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...
by Coach Mat | 28 Apr, 2018 | Muscle Tension, Muscle Training, Plateau (No Progress), Relaxation, Technique Theory
A few days ago, on the Total Immersion blog, I published an essay on the necessary relationship between tension and relaxation in swimming. If you’ve been trying to be ‘more relaxed’ in your stroke, or trying to be ‘more powerful’ you may...
by Coach Mat | 18 Apr, 2018 | About Coach Mat, Boredom, Flow State, Kaizen (Continual Improvement), Meditation, Other Related Sports, Plateau (No Progress), Recommended Reading
This post is Part 4, the last of a 4-part series on The Habit Of Exercise. A cheat-sheet and stripped-down version of what I’ve done to develop a robust habit is provided at the bottom. Keep It Skill-Oriented Activities that don’t require much skill, or...
by Coach Mat | 25 Feb, 2018 | Competitive/Performance Training, Design Principles, How To Train?, Martial Arts, Metabolic Training, Muscle Training, Neurological Training, Plateau (No Progress), Running, Speed and Pace, SPL, Stroke Length (SL), Tempo, Stroke Rate (SR), Training Theory, Triathlon Swimming
A member of our online training site, the Mediterra Swim Dojo, has been noticing that after a certain distance in a training set, his stroke quality deteriorates which results in his stroke count (strokes per length of the pool) going up uncontrollably. He asked a...
