Practice Design | Mediterra Swim & Run

Strengthen The Weaker System

by Coach Mat | 16 Jan, 2016

This is an addendum to the post Special Stamina Part 2. I encouraged certain swimmers to test for the weaker system in Test For The Weakest System. The next logical topic is about strengthening that weaker system. Which one is your weaker system? Can you handle the...

Special Stamina Part 2

by Coach Mat | 2 Jan, 2016

Continued from Special Stamina Part 1 Incremental Increase In Challenge Let me describe briefly how to adjust just one of these variables at a time to create a gradually equalizing and increasing challenge upon your performance systems… Intensity When the...

Test For The Weakest System

by Coach Mat | 19 Dec, 2015

Experienced and accomplished swimmers (still practicing) tend to have well-developed swimming-specific fitness from their years of training, even after taking time off. When they begin retraining their stroke technique a challenge in that process is that they can get...

Test for Progress and Weakness

by Coach Mat | 28 Nov, 2015

Here is an excerpt from the instruction in the12-week Master Class 1K course inside our Online Coaching Program. It is describing the role of the test swim and guiding the swimmer’s response to it: To test progress and reveal strengths and weak spots you need to...

Using Drills Appropriately

by Coach Mat | 14 Nov, 2015

I received this comment on a blog post recently… I tried to practice Spear Switch drill. I do this along with two beat kick instead of flutter. When I switch, I don’t see any forward propulsion in my body due to the switch or kick. I do see a propulsion due to...

Correction vs. Over-Correction

by Coach Mat | 7 Nov, 2015

With just about every movement art and sport I can think of artists and athletes are trying to bring their movement patterns closer to an ideal, whether that ideal is about beauty, power, or efficiency… or all of them together, as in our case with swimming....