By Grace Hoffmann It didn’t take long for me to realize that my parents were just as, or maybe even more, involved in my swimming career than I was. I am grateful for all the times they woke up early to take me to morning practice, and the many hours they spent at swim meets waiting for me to swim a race that took under a minute. However, I am more grateful for all the other things they’ve done. The lessons that they’ve taught and the support that they show,...

It’s Cool To Cooldown: The Importance of Caring For the Body “Do a cooldown.” Whether it be after a race or practice, every swimmer has heard these words from their coach. Cooling down is a lower intensity level of activity and it should be done after strength training, practice, and competition. Cooling down may seem unnecessary to some swimmers because they view it as “extra swimming.” However, a cooldown has great benefits, including relaxation, recovery, injury prevention, and muscle mobility. Relaxation Cooling down helps with relaxation. Cooling down can eliminate...

By Taylor Padington Why is it that swimmers think that swimming is the only sport they can do? I have heard this phrase time and time again: putting a swimmer on land is like taking a fish out of the water. However, as I took a poll of the Boise State swim team, I found that all 20 girls played at least one other sport growing up and out of the entire team, 75 percent were involved in three or more sports. Read More

By Annie Grevers, Swimming World Staff Writer The teenage years are not necessarily one’s most selfless stage in life. Your own swimming career grows ever more important and your swims can begin to dictate how you treat other people. It’s not that teenage swimmers are incapable of being selfless, contributive, caring for those around them; it’s just that many times, they have no idea how much of a ripple effect their actions and reactions have on those around them. READ MORE

From the Swimming World website... By Grace Hoffmann It didn’t take long for me to realize that my parents were just as, or maybe even more, involved in my swimming career than I am. I am grateful for all the times they woke up early to take me to morning practice, and the many hours they spent at swim meets waiting for me to swim a race that took under a minute. However, I am more grateful for all the other things they’ve done. The lessons that they’ve taught and...

From the Swimming World website... By SUZIE RYAN We will all have a bad race or two, or sometimes even more throughout our swimming careers, but it’s how we handle ourselves during these times that makes us stand out as athletes. After a bad race, we have two options. We can cry, be angry, blame others, mope around and let it affect our whole mood and outlook on swimming and life. Or, we can use it to motivate us to be a better swimmer, to work harder and achieve greater...

From the Swimming World website... By Brooke Irving, Swimming World College Intern Swimmers lead a lifestyle that doesn’t make sense to non-swimmers. But can we really blame them for not understanding? Like no other, we voluntarily jump into a cold pool in the dead of winter (most often more than six times per week) and spend hours at swim meets only to actually swim for a couple minutes... Read more >>

by Wayne Goldsmith Swimming Coaches & Parents Below we ran a previously published piece in which Wayne Goldsmith took a look at 10 things parents do that irritate coaches. Well, there is another side of that coin. So, Goldsmith also took a glance at things that coaches do that get to parents. Those points are emphasized in the following article. When Wayne first drafted this article, he enlisted the assistance of some swimming parents that he knew to create his list. If you observe any of this behaviors from a...

By Wayne Goldsmith This article on swimming parents originally ran a few years ago, but the heart of the piece remains true and unchanged. Take a few minutes to read the insights below and reflect on what the author is saying. It could be helpful in generating harmony between key parties in a swimmer’s life. A close friend and one of the giants of world swimming coaching has a saying: “My idea of coaching heaven is to have a ten lane, world-class swimming facility, with a fully equipped, professional quality...

By Elises Devlin There’s nothing worse than getting a wide eyed, worrisome expression from your friend after you answered their question, “So, what event do you have next?” We’ve all been there. Lurking somewhere in your meet lineup is only the worst event to exist. But which event is that? Maybe the 400 IM, with its strict demand of endurance in every stroke, all packed into one race. Or is it the 200 cry…I mean fly? C’mon, who really thinks eight whole laps of butterfly is a stroll in the...