Ready for some quick Champion's Mojo? 37-year old Sarah Swoch, a Masters swimmer for St. Pete Masters (since the age of 18) joins the show right before her 100 butterfly at YMCA Masters Nationals. Sarah shares her love for the Masters swimming community and her training routine, which includes swimming five to six times a week and rock climbing twice a week. She also talks about her career as an eighth-grade science teacher, the importance of promoting science education and how we can use science to swim faster. Finally, Sarah answers the question we always want to know, what goes through your mind when you dive in the water?.....It's short and sweet, give it a listen!

Email us at [email protected]. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

Ready for some Mojo from Adam Ritter, a member of the Palm Beach Masters and a 37-year-old world record holder? We caught up with Adam on deck at the YMCA Masters Nationals, where he dominated with six gold medals in his first short course meet since before the COVID break.

Discover the swimming strategies and energy management techniques that Adam uses as a multiple-time national champion and world record holder. Ritter shares his approach to racing, emphasizing the importance of managing his race and avoiding exhausting himself too quickly. He also discusses his training regimen, which involves swimming and weightlifting, and focuses on technique and quality.

Ritter reflects on his family's legacy of swimming success but notes that he did not feel pressured by his world-class swimming parents. His parents allowed him to excel in the sport and discover it on his own terms. Hear why Adam is inspired by 78-year-old fellow teammate Dave Quiggin in the pool! Give it a listen to find out...

The picture shows Adam with his parents James and Susan Ritter, taken by Kelly Palace at the 2022 Masters Summer LC Nationals.

Email us at [email protected]. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

Kelly and Maria dive into the question of whether swimming gets easier, and share their personal experiences and insights on overcoming challenges in the water. From breathing techniques to mindset shifts, learn practical tips to improve your swimming performance and make your time in the water more enjoyable. 

Whether you're a beginner or an experienced swimmer, this episode offers valuable wisdom and inspiration to help you enhance your swimming skills and dive deeper into your swim adventures. Don't miss out on this compelling conversation that will leave you itching to jump in the pool and see if you can make swimming fast easier!

Topics:
-Air hunger
-Swim/Run comparisons
-Olympic Swimmers like Alex Walsh (our photo model for this episode's artwork) make swimming look easy, but is it for them?
-Is fast swimming easy?
-Overheard on deck?
-How do you feel like a mermaid?
-Why you should warm up your lungs
-Takeaways

Email us at [email protected]. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

This episode is about the impact of emotions on athletic performance and how using the most powerful positive emotions can make you perform your best!  Kelly and Maria agree that an athlete's (or any kind of performer's)  emotions before an event, can impact their results in a big way.

Positive emotions such as love, gratitude, and compassion produce oxytocin and norepinephrine, which make us feel good and powerful, while negative emotions such as fear, guilt, and shame produce cortisol and make us feel down and negative. 

You'll also hear about the idea of using positive emotions to enhance performance, such as the idea of thinking of 10 positive emotions to evoke before a race to uplift you. And learn tips for getting rid of negative thoughts. 

Here are topics in the show:

1. Posture, facial expressions, and body language can predict who will win a race as Kelly observed at 2023 Women's NCAA Swimming Championships.
2. Positive emotions like love, gratitude, and compassion can produce oxytocin and norepinephrine and enhance performance.
3. Negative emotions like fear, guilt, and shame can produce cortisol and reduce performance.
4. Episode #200 references the interview with top-notch masters coach Mark Kutz who says you better love swimming and working out.
5. The idea is based on Biologist Bruce Lipton's work from his book The Biology of Belief and the global Human Affectome Project which studies emotions and performance.
6. Experts believes that what's in your mind impacts your performance.
7. Maria can tell how a workout will be based on how she feels before it.
8. Fear can be useful to amp you up, but being overly fearful can hurt performance.
9. Changing negative thoughts to positive ones can change your whole day. Try fake it until you make it.
10. Having a history of success can make competition fun, but a series of poor performances requires changing your thoughts to perform better.

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Email us at [email protected]. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

If you want to take your swimming to new heights this interview is for you! You'll hear great stories, tips and advice for getting faster from the extraordinary Masters Swim Coach Mark Kutz, of NOVA Aquatics of Virginia. Join Kelly and Maria for the 200th episode of Champion's Mojo!

Just a few of the topics and stories:
1) A new masters swimmer that has gone from barely being able to swim to darn fast!
2) The 3 most important things Masters Swimmers need to be doing
2) Why just swimming laps may be hurting your progress
3) What kind of sets that will make you faster for longer races
4) A mile that Coach Kutz swam where a piano fell on his back
5) The importance of enthusiam
6) The history of broken-mile-Friday
7) (Almost) everything you need to know about this magical swim coach, Mark Kutz!
8) And as always.....Kelly and Maria wrap the interview with their popular TAKEAWAYS!

Coach Kutz has been coaching with NOVA Aquatics of Virginia in the Richmond Virginia area since 2002 and before that with many of the top clubs in the Richmond area, coaching both youth and Masters swimmers for decades. Mark swam at the division 1 level at VCU and earned a degree in Health and PE and was captain of the swim team his last two years. Mark has coached many US National Masters Champions as well as world-record holders. 

He's also a Masters Swimmer himself. What Mark’s resume doesn’t officially show is that he’s encouraged and inspired young kids in the NOVA program who have gone onto be Olympic Champion’s and while he wasn’t the “coach of record” he worked with these champion’s when they were developing. 

