1

by Coach Mat | 26 Dec, 2015

I received a request from one of you to talk about building stamina. Stamina is defined as ability to withstand hardship, to maintain strength over a longer period of time. I might add to this by saying stamina is the ability to be stronger than the hardship facing...

Test For The Weakest System

by Coach Mat | 19 Dec, 2015

Experienced and accomplished swimmers (still practicing) tend to have well-developed swimming-specific fitness from their years of training, even after taking time off. When they begin retraining their stroke technique a challenge in that process is that they can get...