Swim Coach Master Class: From Good to Great

Identify and list the diverse responsibilities of a swim coach, from workout planning to administrative tasks.

“As a coach, you have a lot of responsibilities... you have to organize the workouts but you have to motivate swimmers, you have to write letters of recommendation, deal with parents, deal with a board, clean the pool deck and maybe even deal with pool issues.”

Write a personal coaching philosophy statement outlining your core values and goals.

“As a coach you have the opportunity to share your knowledge with the Next Generation to motivate and to inspire the next class of swimmers and to empower them to swim for the rest of their lives.”

Study the core principles of swimming technique, including body position, stroke mechanics, and breathing.

“You need to understand the fundamentals of technique, you need to understand how to produce fast swimming. It's not enough to just know the technique of the four competitive Strokes you need to understand biomechanics physics seasonal planning Energy Systems and a whole bunch of other things.”

Record and analyze videos of swimmers to identify areas for technical improvement.

“When we're thinking about how do we get a swimmer faster regardless of the stroke we're going to focus on free out it comes down to your body position and your head position”

Understand Three Universal truths of swimming, Water is 800 times more dense than air, decrease drag and Increase propulsion

“The first principle the first universal truth is that water is 800 times more dense than air.The only way that you can swim faster is by decreasing drag. if you want to swim faster you have to increase propulsion”

Analyze at least 3 different swim workouts and identify all of the different components and what the workout is designed to achieve.

“Warm-up, preset, main set, post set, and cool down. Now every workout doesn't have to have every component in there so when you write a workout it might not need to be labeled preset or post set but you should at least have the elements that go underneath each of those inside of every single workout.”

Write a Swim workout incorporating different equipment that is designed to achieve one specific goal

“The 50% rule simply States on a weekly basis all your training should have less than 50% of it done with equipment”

Review the key components that comprise of General preparation, specific preparation, competition phase and transition phase.

“You have phase one which is called General preparation, then we're putting in the foundation for phase two phase two is specific preparation,then we move in to phase number three this is the competition phase and taper.”

Construct the seasonal plan incorporating meso and micro cycle

“We're going to split that up this is our meso cycle so we have the macro cycle Macro Short for macro cycle then we have the mesocycle”

Study and review different energy systems that includes Aerobic and Anerobic training

“When you're trading your athlete if you only train in the aerobic Zone it's going to be very difficult to generate speed if you want to swim fast you have to train anerobic if you only train Anor robic well you're going to burn out and you're not going to have any capacity to swim uh over a period of time”

Study a book or article in improving emotional intelligence when dealing with coaching athletes.

“The emotional quoti and this is understanding the emotions and the desires of your athletes and you can have a really high IQ but below EQ and what we find is that the best communicators and the best coaches actually have a very high level of emotional intelligence the ability to understand where an athlete is today where they were yesterday and where they want to go.”

Communicate and refer to your athletes and call them by their first name

“One of the most important things that you can do it sounds basic is to just call your athletes by their first name and remind them that they are present that you see them that they're not invisible”

Make sure you are engaged and listening in on what your athletes have to say

“You need to have empathy with the person that you're trying to help you need to make sure that they feel heard and that ties in to just being a good human”

Find the pool so you can audit your time and swim.

“There are plenty of pools where you live you might have to actually pay for it you might have to pay for a fitness membership and this is an investment in yourself this is an investment in being a great coach being a great person having a routine again we'll talk about routine a little bit”

Set a goal for yourself and make it SMART

“You want to swim twice per week for 30 minutes following a my Pro workout maybe you're following a training plan and you want to get into that routine by next week”

Be able to think and ask yourself What are the short term versus the long term and what happens if.

“The people who grew up and they were able to delay that gratification of eating the marshmallow they went on to perform better in their careers they made more money they had lower substance abuse problems and they were more emotionally stable”

Know that in the short run it maybe no big deal to skip a set but what are the second to fourth order consequences of skipping set and what could potentially lead to.

“It's not one thing that's getting in your way to be productive it's a lot of little things that are just distracting you. When it comes to your time you have to protect it”

Read an article and analyze the important elements and takeaways

“You have to be a sponge for acquiring new information knowledge is the currency of the world that we live in and if you're not continuously picking up new skills information and surrounding yourself with others who are sharing that information then you're going to be left behind”

Be receptive to new techniques like underwater dolphin kick is now a major major component of swimming

“You want to put on your growth mindset thinking cap and always be receptive to these new techniques because that can unlock a lot of potential for your athletes in the future”

Audit your time so you are able to have the consistency and the self-discipline to do them every single day to hold yourself accountable

“Thinking about self-discipline this is something that extends well beyond the pool deck it's how you structure your day”

What is taking your time and how can you eliminate these things.

“When we think about this principle of Death By A Thousand Cuts it's not one thing that's getting in your way to be productive it's a lot of little things that are just distracting you”