Mark is a certified level 4 US Swimming coach. In 2012, he won USMasters swimming’s Kerry O’Brien Coaching award, which is given in recognition of coaches who have done a great job in building strong USMasters membership in local communities. He has contributed regularly to the US Masters Swimmer magazine.

Email us at [email protected]. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

This episode is a great Q & A on how to improve your starts off the block with some very basic information, and some lesser discussed deep dives on the topic to give you an advantage in your next race. 

• Multiple tips for how to improve your pool starts and when to go to the block
• When the heat before yours finishes, you will hear three short whistles, and then one long whistle. The long whistle indicates that you can step onto the block.
• Once you are on the block, curl your toes around the front edge, and when they say "swimmers take your mark", lean forward.
• For Masters you don't have to start on the top of the block; you can start on the edge of the pool or even in the pool.
• Some pools have a starting wedge behind the block, which is similar to what is used in track and field.
• When starting, swimmers want to push off with their feet and extend their arms to create momentum.
• The goal of a good pool start is to have a long and fast glide underwater, which saves time.
• It’s recommended to practice starting with a coach or experienced swimmer, and filming yourself to see what you can improve.
• Experts suggests doing dryland exercises to improve your strength and explosiveness off the block, such as box jumps, squats, and lunges.
• They discuss how the start is the low-hanging fruit for improving swim times.
• Getting a good start is important because it sets the momentum for the race.
• Swimmers should aim for a streamlined entry into the water to reduce drag and cut off seconds from their time.
• The best way to improve starts is to practice regularly, and even doing one start after each practice can lead to significant improvements.
• The minimum starting depth for any start is five feet eight inches of water to prevent injury.
• We touch on the issue of goggles falling off during races, and the best advice is to get them off as soon as possible if they become a hindrance. 

Email us at [email protected]. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

Masters Swimmers, so many tips to help you get faster in your next meet is in this episode! Whether you are experienced or new to Masters swimming there are many gems for improvement from this stellar swimmer and coach with a contagious passion for the sport. And if you've ever thought about swimming with your local Youth Swim Team, this episode is for you! 

Masters World and National record holder Eric Christensen has been training with a "kids" team for 20 years and it pays off for him in a big way.  He loves to swim six days a week and workout with weights five days a week. His work ethic will inspire you and his advice on getting faster isn't just from his own experience, because he's also a swim coach.   

Email us at [email protected]. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

Masters Swimmers, have you ever swum faster in practice or alone than in a meet, or when it was time to put it all on the line? Have you been overly worried about how your stroke looks, the piano falling, or that you don't look the part? Then Kelly's and Maria's conversation today will be of value to you! While swimming is a technique driven sport, sometimes that can be taken too far. A few discussion topics in this episode:
1) Kelly's practice set of 500s where she went faster than in a recent meet
2) Masters Superstar Kurt Dickson's imperfect stroke
3) NCAA Historic Speedster Jordan Crooks' unique stroke
4) ACC 200 backstroker swimming 1:54 with an odd stroke
5) Definition of character as it applies to this topic
6) An update on Maria's flip turns
Join Champion's Mojo, get your mojo working and swim like no one is watching!

Email us at [email protected]. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

This interview is guaranteed to inspire you and brighten your day! Swim Ft. Lauderdale Masters Team (SFTL) is one of the largest and best masters swimming programs in the nation.  Esteemed Head Swim Coach Marty Hendricks gives only one award each year, "The Clyde Akbar Spirit Award".  In this interview you'll meet the man behind the award, Clyde Akbar himself.  Clyde's life reads like a page-turning novel, starting with being thrown off a cliff into the sea at age 12  as his intro to swimming. Clyde's mother was murdered when he was only 13, causing him and his 7 siblings to be scattered around the globe from their home country of Trinidad. 

Clyde then landed in the US and joined the US military at age 17, later receiving a Purple Heart Award for his service in Vietnam, and that's just the beginning of his story.  Swimming and Violin came later in his life after a 27 year "tough career" as a probation officer and being one of few blacks (during his tenure) to graduate from Loyola University with a degree in Criminal Justice after earning his GED in the military.

Then after retiring Clyde moved to Ft. Lauderdale, learned to swim and fell in love with Masters Swimming in his sixties. He also learned violin late in life and still takes lessons with kids!

You'll be inspired and entertained by this man of faith, determination and love for life- a man who, "doesn't quit (that easy)".  Be sure to stay until the end for Kelly and Maria's insightful takeaways from Clyde's interview.  

Email us at [email protected]. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

Join dedicated Masters Swimmer Lindsay Price, Captain, SpaceX  Falcon Ark Recovery Vessel, for this riveting interview on Champion's Mojo and learn about how she (mostly) swims seven days a week, breaks glass ceilings in the maritime industry, and lives on a ship for 28 days at a time! 

This remote interview took place while Lindsay was captaining a ship heading east of the Bahamas to recover a SpaceX rocket that was about to be launched into space. She describes watching rocket launches and the excitement of seeing boosters land on the barges she places with her tug boat. Lindsay also chats about splitting her time between Houston and Cape Canaveral, shares her journey to becoming a captain, and advocating for women in the maritime industry. Finally, she talks about her love for swimming, how it has been a constant in her life, her dedication to swimming, and how she thinks it may have played a role in her getting hired at SpaceX!

If you enjoy learning about the intersection of different disciplines and the stories of remarkable individuals, then this show is for you. Listen and get your mojo working!

Email us at [email protected]. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.