Observations in swimming no one talks about

• Hyper specializing in one event leads to local maximums (instead of global)
• Recognizing a plateau in performance should prompt an immediate change of either training methods or stroke technique
• The coach-athlete dynamic on a high performing swim team is isomorphic to the manager-IC dynamic in a “real world” job. Managers, like coaches, can bring out the best of their team, and are often more responsible for the success of the team than the athlete/IC likes to think
• Past a certain point, diet optimization does not matter. Keep it simple and eat high quality food.
• Modern training philosophy still involves too much yardage, even for distance swimmers. This has changed in recent years but has yet to reach the tipping point of widespread adoption.
• Swimming is more of a body kinematics problem than a fluid dynamics one.
• Team culture won’t directly make you faster, but it will make you enjoy training more, which gives you more opportunities to actually get faster.
• The best way to contribute to a team is to first maximize the quality of your individual contributions, i.e., get faster. After that, it becomes much easier to elevate and inspire the people around you.
• Choosing to swim all four years in college will put you behind in the first year of your professional engineering career from a technical and field specific knowledge standpoint. But it is worth it.
• Time trials are a fantastic way to go a best time.
• Very few people are good enough to not try in prelims.
• “Fly and die” is a terrible race strategy. Your goal should be making the front half feel as easy as possible.
• Every training regime will work well for at least one person work terribly for at least one other person. Find a program that seems to be working well for most (>80%) people.
• The negative effects of partying come from disease transmission rather than excessive alcohol consumption.
• Cliques of four to six people will form on any team. This is totally normal and actually a good thing. Inter-clique relationships should be maintained at a high priority.
• Yes, you were actually just as green as new guys.

Last updated: 2025-01-07