Metrics | Mediterra Swim & Run

The Purpose Of Measuring Stroke Length

by Coach Mat | 9 Apr, 2023

Concepts Stroke length is the distance your body travels forward on each arm stroke. How far you travel on each stroke is a direct indicator of how much work you accomplish and that work is a product of both strength and skill. Some people get more from their strength...

Some Ways To Measure Baseline Stroke Rate

by Coach Mat | 27 Mar, 2023

In the previous article – When You Go Harder But You Can’t Go Any Faster – I discussed how stroke length and stroke rate are yoked together and suggested as an initial step that you get a baseline measurement of what your current comfortable stroke...

When You Go Harder But You Can’t Go Any Faster…

by Coach Mat | 11 Mar, 2023

The traditional approach to swimming faster is to just go harder and keep at it until something breaks through. For some, that simple instruction might work. But for far too many it hasn’t. Regardless of what approach you take to developing technique or...

Relaxation Comes From Appropriate Stiffness

by Coach Mat | 5 Feb, 2023

Do you seek more relaxation in your swimming experience? This overall relaxation is actually a product of a balance between softness and stiffness around the body, and the balance of these shifts through the stroke choreography. Softness allows tissues to rest and...

Be Powerful and Be Smooth About It

by Coach Mat | 24 Oct, 2020

I have a saying: “Power is important, but (in water) shape is more important than power.” I use it to persuade a student to be patient with our process of developing the frame of the body and the streamline shape before we focus directly on the propulsive...

Benefits of Non-Judgment in Your Training

by Coach Mat | 11 Oct, 2020

Practicing non-judgment in athletic training has been one of the more liberating experiences I’ve had. It opens me up to more information, a more complex and nuanced understanding of my body and performance, and it allows me to form the kind of emotional...