Different times call for different approaches to keep you learning and improve your swimming.

 

Using my wealth of swimming knowledge and competition experience, I have been developing an improvers programme that can be followed from the comfort of your home with specific focus on freestyle. I have reimagined or created exercises that mimic and replicate the key components that make up the efficient swimming stroke.

 

The courses are designed to develop and build a deeper understanding about the ‘what, why and how’ of learning movement routines and exercises to develop muscular strength and endurance and, more importantly, to build and imprint muscle memory and improve proprioception, both essential components allowing automatic recall of how to perform correct technique without having to think about it. 

 

How will this happen? Well once the brain starts to process and understand the 'what' & the 'why', self-awareness of the relative positioning of all the body parts involved in swimming starts to develop. Building positive muscle memory requires the body to learn (or re-learn) how to activate the right muscles, with the right movements, at the right time (neuromuscular activation), to position, hold or move body parts into position, whilst maintaining awareness of their relative position in relation to the other moving and stationary parts (proprioception).

 

Neuro-muscular activation is a focus on key functional  movements that retrain the muscles, brain and joints to communicate with each other improving movement, strength, balance and function.

 

Proprioception plays an important role in the planning of precise and coordinated movements, body awareness, in maintaining balance and controlling body posture. Proprioception is a continuous feedback loop between the sensory receptors found in your skin, muscles, joints and nervous system. During movement, the brain senses the effort, force, and weight of the actions and positions, responding accordingly. Essentially, the sensory receptors relay information to the brain when a body part is moving, so it learns where a body part is relative to the rest of the body. 

 

Both neuro-muscular activation and proprioception are fundamental in the early stages of learning, as they pave the way to developing a solid base upon which to build.

​