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Coaching is a blend of art and science. The best coaches make it look easy. One of my goals in my career has been to find success in a way that anyone could emulate - knowing that anyone could do it, given that even I could do it. Much like AI passing the Turing Test in Ex Machina, helping athletes reach their potential in swimming requires a wide range of skills in many areas. And if you want to coach at the highest possible levels, you'd better know your stuff. You owe it to your swimmers to be the best possible professional.

 

One of the most important things to know (in my opinion) is how performance is produced and developed, and for that, you need a Model of Performance. I have one in ongoing development, but before we get there, let's look at a few historical models.

 

Quick note: I don't have a PhD. I do have a Master's in High Performance Coaching and Technical Leadership from the University of British Columbia, where I was also the top of my class. I know this because I won a one-in-a-cohort scholarship, and got a 95% average with a 4.33/4.33 GPA. And I do have a Bachelor of Science from the University of Victoria, with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Business.

 

But I don't have a PhD. And at this point I don't see myself getting one unless there was an amazingly right opportunity that fit well with what I wanted to do in every other area of my life. So until that happens, trust me only with the authority you'd give to a strong Masters graduate, or your favourite non-PhD influencer.

 

What are the factors that produce a performance? You can look at it in a few different ways.

 

One way to look at it is with a Deterministic Model, which basically means that there are a bunch of movements that yield a result, and you could do the same movements, and get the same result every time. These features the actions and results of Biomechanics.

 

The goal of swimming is to swim a given distance in the fastest possible time. Therefore, there are Spatial and Temporal elements that describe the position of a swimmer at a given time. You can look at every second of a given race and what the swimmer is doing at each point.

 

Consider the 1993 work of world-renowned biomechanics scholar Dr. James Hay (as adapted by Glazier et al, 2006), which gives you a basic model of a swimming race.

Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255712826_The_interface_of_biomechanics_and_motor_control_Dynamic_systems_theory_and_the_functional_role_of_movement_variability

 

This basically positions positive propulsive forces against negative drag forces and other technical factors to produce performance. You take in the race, look at your proulsion versus drag, race it at a given length and frequencfy, and apparently get a result.

 

You can make this even simpler using the "Swimming Equation" from USA Swimming's Sport Development Division:

 

Link: https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/math-class-or-swim-practice-use-this-simple-equation-to-swim-faster/

 

Basically, if you can:

 

• Swim faster,
• Start faster,
• Turn faster,
• Or do your underwaters faster

 

 then all else equal, your race time will be faster.

 

Also, if you can take less strokes on the same tempo, or do the same strokes faster, you will be faster. Now, it's not always that easy of a trade. If you COULD swim faster, one would think you WOULD swim faster. Because then it would be that easy. Economics students would probably call this the Efficient Market Hypothesis, where if you could just do something better, you would.

 

If there's a $100 bill on the ground, somebody would pick it up. If you could "just go faster", and you knew how, you probably would.

That's where coaching comes in, in helping people become able to do things that they weren't able to do before. That's development.

 

These models are generally used in short events, where the brain-body connection is the most limiting factor, along with speed, strength, power, or skill. Swimming's events are too long to be considered purely biomechanical, although technique is important.

 

Another one of the problems with these models is it just reduces performance to a basic set of numbers, when there might be more useful metrics hidden underneath. For example, you can tell someone, "we need to get your stroke count down", but if you're taking less strokes, you're probably dropping your tempo to do it. That's not the worst thing in the world (especially because it saves energy), but if you're taking 6 strokes with 1 second per stroke, and you switch to doing 5 strokes, you'd need to do those 5 strokes in less than a total of 6 seconds, so you can only glide an extra 0.2 seconds per stroke. Plus, it's unlikely that that will make you faster, unless you were just spinning out before. People get their stroke rates up so they can swim faster, knowing that they're holding as much water as possible and only going as fast as they can maintain a good hold on the water. But swimming on a higher stroke rate is harder!

 

These are outcome variables that come as a result of actual swimmer movements, which take energy. Energy is requested from physiological metabolism in the form of metabolic power, and is transformed into physical movement through mechanical efficiency. In order to sustain power, you initially need to be able to generate mechanical power (and request metabolic power), through force and velocity. The Technical elements allow us to generate power efficiently, and Physiology provides energy.

 

This brings us up to the other side of the equation, which is the Physiology or Metabolism that supports these efforts.

Consider the following diagram by Joyner & Coyle (2007) about the physiology of champion athletes:

 

 

Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17901124/

 

For example, why don't we just get our stroke rate up insanely high and sprint the whole way and maintain maximal speed the whole time? Because your physiology likely can't support it. You only have so much metabolic power transferred through efficient technique.

 

Everything that we talked about before in terms of movement? That's that one little box labeled "Gross Mechanical Efficiency".

And yet even if you have an Olympic swimmer that's very out of shape, they'll be able to decimate an in-shape non-swimmer.

 

So clearly both parts of these models are important, and in fact there's an entire cascade of factors that they can be broken down to, both on the day of performance, and in the years of training leading up to it. That's right, it's not just the day - it's the years before. People forget that and look for a quick fix for their performance. The best long-term fix for performance is strong development.

