Psychological | Mediterra Swim & Run

What keeps you going, day after day, year after year?

by Coach Mat | 13 May, 2023

There are some questions I sometimes ask myself or others to reflect on what supports one’s longevity in athletic activity, or I could use them to explore what might be standing in the way of doing it more if they haven’t found that consistency yet. How...

How Do You Know When You Are Ready For Your Event?

by Coach Mat | 30 Apr, 2023

For the last two years, as a service to our local swimmer community, I have conducted private lessons as well as lake and river swimming clinics to help athletes in our area prepare for the swim leg of our local Ironman 70.3 Oregon race. In the Willamette River that...

Why Some Swimmers Struggle With Swimming Better

by Coach Mat | 13 Feb, 2023

I’ve observed some differences between how one person can arrange their body to execute a skill in the water and create the desired effect – like forming the frame with their whole body and sliding it along the surface for meters – and another...

Gaining Control Over Your Attention and Energy Flow

by Coach Mat | 15 Apr, 2022

The mind and the body develop together and where one goes the other is pulled along. If you are training the body to become capable of something extraordinary, are you training the mind for its role in this as well? There is a saying, most notably promoted by Daniel...

Trust Supports Skill… At Every Level Of Performance

by Coach Mat | 19 Mar, 2022

One of my favorite scenarios in coaching is to guide a non-swimmer from a tense and fearful relationship with water to a relaxed and confident relationship as a capable swimmer. With an understanding of what’s happening deep in the body’s autonomic nervous...

Differentiating Your Thinking from Awareness and Attention

by Coach Mat | 7 Jan, 2022

At one time or another, you may have received the rebuke, “Don’t think about it so much. Just do it!” In some consequential situations where self-control is needed, slowing down to think is a really good thing to do. In others, where a different kind of control is...