Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Award Winning Masters Swim Coach Tony Corben

Episode Transcript
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Danielle Spurling (00:06):
Hello Swimmers and welcome to Topedo
Swim Talk.
I'm your host, DanielleSpurling, and each week we chat
to a master swimmer from aroundthe world about their swimming
journey.
I'm joined today on the podcastby award-winning British master
swimming coach Tony Corben.
Tony not only coaches his ownwife, world record holder Joe,

(00:30):
but as coach and founder of theSouth Down's Trojans Master
Swimming Club, he has anever-increasing squad of
Swimmers lining up on pool deckto do his sessions.
What makes him so special?
Well, we learn all about thattoday.
He's so knowledgeable andpassionate about master swimming
, and wait till you hear some ofthe sets his squad does.

(00:50):
Let's hear from Tony now.
Hi, tony, welcome to thepodcast.
Hi, how are you?
You're going really well.
Where are you joining us fromin England?

Tony Corben (01:07):
I live in a little village called Stubbinton, which
is near Portsmouth.
It's a tiny little place, abouta mile from the beach, so we
get all the benefits during thesummer.
It's a place we'd always wantedto live in.
It's very quiet and peaceful.

Sounds really nice.
I know you just mentioned offair that you had a bit of a
funny story about swimming thismorning.
Do you want to share with uswhat happened?

Yeah, I had a really tough day training
yesterday and then coaching lastnight, went to bed extremely
tired, left my trunks on theradiator about thinking about it
, drove over to the pool at halfpast five this morning, walked
in through the door and then hadto turn around and walk out, go
home and get my trunks again.
So things happened so, but itgave me an easy session this

(01:52):
morning.
I left Joe working hard.

That's really good.
And just for all our listenersout there, Tony actually coaches
the Trojans Master SwimmingClub.
You swim for them as well ascoach them.
So when you structure your week, how many coaching sessions do
you do and how many swims do youget in yourself?

Okay, well, I don't train with Trojans at all.
I actually prefer to be on thepool side with all the swimmers.
I don't like being in the watertown and what to do.
So I train privately with Joeand one of our other swimmers,
mark, at David Lloyd.
I train Sunday morning, mondaymorning, wednesday morning, for
about three and a half, fourhours, depending on the set Joe

(02:34):
sets us and also those sessionswhich I swim in.
I Joe sets the sessions becauseif I do, I'll be pooling up and
down at a very slow pace, notdoing anything.
So I let her do it, so shemakes me work it.
As for Trojans, we have fivesessions a week which I coach.
All of them Monday night is aweird one because it's only in

(02:57):
an 18 meter pool.
There's very short, four lanes,old style school pool, so it's
a bit more difficult to dodecent sessions in there.
But we've come up with somereally innovative ideas for
training there.
We then have a session Tuesdaynight, eight till nine.
Four, because we've got two,two squads in Trojan Masters.

(03:19):
We have the competitive trainingsquad and then we have the
skills squad who are peoplerejoining the sport or they've
learned to swim, taughtthemselves to swim public lanes,
swim as you want to improvetheir strokes.
So we have the two squads and,apart from Friday night, where
the skills people we haven't gotroom for them or the other four

(03:41):
sessions, we have at least alane for the skills people to
train in.
So Tuesday night we have twocompetitive lanes, one skills
and the next one Thursday night,we're over at a brand new pool
in Port River, the Port RiverUniversity pool, which is
beautiful.
We have four lanes in that pool, so we have one for skills,
three for the competitive.

(04:02):
Friday's back to Gosport, butwe're in a 25 meter pool there
and that's three lanes, all forcompetitive.
And then Sunday we're overRaven Centre again, which is
three competitive and one skills.
But we also have the benefit wehave an extra half hour on that
one, with two lanes where wepurely do start turns the minute

(04:24):
, little detail, stuff that wewant to do with smaller groups,
which is really helpful becausea lot of the swimmers have said
the dives have been absolutelyawful at competitions and now we
start doing it.
They've all improved.

So that's really good that you found time
to do that, because I find withmy own training we never get a
chance to do that, even thoughwe've got blocks with kickers on
them, and we really only usethem just maybe a week before
the competition.
But you should be doing it, asyou say, all year round.

