Category Archives: Coach Michelle

Perseverance & Tenacity Are the Keys to Success

Which is more important?  Inborn talent or dedication?  I would argue that perseverance & tenacity are the keys to success.  As a swim coach I RARELY am asked to help someone learn the Butterfly stroke.  Most swimmers stay far, far, FAR away from it because, if not done correctly, it’s truly exhausting.  Of the four

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Remote Swim Lessons Really Work!

If you’ve tried to learn a skill over internet (music lessons, dance instruction, singing lessons) you may agree that virtual learning is challenging.  Even with awesome available technology (like Zoom), technique help is most efficiently done in-person with hands-on direct feedback.  But recently I’ve experimented with remote swim lessons which really work! Sometimes we just don’t

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“The BEST Change I Made in 2022” by Coach Michelle

Happy New Year!!  Here’s to the BEST change I made in 2022! The start of a new year finds many folks setting goals, making resolutions & thinking about things they’d like to change.  Maybe this is you too??  It really is a good thing to evaluate where your current trajectory will put you in the

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Optimize Skill Learning With Varied Experiences

Repetition is one way to learn new skills.  But, to optimize your skill learning you really need to put those skills to work in varied experiences.  If you want to really learn something, you need to repeatedly interact with those new skills in as many different ways, scenarios & environments as possible. This is exactly what

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Why Do Technique Drills?

When I was on high school & college swim teams, we always started our workouts with technique drills.  We did all sorts of different drills…many of which seemed completely pointless.  We often asked the coach why we had to do technique drills.  He usually gave a vague, general, because-they’re-good-for-you sort of answer. This experience helped

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Enduro Energy Balls

The food-for-sports market has really grown in recent years.  Long gone are the days of PowerBars being your only easy-to-digest option.  Now there are literally hundreds of energy gels & sports bars to choose from.  Although convenient, these ready-to-eat options are expensive & often contain mystery items such food colorings, emulsifiers, “natural flavors”, fractionated oils (whatever that

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