by Coach Mat | 13 Oct, 2018 | Aging and Improvement, Discomfort, Injury, Injury Prevention, Internal Feedback, Pain, Physiology, Training Psychology
Continued from Part 2… Emotional Resilience There is a level of grit – technically known as ’emotional resilience’ – that is good for each of us to develop, when the pain can’t be reduced further. It is really tough to train for...
by Coach Mat | 22 Sep, 2018 | Discomfort, Injury Prevention, Internal Feedback, Pain, Physiology, Recommended Reading, Stress
This discussion is continued from Part 1… The Aging Dilemma For those chasing medals and records and recognition – a reward now – it is acceptable, even required it seems, to take some risks with injury. The risks are much higher when there is a...
by Coach Mat | 15 Sep, 2018 | Discomfort, Injury Prevention, Internal Feedback, Pain, Physiology, Recommended Reading, Stress
What is pain? We all know what it is, but yet it’s a hard word to define both precisely and broadly enough to cover all the ways we experience it. There is good pain and bad pain. There is physical pain and mental pain and emotional pain. There is tiny annoying...
by Coach Mat | 17 Dec, 2017 | Breathing Skills, Breathing Trouble, Discomfort, Increasing Ease, Internal Feedback, Mastery Process, Neurological Training, Practice Examples, Progression, Student Stories
I was working with ‘Ray’ in a private lesson. He presented a good example of how we could use the Checklist For Easier Breathing to diagnose his breathing complaint and pinpoint the possible solutions. To review, here are the four main features of easier...
by Coach Mat | 2 Oct, 2017 | Attention/Focus, Competitive/Performance Training, External Feedback, Fitness Training, Focal Points, How To Train?, Internal Feedback, Open Water Training, Plateau (No Progress), Practice Examples, Progression, Proprioception, Swim Camps, Training Theory
Inspired by what we just experienced this week at our distance training camp in Kaş Turkey, I wanted to share a bit how we set up our training at these kind of events. At swim camps we have a special opportunity to work with our swimmers for several consecutive days...
by Coach Mat | 9 Sep, 2017 | Attention/Focus, Boredom, Design Principles, Discomfort, Distraction, External Feedback, Flow State, How To Train?, Internal Feedback, Mastery Process, Motivating Swimmers, Training Psychology
This continues from Part 7 of our discussion of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s eight “characteristic dimensions of the flow experience” outlined in his book The Evolving Self. #7 – Altered sense of time, which usually seems to pass faster. An...
