Change the way you develop skills. Positively impact your swimmers’ skills, especially when working with large groups. Build the skills that win races while training hard. Easily incorporate these ideas into the workouts you’re already doing. https://t.co/BKhXgst8VH

The irony is that you sometimes can’t know exactly what to do until you actually do it. Action reveals problems. There’s no point in worrying about getting it right. The big concern is never getting started.

Once a skill development system is in place, it’s really, really easy to make adjustments. A hesitation many coaches have is that they’re not sure exactly what to do. It doesn’t matter. Once you have the basic structure in place, you can easily adjust whatever needs adjusting.

That can be useful as some swimmers may use a slightly different turning strategy when touching the wall with different hands. It’s a key concept in skill development. Rigid principles, flexible solutions.

However, once they contact the wall, they’re using different strategies to get their feet on the wall fast. And both can be effective. As long as swimmers are tucking tight, flipping fast, and getting into a great position to push off strong, there’s room for flexibility.

Bonus points if those goals are set up in a progressive manner. A couple hours of thinking is very, very powerful.

Too often, clubs have vague goals for their training groups. As a result, those goals don’t get accomplished very often. One of the simplest ways to improve overall performance is to create clear goals for each training group.

The more they can get and stay in great positions, the faster they will swim.

A great catch allows swimmers to create a big paddle to move water with. Then, they want to use that paddle for as long as they can. Whenever swimmers ‘drop their elbow’ in freestyle, it’s a failure to maintain great positions.

It’s not enough for freestylers to set up their stroke effectively and have a great catch. They have to hold that position for as long as possible. Creating propulsion is about moving as much water as possible.

It helps swimmers learn how to use the force they can already create. It’s a skill. Rather than just thinking about it as power training from a physiological perspective, consider it from a skill perspective. It completely changes how the work is implemented.

That’s where resisted swimming is so powerful. It helps swimmers learn how to apply the force they can create in a way that creates speed. Short, fast, high load work is the clearest expression of this concept.

Resisted training doesn’t necessarily ‘develop’ power, it improves the ability to express it. Creating force in the water is a skill. The strongest person in the world isn’t necessarily going to be skilled at creating force in the water.

Progressing the same tools over time creates consistent progress. Click below to get the free guide to start using stroke counts to help swimmers go faster. https://t.co/MPjjMWGwft

When working on racing, have swimmers take one or two strokes less than they would in a race to help them learn how to hold their skill while extremely fatigued. Skill development has to change throughout a season.

When working on speed, we can ask swimmers to go as fast as possible at different stroke counts to help them length at space.

For instance, we could introduce stroke counts and just have swimmers practice taking fewer strokes to start. When we want to build endurance, now we ask for stroke count consistency during demanding endurance work.

Skill development has to change over the course of the season. If it doesn’t swimmers won’t continue to improve. However, the same strategies can and should be used throughout. All that changes is how they’re used.

That’s what they kick really does.

As swimmers are exiting, they’ll kick again on the same side so that they rotate up to allow for a smooth recovery. By using the kick to manage rotation, swimmers ensure the body is in the right place at the right time for the arms to do their damage.

As swimmers are applying pressure and pulling back, they’ll kick with the opposite leg to STOP rotation. This establishes a more stable platform for creating propulsion.