Making stroke changes is difficult, especially for
younger swimmers. Alexander Popov’s coach, Coach Gennadi Touretski, once said
that it took Alexander about 100,000 m of focused swimming to take a minor
change in his freestyle. Coaches may sometimes feel that they don’t have the
necessary knowledge, or that his/her swimmers don’t have the ability, but this
is not the problem. Coaches real challenge in helping his/her swimmers to
improve their stroke is to keep them focused until the good skills become
habitual and then continue to reinforce and polish those good habits. They have
to realize that many barriers stand in the way of positive change.
