Commentary

18 Essentials to Pack for Your Training Trip By Kelsey Mitchell With many swimmers set to take part in a training trip, Swimming World hopes the following article can be useful.  Packing for your team's training trip can be difficult, especially if you are going directly from winter break to your tr...

By Olivia McKelvey, Swimming World College Intern.  'Tis the season for coaches to inflict unlimited hours of training and pain upon their swimmers is now. In order to help all aquatic athletes - college, club, high school etc. - Swimming World has accumulated a list of tips and tricks to help you g...

A Swimmer's Starter Pack: What Screams 'Swimmer?' There are some things that just scream, “you’re a swimmer!” If swimmers had a starter pack, what do you think would be in it? Read along to see what critical items swimmers can’t live without, and what common looks identify a typical competitive swim...

A Letter To the Coach Who Left Me Throughout our careers, we will have relationships with a few different coaches. If we are lucky, we will get to know and be close to a few. Those relationships will be some of the most important and influential ones of your career and life. They mean a lot to you -...

From the Start, the 2024 Swimming Campaign Was Defined by Speed ... and a Fresh Approach to the Sport As the calendar flipped to 2024, maybe we should have known. The signs – after all – were there. For starters, we entered an Olympic year, which history suggests is almost always faster than a typic...

An Explanation Of How Tech Suits Benefit Swimmers When it comes time to race, many swimmers, especially those racing in high-level competitions, wear specialized knee-length swimsuits known as tech suits. They're everywhere in the swimming world. But how do tech suits work? And do they actually make...

As holiday training prepares to ramp up, Swimming World is running this piece from the archive that emphasizes the connection between an athlete and the grueling nature of holiday work in the water and the weight room. The piece stresses the importance of this time of year, so get yourself ready to ...

Based on the TikTok Trend: We're Swimmers, Of Course We ... (Fill in the Blank)! Many of us have seen the TikTok trend, “We’re girls, of course we ALWAYS have a hair tie around our wrist!” Why not transition this trend to make it swimming-related? Read along for 10 relatable, “we’re swimmers…” phras...

The 7 Sins of Swimming (From the Archive - Originally Published 2017) By Chandler Brandes There is no such thing as a perfect swimmer. As swimmers, we sometimes (although rarely) make mistakes. We may DQ, forget our heat and lane, or even accidentally-on-purpose rip our cap at the exact moment a har...

Dryland Mania: Out-of-the-Pool Drills to Help You Succeed in the Water “Coming to practice is only part of being a great swimmer.” Those were the words my coach always used to tell me. Sure, swim Practice represents the best opportunity for a swimmer to get better. Through building strength and spee...

Army-Navy and College Swimming's Attendance Boom: A Significant Shakeup December 6 was a typical Thursday night in West Point, New York, with hundreds briskly shuffling in to watch their Knights compete. The stands were packed shoulder-to shoulder, anxious in their anticipation of the big event. Thi...

Breaking Through Plateaus: Keep the Faith - Your Day Will Come One stroke, two strokes—kick, pull, breathe. My heart pounded as I swam for the wall. I knew that this was the swim that  would be different, this is the swim where my hard work would finally pay off. I touched the wall, and slowly looke...

Holiday Gift Ideas From a Swimmer: We Know What We Want...and Can Use By Casey McNulty & Edie Sawyer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXhgy7f-SFA&feature=youtu.be It’s that time of the year again. The holiday season is upon us, which means it is time to start forming your list of gift ideas, to finis...

5 of the Hardest Winter Training Sets Winter training… aka, every swimmer’s worst nightmare. Winter training is known to be the hardest week of practice during the swim season. The part that makes it so difficult is the high intensity workouts and the increase in yardage. Listed below are five of th...

A Special Week: Gretchen Walsh Achieves Greatest Short Course Performance Ever Surprised by the sheer dominance that Gretchen Walsh imposed on the world's best sprinters at the Short Course World Championships? Then you haven't been paying close enough attention to the 21-year-old's trajectory over ...

5 Signs a Swimmer Has Taken Ownership of Their Sport (Archive) By Brad Jones One common trait that you will consistently see in successful senior level swimmers is that they have complete ownership of their swimming. Over my years of working with high school kids on the Bellingham Bay Swim Team, I’v...

Meet Warmup: A Step-by-Step Process to Get Ready to Race Once swimmers are no longer considered age-group or club swimmers, that means they are usually on their own when it comes time to warming up at meets. Without the guidance of their coach telling them exactly what to do, swimmers sometimes feel...

6 Meet Day Nutrition Strategies Swimmers Should Know Among the most important things an athlete can do is set goals, and with these goals come standards. Proper training, sleep, and nutrition are vital necessities for success in any sport. But balancing these priorities can be challenging when jobs,...

Bypassing Short Course Worlds a Difficult But Sensible Decision for Leon Marchand, Kaylee McKeown and Others Four months after the conclusion of the Paris Olympics, another swimming competition will bear the title of global championship as World Aquatics hosts the biennial Short Course World Champio...

Why Being an IMer is the Perfect Situation (From the Archive) By Cathleen Pruden Full disclosure: I am a 400 IMer and I absolutely love it. It took me a while to come to terms with my fate as an IMer. I struggled with the fact that I didn't have a "prime" stroke. It wasn't until being well rounded s...