 

But all of this is purely physical - what about the mental side? Consider the following ideas on "Anticipatory Regulation of Performance"(aka Pacing) by Dr. Ross Tucker from 2009:

 

 

Link: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/43/6/392

 

Basically, you optimize your technique and physiology, but then at the end of the day you're still just a brain in a meat suit looking at external cues to decide if this is the race that you're willing to die for. If you're only willing to give a 3/10 effort, that's what you'll get. This is related to the "Central Governor" model, where your brain will generally stop you from blowing up in a performance. So you need to be mentally ready to get the most out of yourself, and push yourself to the level necessary to get the job done.

 

So we've established that Biomechanics, Physiology, and Psychology all interact to produce a performance.

That's why elite athletes have Biomechanists, Physiologists, and Psychologists.

 

What other services do high performance athletes have access to, that therefore matters for performance?

• Medical Support (Physio/Sport/Athletic/Massage Therapists, Sports Med Physicians)
• Dryland Support (Strength & Conditioning)
• Nutrition, Data Analytics, and other support

 

So clearly you can make this as complex as you want it to be, based on what you have access to.

 

Personally, as a swim coach, my model focuses on the physical elements of biomechanics and physiology.

 

Sure, I can implicitly coach psychology on a day-to-day basis, but I also have mental health and performance professionals.

I can offer advice around nutrition or supplements, but swimmers can also use a dietitian to get a personalized plan.

If your iron levels are insufficient, you should probably create a plan with your doctor to get that sorted out.

As the swimming expert that appreciates the respect for my expertise in this area, I also trust my dryland coach.

 

However, I do have a degree in Computer Science, so I am probably more suited for data analytics than most people.

In my Masters, I also got training in Gap Analysis, Performance Planning, Sports Analytics, Research Methods, Psychology, and more.

 

So overall, I feel like I am uniquely positioned to be able to deliver a lot of value in a variety of ways that are very relevant to athletes, while also understanding my limitations in non-swimming areas, and knowing when to refer swimmers to professionals.

 

Over the last few years I've been designing my own Model of Performance as part of an overarching project I call The Golden System. The idea is that it's a logical approach to coaching swimming, with the goal to be to have the best possible process. My rationale is that eventually, all else equal, the best process will lead to the best overall results, and the Golden System is the one that is the best. For example, if you take a great swimmer with "not a very good" coach, and put them in the Golden System, things will get better. Or if you have an okay swimmer within a fairly good system, having something even better will help them improve their trajectory more.

 

So here's a basic look at what I have in my system as of October 2025:

As you can see, there are multiple levels to the system. You have the Performance Outcome Variables, the Performance Process Variables, Training Outcomes, and then your Training Process.

 

On a basic level, the Race Model has 4 factors: Temporal, Spatial, Technical / Biomechanical, and Physiological. This comes down to when and where the swimmer is doing what, and how they are doing that. Given that the time that you can swim a given distance is an outcome variable, the technical and physiological models are closer to the level of the process, and are the focus of training.

 

Technical skills are best compared to those of the race using a Race Skills model. This includes starts, turns, finishes, and swimming.

 

Each of the race skills have their own unique factors. The strokes can be broken down into a Stroke Component model to coach them. Much like the simple biomechanical models discussed previously, swimming speed can be described as a function of three variables: the power that a swimmer is able to generate within their stroke, the drag that causes their speed to dissipate, and the time they have between each stroke to glide. I would call these the Stroke Qualities. To my knowledge, nobody has really looked at the fact that stroke length is a factor of time. You don't just develop stroke length instantaneously - you have an active part (the pull or push), and then a passive part (the glide). And people definitely glide in breaststroke, mid-to-distance freestyle, and sometimes butterfly.

 

Distance Per Stroke (DPS) is a function of these variables, as it is a function of the Stroke Qualities and the time for gliding between each stroke. This forms an Efficiency Model, and the way to tie the technical elements to physiology is an Economy Model.

 

To swim the fastest speed over a given distance, the swimmer needs an ideal combination of Stroke Qualities (forming a robust Efficiency Model), that is connected to power output through physiology. Distance per Stroke decreases with increasing Stroke Rate due to a loss of glide, with additional loss from spinning. To me, that makes sense on a level that nobody has really looked at, because it reflects what "really" happens, rather than over-simplifications that lose important details.

Even looking at training on a purely physiological basis, there are decisions to be made about how to structure it. This includes elements such as optimal Loading, maximizing Adaptation, managing Fatigue, and ultimately providing the highest possible degree of Transfer to racing.

 

All of these topics will be in their own blogs, but I thought showing everyone the big picture of what I want to do would be useful.

 

Before I came up with The Golden System, I developed my own Munro Performance Model that just looked at physiological pieces.

This is the first time I've ever published it in its entirety, so have a look and enjoy it.

 

I've tried to strike a balance of things that you can do to improve various factors, whether it be training (color-codes) or supplements. Everything on here is highly evidence-based and in line with best practices of organizations that want to win in an ethical way.

 

Thank you very much for reading - and I hope that you've enjoyed the content so far. Please feel free to let me know what you think.