Before competition.
Before we got the Raven Poolwhich we've only had for about a
year now, the type of training,the pool time we have here,
literally three hours a week, wedidn't really have time to stop
and say, right, let's go and dosome starts and turns.
And we could only do it atGosport Leisure Centre because
they're the only ones that haveblocks, couldn't do it at the

(05:12):
Brunpart School Pool becauseit's really old, no blocks or
anything.
So we used to do the Fridaybefore a competition.
We'd have 10 minutes at the endfor everybody to have a couple
of dives.
But now we're literally it'severy Sunday half an hour.
We've got all turns, all startsand we've just invested in our
own Backstreet Start wedge aswell.

(05:33):
Unfortunately it doesn't fitthe blocks at Raven, but it does
fit the blocks at Gosport.
I've got to modify them slightly.
Once they've modified, we canuse them over at Raven every
Sunday night then, which wouldbe good for the likes of Joe and
some of the other Backstreetguys we've got.
And to be honest, since we'vegot that time as well, it's the
only time I get a chance topractice starts and turns,

(05:56):
because for the starts and turnssession every three or four
weeks.
I'll try if I can get in, ifI'm feeling up to it, and just
do the starts and turns for them, because at David Lloyd they
don't like diving there.
It's too shallow and too manypeople about.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
How many members have you gotat the Trojans?

If I give you a brief history of Trojans, we
only start three years ago.
Just after the first COVIDlockdown, we as masters, when we
were at our port, there was sixor seven of us at our former
club, Fair and Nomads, and ourhead coach was retiring.
The intention was that I wantedto take over as coach, which

(06:36):
never happened.
They decided that they wantedsome of someone more experienced
.
I'm not sure why they didn'twant me.
And then COVID struck and fiveor six of us sort of stuck
together going down the beach toswim in the sea.
We went down to the HambleRiver and swam up and down the
Hamble River for an hour or soand then a guy called Clive, who

(06:59):
had started Trojan SwimmingClub as an affiliated club, said
why don't you come and join us?
It aren't that interestingbecause there was a mess about
the pool time as well.
They kept changing the sessionswe had.
He said affiliate to us.
We'll find pool time and we'llsee when you get started as a
club.
So that was three years ago andwe started in another school

(07:21):
pool which was 18 metres and thedeepest part of it was 1.1
metres and it was very hot itwas something like 34 degrees
that we started.
It was so hot and ridiculous.
But we started with six womenthree years ago.
Within four months we moved tothe other brewing part school
with another 18 metre pool andhad that for another couple of

(07:43):
months before we got into GospelLeisure Centre.
As the pool time grew themembers started to come on board
.
But we basically went out andrecruited all our old friends.
People from our old clubcontacted people we knew, said
we want to be purely masters nokids, no parents, no people in
the background telling us whatwe can and can't do other than

(08:06):
swim England, of course.
So we started and we startedpushing it.
And when we got to GospelLeisure Centre we have three
lanes alongside the public and acouple of members from the
public got interested and theyjoined us and it just grew word
of mouth and virtually everybodyin the club knows somebody when
they joined.
So it's all friends word ofmouth.

(08:28):
And now we've got 58 members.
Two are affiliated, they trainelsewhere but 56 actually train
with us all the time, which is abit of a nightmare some
sessions when you get there andyou've got three lanes and 20
odd swimmers turn up and I'veset a big 200 metre endurance
set and I'm looking at the poolgoing.
People are going to get a lapall over the place here, so you

(08:50):
have to do a fast switch aroundand change the session quickly
on the pool side before, butother days you can get only 10
there and it works brilliant.

Yeah, fantastic.
I mean, that's a great story offoundation that you've come so
far and got so many members insuch a short time.
You must be a really vibrantclub and offering something to
all those people coming along.

But the six of us who started it all would ultra
keen to do it, and then a coupleof the new people who came in
who were old friends or oldswimmers we used to swim with,
it helped that we had ourchairman.
Mike came on board.
I think initially he came in asa chairman, but he came in and
started training with us.
Mike used to be chairman ofGosport Dolphin Swimming Club,

(09:34):
which is my very first Mastersclub that I started with.
So I knew him and then I usedto train as a master in the same
things as him when he was a kid.
So it's like all goes round andround all the time and we're
just all good friends and ourethos is we're a club run for
swimmers by swimmers.
We nobody actually gets on thecommittee, not more by default,

(09:58):
but all of the committee, thechair and everybody else are
swimmers who swim in the pool.
So everything we decide to dois for the benefit of the
swimmers and we don't doanything that's going to be
detrimental to the club or theswimmers.
We don't have arguments.
We don't have parents in thebackground nagging about their
kids not doing this, that andthe other.
Anybody who's got a problem cancome to me or Mike and just

(10:19):
talk about what their trainingis, what their injuries are, and
we just keep it all open andmake sure we accommodate anybody
who wants to join us.

