Drills For Skills | Mediterra Swim & Run

Challenging ‘NORMAL’

by Coach Mat | 5 Dec, 2011

Anyone who’s been swimming a while will have some sort of a ‘normal’ stroke- a pattern of movement that is accepted and so familiar that we are able to ignore it and think about other things. However, normal does not necessarily mean effective. What...

Go For Muscle Or Skill?

by Coach Mat | 19 Nov, 2011

I want to stimulate our thinking about the difference between focusing on building muscles (i.e. fitness) during swim practice versus focusing on building skill. Let’s take this example of the difference between a practice set using paddles versus a set using a...

How To Swim Like Phelps…

by Coach Mat | 27 Sep, 2011

Or Popov, or Thorpe, or Torres, or [insert your favorite elite swimmer here]. Now that anyone can access video clips of elite swimmers in the middle of their winning races, there is a often a false assumption made when trying to extract technique ideas from those...

Courage Is A Skill

by Coach Mat | 3 Jul, 2011

Courage is not possible in the absence of fear, rather courage is the ability to take positive action in the midst of fear. Behind the courage we admire is a trained skill: the ability to focus the mind and effort on something more important, something positive,...

Balance- On Land vs. In Water

by Coach Mat | 10 Jun, 2011

I have been helping many of my swim students recognize the critical role that a firm core muscles (think spine held firm like an arrow, from tail bone to crown of your head) play in holding balance in the water. How can I, the teacher, hold Skate Position (rotated to...

Critical Skills For Mastering Waves

by Coach Mat | 2 Jun, 2011

Here on the Mediterranean Coast off Antalya I have a mild selection of adverse open-water conditions – the coldest the sea gets, in February, is 16 C. By May it is up to 20 C, and by mid-August up to 29 C. The afternoon swells and waves, except during a storm,...