3 Things You Didn’t Know About Ultra-Endurance Swimming

3 Things You Didn’t Know About Ultra-Endurance Swimming

Dr. GJohn Mullen Blog, Competition, Dr. John Mullen, Latest&Greatest, Training Leave a Comment

Take Home Points on 3 Things you Didn’t Know About Ultra-Endurance Swimming Ultra-endurance swimming often doesn’t result in maximal fatigue, cause hunger, or alter swimming hand path.This form of training isn’t as negative as some suggest on swimming skill. Many associate ultra-endurance swimming with pain and fatigue. However, we know little on the subject, despite it’s growing popularity. Now, many swimmers have …

Five Tips for Improved Freestyle Head Position in Swimming

Five Tips for Improved Freestyle Head Position in Swimming

Dr. GJohn Mullen Blog, Competition, Dr. John Mullen, Training 2 Comments

Take home points1) Raised freestyle head position is one of the most common stroke flaws in freestyle2) Corrective strategies must be individualized to each swimmer3) Avenues for change include biomechanical, cognitive, and environmental Raised freestyle head position in freestyle is one of the most common stroke flaws in the pool at all levels of the sport. In the literature this …

External vs. Internal Focus for Optimal Skill Acquisition in Swimmers.

External vs. Internal Focus for Optimal Skill Acquisition in Swimmers.

Dr. GJohn Mullen Blog, Competition, Latest&Greatest, Training Leave a Comment

We all have various cues to communicate with athletes.  Everyone’s cues vary with style, audience, and available tools such as video.  Clarity is our goal with athlete communications.  “Feel” does not always equate to “real”, which is why video is so powerful.  Regardless of whether you use video or not, what matters most is how the athlete internalizes cues.  As …

Friday Interview: Dr. Wymore on Healthy Swimmers More Dysfunctional Than Injured Baseball Players: Swim Shoulder Pain

Friday Interview: Dr. Wymore on Healthy Swimmers More Dysfunctional Than Injured Baseball Players: Swim Shoulder Pain

Dr. GJohn Mullen Biomechanics, Blog, Competition, Dr. John Mullen, Injuries, Latest&Greatest, Training 2 Comments

This is an interview with Dr. Lucas Wymore. Dr. Wymore recently published: Shoulder Functional Performance Status of National Collegiate Athletic Association Swimmers: Baseline Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic Scores. This interview discusses this research article, but don’t forget to look at Dr. Wymore’s other study: No correlation between stroke specialty and rate of shoulder pain in NCAA men swimmers. For more on Swimmer’s Shoulder checkout Swimmer’s Shoulder …

7 Ways to Reduce Swimming Low Back Pain

7 Ways to Reduce Swimming Low Back Pain

Dr. GJohn Mullen Biomechanics, Blog, Competition, Dr. John Mullen, Injuries, Training 1 Comment

The shoulder is the primary site of injury in swimmers, but the low back is the second most commonly injured site. In fact, ~8% of those competing at a 2001 International competition experienced low back pain. Kaneoka (2007) noted thirty-eight (68%) elite swimmers and 11 (29%) controls had degenerated discs at various levels. Disc level L5-S1 was more frequently degenerated …

3 Questions to Ask Yourself Regarding your Swimming Training Program

3 Questions to Ask Yourself Regarding your Swimming Training Program

Dr. GJohn Mullen Blog, Competition, Dr. John Mullen, Training 1 Comment

Overreaching is the close cousin of overtraining We’ve previously discussed in detail the negative effects of overtraining. Also, anyone in sports understands the importance of training hard and pushing oneself, ideally for the super-compensation effect. However, the effect balance of swimming training and rest for maximizing overreaching, while minimizing overtraining is extremely difficult. In swimming, many teams perform macrocycles of approximately 3 months, …

4 Strategies Swimmers Can Learn From Divers

4 Strategies Swimmers Can Learn From Divers

Dr. GJohn Mullen Blog, Competition, Dr. John Mullen, Latest&Greatest, Training Leave a Comment

Take home points1) By observing the diving culture, swimmers can hold themselves to a higher standard with feedback and visualization to improve technical quality in the pool2) Though energy systems are very different, swimmers can learn from the high standard of technical execution in diving3) Despite being an early specialization sport, most divers have a background in gymnastics and dance …

50-m Free Time Trial in Morning and Evening Result in no Performance Difference in Elite Swimmers

50-m Free Time Trial in Morning and Evening Result in no Performance Difference in Elite Swimmers

admin Blog, Competition, Latest&Greatest Leave a Comment

Based on the circadian rhythms of hormone levels, gene expression, and core body temperature, it could be expected that the best performance in terms of strength, flexibility, alertness, and anaerobic power output occurs in the late afternoon. Indeed, improvements of 3.6% for 50 m, 1.9% for 100 m, and 0.8% for 400 m swimming performance were observed in the afternoon/evening …

Effect of Squat Depth and Load on Muscular Effort

Effect of Squat Depth and Load on Muscular Effort

Dr. GJohn Mullen Blog, Competition, Dr. John Mullen, Dryland, Latest&Greatest, Training Leave a Comment

The squat is a popular dry-land exercise for swimming. This is likely due to the numerous muscles involved and the common belief this motion mimics a flip turn (despite contradictory research). However, the effect the depth and load on the squat are unknown. Muscle force is hard to measure, therefore motion analysis techniques combined with the equations to solve for …

Auditory feedback helps adapt to altered environment

Auditory feedback helps adapt to altered environment

Dr. GJohn Mullen Blog, Competition, Dr. John Mullen, Latest&Greatest, Training Leave a Comment

Providing feedback during practice and competitions is common in all sports. Despite the difficulty of providing feedback during swimming, coaches and teammates commonly provide numerous visual and auditory cues. Sensory substitution is the skill of the nervous system to receive input from one sensory system and transmit this information to another sensory system. For example, in swimming the sensory system …