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The Best Coaching Lesson You Will Ever Learn
By Wayne Goldsmith
A lot of coaches, when they start out, focus on one thing: physiology. The body. The physical elements of swimming.
They spend years looking for drills, workouts, training programs, session plans. They go to conferences. An elite coach stands up and talks about their sets and reps, their periodisation. Everyone writes it down or takes a photo of the PowerPoint. Everyone’s looking for the secret formula, the magic pill, the quick fix that’s going to turn their program into a high-performance machine.
Colleagues, that’s not where your advantage is going to come from.
Because of the internet and AI, you can get anything, anytime, anywhere — mostly for free.
Type “top 10 freestyle drills for age group swimmers” into ChatGPT or Google and you’ll get solid answers in seconds. That stuff is everywhere now. There was a time when coaches guarded their best drills and workouts. Not anymore.
You are no longer limited by your knowledge of the sport. You are no longer limited by what drills you know or how much you understand about heart rate or lactate. Those things are not limits anymore because everybody knows what everybody knows.
There are no secrets.
When I travel, people ask me: “What’s the secret to the Australian program? What are they doing differently?”
The answer is nothing. Everybody is doing more or less what everybody else is doing.
The one thing that will give you an advantage is YOU.
Your coaching.
The way you connect with your swimmers.
The way you build relationships.
The people factors are more important than ever.
There is no app, no drill, no download that’s going to fix every problem you’ve got.
There is no coach in the world — regardless of how many Olympic gold medals they’ve won — who holds secrets in their workouts. That is not the secret to success.
Your edge is your ability to connect with kids.
To put smiles on faces.
To make them fall in love with the experience of swimming.
To create friendship groups so they keep coming back.
Some coaches hear this and say I’m getting soft. I’m not.
If swimmers love what they do, they work harder at it.
They come more often.
They commit more fully to training and competition.
Measuring VO2 or counting laps is nowhere near as important as you think it is. Coaching is far more important than you think it is.
Believe in your coaching. Believe in yourself. Believe in your way of doing things.
It’s your relationships, your personality, your energy, your character, your values. The things you already have.
Not equipment. Not apps. Not downloads. Not AI.
The difference is you.
What do you do to connect and inspire the swimmers in your program?
Wayne Goldsmith
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit swimminggold.substack.com/subscribe
View all episodes
By Wayne GoldsmithBy Wayne Goldsmith
A lot of coaches, when they start out, focus on one thing: physiology. The body. The physical elements of swimming.
They spend years looking for drills, workouts, training programs, session plans. They go to conferences. An elite coach stands up and talks about their sets and reps, their periodisation. Everyone writes it down or takes a photo of the PowerPoint. Everyone’s looking for the secret formula, the magic pill, the quick fix that’s going to turn their program into a high-performance machine.
Colleagues, that’s not where your advantage is going to come from.
Because of the internet and AI, you can get anything, anytime, anywhere — mostly for free.
Type “top 10 freestyle drills for age group swimmers” into ChatGPT or Google and you’ll get solid answers in seconds. That stuff is everywhere now. There was a time when coaches guarded their best drills and workouts. Not anymore.
You are no longer limited by your knowledge of the sport. You are no longer limited by what drills you know or how much you understand about heart rate or lactate. Those things are not limits anymore because everybody knows what everybody knows.
There are no secrets.
When I travel, people ask me: “What’s the secret to the Australian program? What are they doing differently?”
The answer is nothing. Everybody is doing more or less what everybody else is doing.
The one thing that will give you an advantage is YOU.
Your coaching.
The way you connect with your swimmers.
The way you build relationships.
The people factors are more important than ever.
There is no app, no drill, no download that’s going to fix every problem you’ve got.
There is no coach in the world — regardless of how many Olympic gold medals they’ve won — who holds secrets in their workouts. That is not the secret to success.
Your edge is your ability to connect with kids.
To put smiles on faces.
To make them fall in love with the experience of swimming.
To create friendship groups so they keep coming back.
Some coaches hear this and say I’m getting soft. I’m not.
If swimmers love what they do, they work harder at it.
They come more often.
They commit more fully to training and competition.
Measuring VO2 or counting laps is nowhere near as important as you think it is. Coaching is far more important than you think it is.
Believe in your coaching. Believe in yourself. Believe in your way of doing things.
It’s your relationships, your personality, your energy, your character, your values. The things you already have.
Not equipment. Not apps. Not downloads. Not AI.
The difference is you.
What do you do to connect and inspire the swimmers in your program?
Wayne Goldsmith
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit swimminggold.substack.com/subscribe