There is a substantial difference in being willing and being able when it comes to process driven progress. This difference is very clear when we challenge our swimmers to make a change for more speed. Keep it simple…raise your hand if you want to swim faster. If your hand is up you are in the correct group. In free and fly you swim faster when you don’t breathe. Backstrokers need to remember that as they get faster due to underwater fly kicks they will be swimming less so they too will have less oxygen available. Top backstrokers today swim less than ½ the distance of the event. So we have ..read more

Reading this title makes us feel a little presumptuous…really, can we be that smart or insightful? However, based upon the observations from the last couple of weeks we are confident when we say that inspiration and disappointment are both critical to moving forward. We just finished our summer season of racing. We had trained pretty well, for the most part. We rested, shaved and suited up…and then went for all the marbles. And our swimmers were either inspired by their performances or they were disappointed. It was, after all, a swim meet. The inspiration part is rather straightforward. Y ..read more

This is from Maureen who is an actively engaged parent and swimmer on our Masters team. She contributes mightily on many fronts. As coaches and parents we never can really know what impacts the young ones most significantly; but as the following tells us, we certainly do make a lasting impression. Way back 4 years ago when I started with North Bay I did a 100 free at a swim meet out in Pleasanton.  I had to pick a time to register, and let’s just say it was off by 30 seconds or so.  When I got to the blocks Ms. Stanford and Ms. Cal Berkeley were in my heat in their Olympic like suits. They wer ..read more

In our quest to figure out how to coach our swimmers to new levels of performance we always look for keys from the world of education and science. This 6 minute video is very significant because you can use it to inform your team on how to make change.  Growth mindset is a huge key. You already know that. Consider this input ..read more

If you are looking for a good new book we encourage you to read “Eddie Reese” by Chuck Warner with Dana Abbott (a portion of each book sold is donated to the UT Legacy campaign). Coach Reese has demonstrated over decades of swimming excellence that when the team comes first good things come to those on that team.He recalls from 2013 that he had a few guys who were not making good decisions outside the pool and as a result were bringing the whole team down. He sat down with one of them (who happened to be one of the fastest guys on the team) and told him that he needed to grow up. And then he s ..read more

This from Kate Armstrong…: in thinking about the results of a game most of them fall into one of 4 categories.  1) Won and played well.  2) Won but played poorly.  3) Lost and played well.  4) Lost and played poorly.  Given the above four conditions, is there a constructive method when de-briefing a team so players will utilize the just-ended contest as a learning experience?In our collective experience we find that after a few days of reflection it is valuable to revisit the race(s) now that the raw emotion is somewhat tempered by time. Perhaps we offer each swimmer the opportunity to rate th ..read more

We went to a colleague’s Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony Saturday. It was an eye opener. It clearly exposed the value of and need for community in our lives that sports generate.Craig Carson was honored at the 28th Annual Liberty Union High School District Athletic Hall of Fame for his decades of service to his community as a high school swim coach. Inducted with him were several athletes, supporters and community members who each in their own fashion helped make the high school sport experience one that had tremendous value for a variety of reasons.None of these athletes eventually b ..read more

In positive psychology, a flow state, also known colloquially as being in the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting loss in one's sense of space and time.Csikszentmihalyi (often referred to as the modern day discoverer of Flow) has this to say about people who have high levels of achievement and fulfillment: “…what kept them motivated was the quality ..read more

We caught a fabulously entertaining interview this week with a person who is arguably the most successful radio personality of the last 40 years. He was discussing how he became so successful after so many initial failures. Cutting to the chase he said he never had a “Plan B”. He went on to talk about folks he knew or had met who had every intention of being successful in any number of ventures only to fall short and then “go to plan B.”He said that when you ask someone what they want in/from life they will tell you all the stuff they have been taught to say – the grandiose dreams, the BHAG (b ..read more

Saturday we were doing a kick set before we got rolling on a set of 200’s. We did a simple 4x150/2:30 kick with lap 3 being a buildup lap and lap 6 being a fast lap. On the fast lap we did our standard deal which is to kick all the way to the touch pad, no arm pull into the wall. We do this for the obvious reasons but primarily to get them accustomed to kicking all the way into the wall. When they get in a race they will do what they do in training so – kick to the touch pad.Zev on #2 pulled the last stroke on lap 6. We reminded him of the “kick to the wall” goal/requirement. On # 3 he did the ..read more