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Nearly every Local Swimming Committee (LSC) across the country offers what are commonly called “last chance” or “qualifier” meets. The purpose is straightforward: swimmers attend these meets in hopes of earning a qualifying time for a larger, more competitive championship meet. On the surface, that sounds reasonable. But over time, the way we frame  these meets—and the expectations we attach to them—can have a much bigger impact on swimmers than we realize. The meet itself is

If you’ve ever watched a swimmer rush onto the blocks “cold,” or seen a great early swim followed by a flat, sluggish race later in the meet, there’s a good chance the issue wasn’t a bad race strategy or effort, it was preparation and recovery. Warm-up and warm-down are not filler time at swim meets. They are performance tools. When done well, they help swimmers race faster, feel better, and hold their form deep into long meet sessions, and multiple day championships. Let’s b

Our teams January Character Theme: Resilience & Stress Recovery Why Learning to Manage Stress May Be the Ultimate Performance Advantage If there is one skill today’s young athletes need more than almost any other, it is not a faster start, a more dynamic dolphin kick, or a better turn. It is the ability to handle stress, recover from setbacks, and keep moving forward without “burning out” or giving up. In January, our focus is Resilience & Stress Recovery , helping swimmers

In competitive swimming, it’s easy to fall into a trap, a trap many athletes spend years in without even realizing it. We begin to believe that our happiness and fulfillment live on the scoreboard. That our worth is measured in tenths of a second. That joy is something we only get to feel after a best time, a cut, or a medal. Our identity and self worth are entangled with cuts and comparisons These milestones are worth celebrating, absolutely. They’re exciting and meaningful.

Success in sports isn’t just determined by strength, speed, or skill, your mind plays an equally important role. How you talk to yourself, how you manage fear, and how you stay present under pressure are game-changing skills that can elevate performance when it matters most. Why the Mind Matters Before a race or big performance, nerves can creep in quickly. Thoughts like What if I fail? What will people think? What if I’m not good enough?  create fear. Fear lives in the futur

Rethinking the “Taper”: Why I Don’t Call It That, and What Actually Happens in the Body Let’s get this out of the way early: I hate the word “taper.” My typical response when kids ask, “are we tapering?” or “when do we start taper?” is, “we don’t taper in this group…” Which is always followed by shocked and blank stares. ;-) The veterans of the group just chuckle. I rarely use the word “taper” when describing the training block leading to a suited and shaved meet because, ove

As a college swim coach, I started to notice a pattern I couldn’t quite ignore. Some athletes seemed to swim their best when they were in a stable romantic relationship. Others, especially around breakups, struggled to find the same sharpness in their training or racing. Even more interesting: this pattern wasn’t evenly distributed. In many cases, I noticed that some male athletes seemed to thrive  both during relationships and after breakups, while some female athletes strug

Energy drinks are everywhere these days, on the sideline, in the gym bag, at tournaments. As an athlete or a parent of an athlete, it’s tempting to think of them as “performance boosters.” But the reality is more complicated than the flashy marketing. Are they truly performance-enhancing? Or are they a health risk, or a mental crutch? The short answer: all three can be true. Here’s a breakdown of what the science actually says, plus guidance for making smarter decisions. What

What USA swimming club swimmers and their parents should understand about the value of 50-meter training. Most American club swimmers spend the majority of their year racing and training in short course yards (SCY) . That’s the course most age-group championships, high school meets, and college seasons take place. So many families naturally ask: “If all the “important” meets are in yards, and my goal is to swim in college… why swim long course meters?” “What’s the point of a

I hear a lot of talk about mentors these days as if the only way to grow is to find one great guru who takes you under their wing. In fact there are quite a few people who make a pretty good living doing just that. But the truth is, excellence in any field rarely comes from being hand-picked by a master. It comes from the drive to seek , study , and steal from everyone who’s doing it well. “Self-Taught” Isn’t a Limitation. It’s a Superpower In college I was an art major, I d

