by Coach Mat | 12 Jan, 2019 | Competitive/Performance Training, Design Principles, Fitness Training, Focal Point Training, Focal Points, How To Train?, Learning Methods, Neurological Training, Plateau (No Progress), Progression, Self-Coaching, Skill Mastery, Training Theory
Continued from Part 2… I’ve mentioned before that my wife, Gail, is an ‘occupational therapist’. Occupational therapists, as they are called in the US, help people learn (or relearn) how to accomplish daily tasks that their damaged brain lost...
by Coach Mat | 29 Dec, 2018 | Competitive/Performance Training, Design Principles, Fitness Training, Flow State, Focal Point Training, Focal Points, How To Train?, Learning Methods, Neurological Training, Neuromuscular Training, Plateau (No Progress), Progression, Recommended Reading, Self-Coaching, Skill Mastery, Training Theory
It should be well understood that there is a process, and usually a long process we must follow in moving from a novice to an expert in the fundamental skills for an art or sport. There is a process or a path to follow, but there is not a single ‘recipe’...
by Coach Mat | 29 Dec, 2018 | Competitive/Performance Training, Design Principles, Fitness Training, Focal Point Training, Focal Points, How To Train?, Learning Methods, Neurological Training, Plateau (No Progress), Progression, Self-Coaching, Skill Mastery, Training Theory
Continued from Part 1… Stages Of Attention Control Not only is your neuromuscular (motor) control being trained, so is your attention, because the two are working together intimately in the development process. At first the attention is directed onto the part of...
by Coach Mat | 2 Sep, 2018 | Butterfly, Competitive/Performance Training, How To Train?, Lessons From Elites, Mastery Process, Plateau (No Progress), Speed, Speed and Pace, Strength Training, Student Stories, Too Slow, Training Theory
Even if you do not practice the butterfly stroke, you may appreciate this approach to solving the not-getting-any-faster problem… Coach Jamee and I have been working with a mother and three kids (10, 12 and 16) on a swim team who came to us to work on freestyle...
by Coach Mat | 28 Jul, 2018 | Design Principles, How To Train?, Plateau (No Progress), Practice Series, Self-Coaching
This is part of a series called The Happier Swimmer: how to set up your practice lifestyle so that you are making steady improvement toward your goal, making the body safer and stronger, and enjoying the process more than ever so you have the motivation to keep...
by Coach Mat | 19 May, 2018 | About Coach Mat, Boredom, Burn Out, Design Principles, Distraction, Failure, How To Train?, Kaizen (Continual Improvement), Mastery Process, Motivating Swimmers, Motivation, Plateau (No Progress)
In the Positive Psychology realm, ‘engagement’ (Seligman) is another term for ‘flow state’ (Csikszentmihaly) which I’ve written quite a lot about in a previous series of posts. An aspect of this engagement or flow is being absorbed in a...
