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...
by Coach Mat | 19 Aug, 2017 | Boredom, Discomfort, Distraction, Flow State, Flow State, How To Train?, Internal Feedback, Kaizen (Continual Improvement), Mental Training, Training Psychology
This continues from Part 5 of our discussion of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s eight “characteristic dimensions of the flow experience” outlined in his book The Evolving Self. #5 – A sense of potential control. If challenges and skills are in...
by Coach Mat | 22 Jul, 2017 | Design Principles, External Feedback, Flow State, How To Train?, Internal Feedback, Mastery Process, Mental Training, Plateau (No Progress), Training Psychology
This continues from Part 3 of our discussion of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s eight “characteristic dimensions of the flow experience” outlined in his book The Evolving Self. #2 – Opportunities For Action “The opportunities for acting...
by Coach Mat | 28 May, 2017 | Competitive/Performance Training, Design Principles, External Feedback, Fitness Training, Internal Feedback, Mastery Process, Plateau (No Progress), Pleasure Swimming, Self-Coaching, Training Theory
There is this wide spectrum between “I want to perform better” and “I want to feel better” – a few swimmers seem to be on one extreme or the other, while the rest of us fall somewhere in the middle with a mixture of both. However, one of...
