SWIMMING GOLD

Half Of Your Short Course Race Is Walls.

Three Key Learning Points: * In a 100 metre short course race, 50 metres of it is affected by walls. * Dive starts, turns and finishes are not skill work sitting beside

The Swimming Coach's Eye.

By Wayne Goldsmith Three Key Learning Points: * Coach’s Eye is a learnable skill, not a talent some coaches were born with. * Look, scan fingers to feet and feet to fi

Keep It Simple In Swimming!

By Wayne Goldsmith Three Key Learning Points: * Propulsion is Newtonian, not aeronautical. Reach out, grab the water, pull straight through. * S-patterns, keyholes and

The Car Ride Home!

Three Key Learning Points * The worst thing you can do is ask them to analyse what went wrong. * The car ride home is not the time to coach - even if you ARE a coach.

The Power of Coaching Through Questioning!

Three Key Learning Points: * The “sage on a stage” coaching model is failing teenage athletes and contributing to the dropout crisis. * If a swimmer solves the problem

Whoever Wins the Start Wins the Race

Three Key Learning Points: * First movement matters - what part of the swimmer’s body moves first usually determines the success of their first 15 metres. * The “little

The 5 Hs: Biomechanics Made Simple

Forget Bernoulli. Forget precise hand pitch angles. Forget complex angular analysis. Let’s make swimming biomechanics practical for every coach. The Problem With Tradi

The PACE Model: Training Zones Made Simple

We’ve overcomplicated training zones for beginner coaches and it’s time to fix it. The Problem With Current Models Most coaching education programs throw 6 or 7 differe

Skills IN the Set, Not Before It

By Wayne Goldsmith Introduction: Every swimming coach does drills and skills work at the same time in their practices. We can do it differently and better! Three Criti

Split Your Main Set

Introduction: The non-stop main set is a relic of 1980s thinking — and it’s producing mediocre swimming disguised as hard work. Three Critical Learning Points: * Pushi

The Four Steps to Making Sure Your Swimmer's Skills Are Race Ready

By Wayne Goldsmith Every swimming coach does some form of skills practice in their training sessions every day. For the most part, coaches focus on learning and practic

Dryland Training's 3 Biggest Questions

By Wayne Goldsmith One of the hottest topics in swimming is always Dryland Training. When I speak at conferences, it’s inevitably a question from the audience. Swimming

This Year's Backstroker is Next Year's Butterflyer.

By Wayne Goldsmith Let’s get this right from the start: There are NO 7 year old backstrokers. There are NO 9 year old freestylers. There are NO 10 year old IMers. Th

Speed, Speed, Speed.

By popular demand — let’s talk about speed. There’s a lot written about it. A lot talked about it. And a lot of confusion about how to actually develop it. Here are my

The Best Coaching Lesson You Will Ever Learn

By Wayne Goldsmith A lot of coaches, when they start out, focus on one thing: physiology. The body. The physical elements of swimming. They spend years looking for dril

Confidence = Belief x Evidence

By Wayne Goldsmith Coaches and parents often ask me: “How do I help my swimmer develop confidence?” Here’s the equation I use: Confidence = Belief × Evidence Think of

Swim Faster by Swimming Straighter — The Straight Line Principle

By Wayne Goldsmith I often get asked to do pool deck sessions with swim teams when I travel. Most of the time it’s drills and skills practices or “motivation” talks, at

The 7 Top Swimming Technique Tips You Need to Know

By Wayne Goldsmith No matter what stroke. No matter the age of the squad swimmer. From “Minis to Masters” - there’s 7 Technique Tips that I guarantee will improve the

Coach Your Coaching

Write a training session for yourself, coach! We all write workouts for our athletes. We know the repeats, the drills, the distances, the times. We prepare everything in

One Session to Change Their Lives.

What would you do if you had ONE session with a team you don’t know, in a place you’ve never been, sometimes in a language you don’t speak, in a culture you don’t underst