When I sat down to chat with Bahamian Olympian Dustin Tynes a few of my questions were targeted at dealing with failure. I wanted to see what we could learn from the way Dustin handled disappointment and I had no idea I would get the opportunity to find out just one week later when he competed in his first ever Olympic race. ...

“Whether you’re bagging groceries in a supermarket or the CEO of a company, you have irreplaceable value.” — Melissa Dayton We’re back with Melissa Dayton to continue our conversation, but this time in a different direction. Today’s focus is on ideas that are more important than a swimming performance. We are sharing ideas about building an identity that’s not hinged on ...

“Sometimes the kids just become a master of hiding what they’re going through. They want everyone to think they’re still perfect, but we want them to be safe enough to admit they’re not. So we want to strengthen the adults so that they can do so.” –Melissa Dayton Today our guest on the SwimBrain podcast is Melissa Dayton, author of ...

“It’s really unlikely anymore that, especially in the 400 and down events, that just training hard you’re gonna win a gold medal. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I don’t think it’ll ever happen again. There’s always an anomaly, but I really think that just going and swimming 80 100s, you’re not going to win a gold medal in ...

Listening to my podcast will not make you better. It might make you feel better, but feeling better and being better are two very different things. It’s easy to feel better when you consume information, but knowledge itself is not an advantage. It’s only when we begin to apply knowledge that we can truly say that we have learned and if learning is essential ...

“Anybody that is successful talks to a lot of other people that are successful and also other people that are successful in other fields besides the field that they’re in. I think that makes you really successful.” — Doug Fonder Pro tip: whenever you are considering going to a large conference like ISCA don’t make your decision solely on the cost and ...

Last week I shared a really interesting conversation that I had with with Dr. Rod Havriluk of Swimming Technology Research. I received good feedback from a few listeners and it really does make me happy when you enjoy the show. I really appreciate it when you take time to respond and give me feedback. Thank you! If you happened to miss part 1, ...

As a kid with nonexistent backstroke skills the only thing I swam into more than the lane ropes was differing opinions on swimming technique. I hated the feeling of both, but at least the lane ropes ran parallel to each other. My teenage mind reasoned that the only sure way to validate my technique was to copy it from the swimmers that ...

This episode is the last in a series of episodes talking about The Online Swimmer. In the last few episodes you can find previews of what can be expected in a Lane 5 & 6 membership, but for this episode about Lane 4 I decided to switch things up. Since Lane 4 is a completely customized program I figured it was ...

In today’s episode you’ll get an inside look at a course I created that that teaches swimmers about the path to mastery. The first lesson that I share talks about programming the body to respond to certain triggers. This is one of the common traits that we in elite athletes of all sports and it’s no doubt necessary for duplicating excellent performances. The ...

This episode is a sneak peek at Lane 6 on theonlineswimmer.com A lane 6 membership is designed to have research delivered to you a couple of times per month in a format that’s very easy to understand. The ideal person for a Lane 6 membership is a coach who wants to stay abreast of swimming science, but doesn’t have the time ...

  In this episode you’ll find six questions to help you make better decisions as it relates to choosing swim clubs. Some of these questions are very blunt, but I prefer honesty over tragedy. If you have good information then you can make better choices and it may be uncomfortable to give in-depth answers, but trust me it’s worth the headache. Have ...

“I truly want to give back… that’s what i love, that’s what I wanna do and I go for it. If people like it or not I don’t know. Who cares? I wanna go and do it.” — Merle Liivand It was a pleasure interviewing Merle Liivand the Estonian mermaid for episode 32 of the SwimBrain podcast. I have a ...

You’ve got to take your sport seriously and be obsessive of course, but at the end of the day it’s about being fair. It’s about competition. It’s about absolute preparation and being the best you can be as yourself. Taking drugs, it’s not you. Even if you win, if you take something, some substance, it’s not you, it’s the drug. — ...

One of my favorite things about the SwimBrain podcast is that we have both swimmers and researchers on the show. This allows us take what the researchers are saying, compare it to what elite swimmers are doing and chose the best method based on the evidence. Just taking somebody’s word that a technique works is never a good our guest on ...

We often see elite swimmers performing and standing on medal podiums and wish that we could be like them.  We try to copy their stroke technique, their workouts and their racing strategies, but there is so much more that we don’t see. Without an understanding of the sacrifices they made to stand where they stand This is why at SwimBrain we ...

“Maintain the perfection or as close to perfection as possible so that when you get to that point, when you get to that big moment, everything is done. You can just shut your brain off and go on autopilot and be fast and strong.” — Roy Burch First things first: if you missed part 1 you need to get caught ...

“It just became second nature to compete and win against the kids that I was around mainly because I wanted to win and I was competitive, not because I was more talented or faster.” Roy Burch Have you ever met somebody and thought: “Your life should be a movie”? That’s how I felt when I spoke to 2x Bermudian Olympian, ...

As parents and coaches we know that finding the rights words to say to a swimmer after a bad race can sometimes seem impossible. Even worse is that the right words don’t matter if the timing isn’t right. Sometimes silence seems best. In this final part of our chat with Coach Reed we bring some practical advice for both coaches and parents on ...

I won’t even bother naming the titles because I’m sure you’ve at least seen one of them. You know, the sports themed movie with the intense coach that puts his athletes through hell to win the championship.   They all end in similar fashion and everyone leaves the theater inspired, but I’d like to raise a question: what happens after the ...

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” That’s what I would repeatedly say to my primary schools friends whenever they said mean things to me. I my mind I could see the effects of sticks and stones and to me they seemed much more painful, but the truth is far from that statement. Words are ...

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 I’m curious, how many friends do you have on Facebook? Hundreds? Thousands? However many “friends” you have on Facebook, I’m ...

Find your why, and then you will find your how. As the old saying goes, “Where there is a will, there is a way.” For me, finding my will made finding my way possible. Without the will, the way would have been way too hard. — Robert Kiyosaki   This was one of my favorite episodes to record just because ...

A goal without a deadline is an option. A goal with a deadline is a mission. Today we’re talking about goals and we are keeping it short and simple. This is episode comes in short around 5 minutes long, but it is full of practical advice to help swimmers be a lot wiser when setting goals. As we are entering ...

“You are a student, you need that education. That’s the most important part. Don’t be looking at what team necessarily you want to swim for if you’re not gonna get a valuable education that’s. gonna work for you for the rest of your life. You need to go to a school where you’re gonna have a degree that is gonna ...