Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Dr. John Mullen”
As the 2023 Women’s NCAA Championship concludes, reflecting on the swim of the meet is common. Although this is often subjective, it is hard to argue an event where three swimmers broke the NCAA record and more than 1.5 seconds were taken from the record isn’t the swim of the meet. If you aren’t aware, I’m talking about Kate Douglass’ …
The 2023 Women’s NCAA Swimming Championships is off to a bang! On the second night of the meet, two NCAA records were established, Kate Douglass in the 200 IM and Maggie Mac Neil in the 50 free. In the future, an analysis will be performed on the 200 IM, but since the 50 free is the ‘splash and dash’ it …
It is only March 2023 and we have seen numerous fast times this year. Most of the time, these fast times are isolated to the US collegiate SCY scene, but we have had great LCM times, now being led by the recent Kaylee McKeown 2:03.14 200 back WR. Although the time of year was shocking, the athlete was not, as …
The 2021 [2020] Tokyo Olympics are fast approaching and no one is approaching them as fast as 16-year-old David Popovici. He went from a deep swim nerd name to a gold medal contender to expectations of breaking 46 seconds (from some, not this author) in less than 6 months. However, will we see Popovici break a 100 free WR in …
The relay exchange is a critical component of relays. Subjectively, you can watch a great relay exchange and watch the superior relay start make a significant improvement over their competitors. Yet, the ideal swimming relay start technique has garnered minimal research. Like most aspects of swimming, research is often behind the elite swimmers. Coaches and swimmers are creative and can …
Caeleb Dressel’s 20.16 scm 50 free WR gave him now both short course records in the events (SCY and SCM). Mr. Dressel broke Manaudou’s WR last year and he was able to re-break the record on November 21st 2020 in the ISL bubble. For those who haven’t followed one of our analyses, these analyses are for fun and to spark …
Research investigating foam rollers, roller massagers, and other similar devices have generally reported increased range of motion (ROM), diminished perceived pain, accelerated recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage and augmented performance. This makes foam rolling for swimmers a pertinent topic for all swimmers and coaches. The mechanisms underpinning these significant ROM increases with rolling may be quite diverse. Muscle, fascia, and …
On March 23, 2020 Dick Pound said the 2020 Olympics would likely be postponed. “On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound said in a phone interview. “The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.” This came a few …
Six years ago, I wrote a very controversial piece for Swimming World suggesting that age-group and developing swimmers should take a 2-month break every year from swimming. In this article, I discussed how a two-month break would benefit swimmers physically and psychologically. I also hypothesized on a few reasons why a two-month break is unlikely in the sport. While typing …
“What are you doing during the shelter-in-place?” “Is your team practicing?” “Anyone have any Zoom practice ideas?” These are the common questions from coaches and swimmers. Clearly, coaches and swimmers are concerned about swimming detraining. I recently spoke with Dr. Rodrigo Zacca, Ph.D, a Postdoctoral Researcher of Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal who published a recent study on Effects of …