by Coach Mat | 27 Mar, 2018 | About Coach Mat, Aging, Aging and Improvement, Motivation, Other Related Sports, Strength
What has kept me exercising regularly for 30 years, and what will keep me going for another 30 and more? This post is part 2 of 4 in the series The Habit Of Exercise. and continues the discussion of what builds and strengthens our habit of exercise to contribute to...
by Coach Mat | 19 Mar, 2018 | About Coach Mat, Aging, Aging and Improvement, Motivation, Other Related Sports, Recommended Reading
There may be a season of your life when it becomes important to you to get ready for a big athletic accomplishment, like a triathlon or a masters swim meet, or a swim holiday that has you training more than you have been used to. That event on a fast approaching date...
by Coach Mat | 4 Mar, 2018 | Aging and Improvement, Coaching Adults (Masters), Design Principles, Injury, Lessons From Elites, Mastery Process, Pain, Running, Self Limiting Exercises, SPL, Stroke Length (SL), Tempo, Stroke Rate (SR), Yoga
I can’t emphasize this enough, because it is a cornerstone of our care for adult athletes: we train for superior technique because that is what is going to keep our body pleasantly functional into our oldest age . Taking off from the way it was said in the...
by Coach Mat | 11 Feb, 2018 | Aging and Improvement, Boredom, Burn Out, Flow State, Motivation, Student Stories, Training Psychology
I took my boys to the local skate park on a rare sunny winter day recently. They like riding their pro scooters there and practicing mild versions of the tricks they’ve seen on Youtube. I was watching them practice as well as the dozen other boys gathered there,...
by Coach Mat | 26 Dec, 2017 | About Coach Mat, Aging, Aging and Improvement, Motivating Swimmers, Motivation, Running, Training Psychology
Let me explain what motivates me to keep training, day after day, month after month, year after year – and perhaps this will resonate with you as well. When Fitness Must Be Earned It was somewhere around 1987. I was a freshman in high school, and it was the...
by Coach Mat | 2 Dec, 2017 | About Other Perspectives, Aging and Improvement, Coaching Methods, Competitive/Performance Training, Cycling, Fitness Training, Martial Arts, Mastery Process, Physiology, Running, Stroke Analysis, Swimming Physics, Technique Theory
“Just do what works for you.” I have heard some version of this phrase spoken or written by coaches or pundits many times, in many different sports. It can be alarming to me because: I doubt the average (citizen) athlete understands the context of...
