Principles of Motor Learning & Swim Applications: Volume 2

with Michael Brooks,
Weymouth Waves Head Swimming Coach;
former King Aquatic Club Head Coach;
former York YMCA Swimming Head Coach/Director of Competitive Swimming;
4x YMCA Short Course Nationals Coach of the Year ('10, '12, '13, '15);
2x Middle Atlantic LSC Senior Coach of the Year ('14, '15);
coached four National Junior Team members and 2 National Team Members

Michael Brooks has experienced plenty of success as a swimming coach, and in this video, he provides key insight into some of his preferred training methods that have helped him craft championship swimmers. You'll see Brooks covers variable practice and why it's an effective approach, tempo trainers that produce a strong stroke, and progressions that put various techniques together.

Variable Practice

Coach Brooks begins by explaining the benefits of variable practice vs. constant practice. You'll learn how to teach your swimmers to intelligently control the choices they make in the water and also discover how to give swimmers more opportunities to make good choices.

Building up to the ultimate goal of stroke mastery, Brooks explains how through motor learning, swimmers can explore their skills, their distance per stroke, their stroke rate and pace. Additionally, he covers how to steer swimmers away from their natural tendencies when those tendencies cause problems and make their technique worse.

Tempo Trainer & Progressions

When using tempo trainers, Coach Brooks aims to have all skills in a stroke come into sync. He shows how you can work to calibrate the stroke to fit your tempo. In the pool, you'll see an example of a freestyle tempo trainer that aims to produce a longer stroke, plus more.

Also included by Brooks are some of his preferred training progressions. You'll learn progressions for loading, including how to add speed, resistance and volume to a swimmer's load. Balance and feel in the water, as well as timing, propulsion and body line are addressed and Coach Brooks explains his best progressions to improve distance per stroke, stroke rate, and race pace.

This is an excellent video that will elevate the effectiveness of every stroke your athletes take. No question about it - Coach Brooks is an expert - and his experience is here for your benefit!

122 minutes. 2020.