Yeah, I love that.
I think more clubs should berun like that.

It's great because when I walk out on poolside with
the swimmers for a trainingsession or a competition, we're
all good friends.
Everybody gets off of everybody.
There's no bickering, well,apart from occasionally Mark and
Joe have a bicker about who'sgoing to lead the lane because
neither one wants to go first,but that's the nearest it gets
to an argument on poolside atany one time.

(10:52):
We just all love each other.
It's fantastic club and Godhelp us if we ever lose our
poolside again.

I know.
Well, hopefully that won'thappen.
I mean, obviously you'rebringing so many people to the
pool, they wouldn't want to takeyour lanes away now.

No, it's as I say.
Sometimes we're absolutelypacked out and it's hard work
trying to get the set to work,but other times we can have some
really good constructivesessions.

Yeah, how did you first get into coaching?

Well, I've been in the sport for 30, 33 years as a
master.
I came back when I was 29.
I started with gospel dolphinsand master.
I got talked into coming backto it by an old swimmer which I
knew from when I was a kid isswimming.
I thought I'm a little bit far.
I play football but I don'treally play it.
Well, I'll go along for a laugh.

(11:41):
And before I knew it, we wereall hooked as a club and the
masters there at Gospels grewand, as I say, for 33 years I
was in and out of gospeldolphins.
I left there, went toBirmingham as I was part of the
North Sea, the biggest club inthe area and I've been trained
by I think it's eight or ninedifferent coaches and over the

(12:06):
years I've sort of picked up thegood aspects of what they've
done, the bad aspects, the goodsets, the bad sets and
everything else.
And then in about 2017, 2016, Ihad a massive neck injury which
basically put me out at the poolfor six months.
I had a huge operation on myneck, where they fuse all my

(12:27):
vertebrae together.
I was part.
I was part paralyzed on oneside.
I'd lost all my strength on theother side of the body.
I still to this day haveproblems with the strength on my
right side of my body and I'vegot no sensory feeling on my
left hand side of the body.
You can stick pins in me and Ican't feel it and that put me

(12:49):
out of the sport for a while.
And I started to think aboutcoaching them, starting to think
do I really want, if I can getback in the water?
Because the surgeon said to meas well, you do know that once
we operate on you, where you arenow, how your body is, that's
the best it's ever going to be.
You'll never be able to trainagain, You'll never be able to
swim again.
You might be able to swim upand down and remain fair,

(13:10):
fit-ish, but you'll never beable to swim properly again.
You won't compete at any sortof decent level.
And I then started to thinkabout coaching and thinking well
, I want to give something back.
I've always enjoyed helpingpeople.
I've always enjoyed givingpeople advice on poolside for
competitions and stuff like that, because of years of experience
.
So I just wanted to givesomething back.

(13:32):
And then I carried on training.
I got back into the pool a year,year and a half after the
operation Started swimming alittle bit, thinking, well, I
still haven't felt that bad.
And then pushing myself harderand harder and you know what
it's like when you starttraining.
You think, oh, I might just doa competition because I'm going

(13:53):
to the pool with Joe forcompetitions.
And your mind starts thinkingI'm not moving too bad, I can
swim.
I won't win anything, I canswim.
And then I started winning 50fly races.
Then I started winning thecounty championships, six or
seven events, and I was thinking, well, the surgeons are wrong,
I can do this.
So I pushed myself pretty hardall the way through to 2021.

