Articles and Videos
What You Need to Know to Host a USMS-Sanctioned Meet
Swim meets give athletes a way to measure fitness and fine-tune racing skills/strategies. Meets also provide coaches with feedback to improve training programs. Informal intrasquad meets and competition in practice can offer many of the same benefits...
Three Reasons Why You Should Run an Intrasquad Meet
Here are three reasons why you should hold a mini-meet during a workout.
Coaching Swimmers Through Burnout
Your Masters program thrives when swimmers regularly attend practices, competitions, and social events. But even the most committed athletes occasionally suffer a condition known as burnout, which makes them reluctant to participate.
How to Persuade Your Swimmers to Try Different Things
Our greatest coaching breakthroughs come when our swimmers understand that variety opens doors to higher achievement.
Keep it Simple, Coach
One of the joys of coaching is that it provides an outlet for your creativity. It’s fun to think of unique ways to share your passion for helping swimmers improve. But as your brain is brewing its brilliance, remember that your athlet...
The Value of Quality Complaints
If you’ve never asked your swimmers for feedback through an end-of-season survey, now might be time to do so. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to ask your swimmers for useful feedback. Here’s how to help your swimmers help yo...
Tips for Helping Your Swimmers Fix Their Technique
No coach wants to be known as a nagging nuisance, so we might sometimes be tempted to keep our observations to ourselves. Indeed, some swimmers may not be interested in receiving feedback, and we do need to be sensitive to that. But swimming is a hi...
Use These Vocal Techniques to Become a Better Coach
Tremendous technical knowledge of swimming’s stroke subtleties has no value if you can’t effectively pass it on to our swimmers. Therefore, communication is the cornerstone of the coaching craft.
Mentoring is an Important Tool for Coaches
One of the best things about Masters Swimming is the support and inspiration we receive from the great folks we meet in the water and on the pool deck. Here are a few ways to leverage those connections to ensure our sport continues to grow and prospe...
Five Concepts You Should Share to Welcome New Swimmers
Here are five critical concepts that experienced swimmers take for granted but that can be utterly foreign to new Masters swimmers.