Teaching Athletes to Lead Themselves As coaches, we talk a lot about “building character” we hope our athletes learn to become resilient, self-motivated, and responsible through sport. But hope isn’t a strategy. If we truly want to grow strong character, we have to teach it deliberately , not just assume it happens between laps or sets. This month, our team’s character development theme is Self-Driven Motivation & Ownership  helping swimmers build the kind of inner drive that

I heard something recently and it made me think.... “This new generation is doomed.” Hmmm… Is it? I’m not so sure, but if it is, how do we help? What I’m sharing below comes from a mix of thought, practice, and plenty of trial and error on my part, trying to figure out the best ways to reach and work with today’s athletes. I’ve leaned a lot on Tim Elmore’s work, along with my own day-to-day coaching experiences. Hopefully, this gives you a bit of direction, and maybe a little

*I guess I should start by saying, “spoiler warning!” My guess is though, if you clicked on this you’ve seen the movies, if not you have some homework. Watch Rocky 1-5 or is it 6?…then come back ;-) Before anyone starts throwing punches — yes, I know Rocky I  is one of the greatest sports movies ever made. It redefined the underdog story and gave us one of cinema’s most human portrayals of grit, struggle, and perseverance. Now, full disclosure, I might be a little biased here

Every now and then, a scene from an old movie pops into my head during practice, usually when the set is tough, the swimmers are tired, and the grind is starting to show. One of those scenes comes from Conan the Barbarian (one of my all-time faves;-) ... It’s not a swimming, or sports movie (not even close), but it captures something I think every athlete experiences at some point in their journey. There’s a powerful moment early in the classic movie, after his village is des

US Olympian and gold medalist, Mike Barrowman Now, before you roll your eyes, I’m not talking about emotional “feelings” here, I’m talking about physical  or sensory  ones. One of my all-time favorite (and most often repeated) coaching lines is: “How you feel is overrated.” Often uttered during “taper” or meet prep time and throughout a competition weekend. Some of you might be thinking, “Wait, my emotions don’t matter?!” That’s not quite what I’m saying, they absolutely matt

SwimMAC Senior 1 North and Shark 2 North Group Motto: “Work hard for the person next to you.” As a coach, I believe deeply in the power of group . Not simply the idea of a team in the traditional sense (though that matters) but the truth that our individual success is intimately tied to the strength of the group around us. When you are on a team, every individual achievement is rooted in the collective energy and effort of the group. In swimming, of all sports, this is often

We’ve all heard it before, parents lamenting the relentless grind of swimming: the 5 AM practices, the constant pressure to hit new Personal Bests, the tight schedules, the stress of racing. It’s easy to see why so many might feel like they're losing sight of life’s balance, caught in an endless loop of competition, expectations, and exhaustion. But what if we could shift our focus from “Did I swim faster?” to “Did I give my best effort?” and “Did I execute the process?” This

When I set out to write this book, I didn’t want to make another “how-to” on swimming. I wanted to write something deeper something about what it means  to chase mastery through the sport. In some ways it's my love letter to the sport. A compilation of the things I have gained over the years and the impact it has had on my life, and my pursuit of "The way." Swimming’s Book of the Five Rings  grew out of that idea. It’s not a collection of drills or a manual for faster times.

“No one broke, because no one broke.” — A moment I’ll never forget. From 2008 to 2014, I had the privilege of serving as Head Coach of Chesapeake Bay Aquatic Club (CBAC), a small but mighty USA Swimming team tucked away in Southern Maryland. We had about 90 swimmers, not a powerhouse program by any means, but what we lacked in numbers, we made up for in heart, grit, and curiosity. For some context, and context is everything, as you’ll see, in 2008, the year I took over, we ha

When I sat down to write Ring Five: The Book of the Mind , I knew it would be different. The other rings were about form, rhythm, and power, things you can feel, see, and measure. But this one… this one was about what you can’t. It was about silence, about the space between thoughts, about the mental edge that separates presence from panic. It was about the void. At first, I didn’t know how to write that. How do you describe something that is defined by its absence? There is