Swim Prep Habit

by Coach Mat | 11 Apr, 2015

Here is an inspirational description in the book The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg of the habit Michael Phelps had set up to support his success in every race. This story makes a persuasive argument for competitive athletes to set up a personal pre-race habit like...

Silent Swimming

by Coach Mat | 4 Apr, 2015

The first objective I have in swim practice is to bring my body and my mind into the water. The next objective is to bring my mind into my body. The third objective is to bring all my internal systems online and into a unified, cooperative state for higher...

Judging An Efficient Stroke

by Coach Mat | 28 Mar, 2015

In response to the recent essay Stroke Length Loyalty (and the subsequent essay Intro to Pace Combinations) I’ve entered into an enjoyable email discussion with a retired engineer about judging efficiency of the stroke. He has been asking how we know when a...

Intro to Pace Combinations

by Coach Mat | 25 Mar, 2015

A question from a friend about Pace Combinations made me realize that I have referred to Pace or SPL x Tempo Combinations several times without really laying out a direct introduction to it. So this essay is meant to give a brief explanation for Pace Combinations and...

Stroke Length Loyalty

by Coach Mat | 21 Mar, 2015

When you start feeling fatigue in your race (or while ‘just swimming’) you are urged to slow down. At some point you finally must give in. But when you do what is changing in your stroke to slow you down? SPL x Tempo = Pace (the inverse of the Speed...

Training Your Internal Coach

by Coach Mat | 15 Mar, 2015

We had a super freestyle workshop in Veddige Sweden last weekend – 9 swim students and 13 TI Coach trainees! It was incredibly productive thanks to the careful lesson planning and attention of our new TI Coaches. In every Level 1 TI Freestyle workshop we cover...

Quality Rest Time At The Wall

by Coach Mat | 22 Feb, 2015

In our private workshop with the MaratonIST Triathlon Club of Istanbul this weekend I used one of our practice sets to show how we turn even those passive rest moments (= being still) at the wall into valuable training opportunity. Those moments are not just about...

A Better High Elbow Catch

by Coach Mat | 15 Feb, 2015

These last couple weeks I received a some inquiries about my perspective on what is known as the High Elbow Catch so I will share some of the comments I gave. Appearance Or Function? The label ‘high elbow catch’ is a descriptive term of an external appearance – and...

Improve Swimming Speed Part 3

by Coach Mat | 8 Feb, 2015

So, in the previous essay we have seen how swimming speed and ease can be broken down into a pyramid of interdependent skill sets. In your stroke mastery and performance improvement process you need to work through this cycle several times, gradually deepening your...

Improve Swimming Speed Part 2

by Coach Mat | 31 Jan, 2015

Let’s say you want to go a bit faster than you can now, to improve swimming speed, but your current methods are not working. When looking at the math of physics this is the equation we use in swimming to build speed: Speed = Stroke Length x Stroke Rate The...