Common Problems and Solutions | Mediterra Swim & Run

Flow Requires Clear Goals

by Coach Mat | 8 Jul, 2017

This continues from Part 2 of our discussion of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s eight “characteristic dimensions of the flow experience” outlined in his book The Evolving Self. In The Evolving Self, Csikszentmihalyi is connecting the research findings he...

Breathing Solutions Outside The Pool

by Coach Mat | 11 Jun, 2017

After a swimmer has invested the time to thoroughly work through fundamental swimming skills, often the swimmer encounters some obstacles to improvement that are better addressed by training he needs to do outside the pool. Some major areas for improvement that emerge...

The Magic Wand

by Coach Mat | 4 Jun, 2017

When they were younger, just starting to do bigger chores around the house, I used to tease my daughters that I was giving them a ‘magic wand’ that could make much of what they wished in life come true. What is the magic wand? Hard work. Needless to say,...

Achievement As A Tool

by Coach Mat | 28 May, 2017

There is this wide spectrum between “I want to perform better” and “I want to feel better” – a few swimmers seem to be on one extreme or the other, while the rest of us fall somewhere in the middle with a mixture of both. However, one of...

Going Harder And Going Smarter

by Coach Mat | 21 May, 2017

I have a couple swimmers in one of our weekly practice groups who are members of a local masters swim group that meets on a two different evenings each week. They came to me some months ago because their coach is great at making them work hard, and work harder, in...

Why Do Sprint Work?

by Coach Mat | 14 May, 2017

A 46 year old swimmer from Azerbaijan has been working with me for some months through the Mediterra Swim Dojo, our online training site, to prepare for 10 km swimming this summer. Within the last year or so he’s gone from essentially a non-swimmer to a...