(14:14):
When I went to the Nationals andI got bronze medal on the 200
butterfly because I'm 200.
I've always been a 200butterfly and I got bronze medal
.
I thought this is brilliant,I'm back, I can do it, I can do
it for the next couple of yearsand I'll be back winning the
Nationals.
And then I went to.
I started to get pain in myneck again, Went to see a physio
friend and the immediate advicewas stop training for butterfly

(14:37):
.
You can swim normally.
The butterfly training iskilling you.
You carry on, You're going tobe paralyzed for life.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, because the problem with the neck injury was
it I had an undiagnosed slipdisc for over 15 years which
only found when they operated onthe neck and it had gone, gone
into the spinal cord and crashedthe spinal cord.
So I've got half of my neck is,or the spinal cord nerves are
damaged or crashed or whatever,and the movement of my neck fly

(15:07):
training was basically going tocause the same damage again if
it carried on.
So he said stop fly training,you can do the other sort of
training, but because it's notso intense, stop fly training
and just swim.
And I thought, if I can't dofly, I can't win.
It's as simple as that.
I'm not a backstroke, eventhough I'm retraining now to be
a backstroke.
I'm bloody awful, to be honest,on breaststroke and my front

(15:32):
core is okay, but the stroke isa bit wayward and I can't do the
stroke properly because my armdoesn't move in the way it's
meant to, et cetera.
So that's when I thought well,if I can't compete and win, I
want to make people win.
And that's how I basically gotinto training.
And our old coach at Bayam.
She said well, come on, pull usover with me once a week and

(15:55):
I'll sort of mentor you throughfor a year and that's when COVID
struck and it all fell apart.
So that's a.
Once we started Jodans,everybody said do you want to be
the coach?
I went, yeah, give us a go,I'll have a laugh, see what I
can do.
You'll be nervous, tentative atfirst, talking to people in a
group, trying to make sure Ididn't talk like an idiot all
the time, and it just took offand for some reason they

(16:19):
actually liked me and I don'tknow why, because the sessions
we get my whole awful.

We have to get into that With master
swimming in Britain.
Do you have to havequalifications as a coach?
Because I know in Australiamaster swimming Australia have
just brought in that all coachesbefore this they didn't need to
, but now have to have arecognised qualification for
insurance purposes.

(16:46):
So you're not like that inBritain.

Yeah, when I first started I quickly, when we knew
that we were setting up choices,I quickly got my assistant
coaches certificate, which is avery quick one particularly
being a competitive swimmer youbreeze for it doesn't take very
long at all.
It's all done.
On Zoom.
That didn't take long to dobecause at the time Swimmingland
they just wanted a coach asdifficult on poolside for

(17:12):
masters.
But to be honest, it wentfurther than that because when
you start looking intoaffiliating the club properly as
a masters club withSwimmingland, they insist that
you have a qualified coach onpoolside and it's got to be a
level two coach.
You can't have just anassistant coach, because level
two coach has got to be the onewho's overseeing it all etc.

(17:32):
So the rules said we basicallyhad to have a level two coach.
So the club said you got to doyour level two coaching.
You're happy to do it.
I said yeah, give it a go, andI did it.
Luckily I enrolled with an oldswimming friend of mine called
Steve Greenfield who's a coachtutor absolutely brilliant guy.
He swims for a basin.

(17:53):
So we tried to poach him toswim for us because we needed
for the counties.
But he won't do it.
He's too, linked to basins.
So swimming club and he'staught me a lot and I still see
him on poolside now.
We have great chats aboutdifferent things, normally about
Joe's very poor starts andturns, but he taught me a lot

(18:14):
and I've learned a lot, and soSwimmingland insisted on the
coach.
It's difficult, so I've got itnow.
Hopefully they won't turnaround and say I've got to take
the head coaches because there'sno point for a Masters club.
No okay, we've got one squad.
We haven't got a structure assuch, so it would seem pointless
to be going through nine monthsof training just to teach a

(18:35):
load of Masters out of theplough up and down a pool.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Well, I mean, you certainly put in lots of
effort behind the scenes withall your Masters swimmers
because, happily, you were justrecently awarded a special
trophy.
Do you want to tell us a littlebit about that?

As I say, I've been in the sport for 33 years and
when I was at Crossport Dolphins, it didn't take long after I
joined them that I became theMasters secretary.
So I was running all thepaperwork and everything beyond
the Masters coach.
I then took over as the countyMasters secretary for Hampshire

(19:10):
County because the guy wasstanding down and I thought,
well, I've done club, I might aswell do the county.
So I ran the county Masters,going to committee meetings,
pushing for funding for us andeverything else For three years.
I also during that time I ranthree county Masters
championships as meat managerand also a separate meat manager

(19:34):
for Crossport Dolphins ownMasters competition and we made
big profit on all of thecompetitions.
They were great fun andeverybody loved it.
I took a step back just afterthat because I moved from
Crossport to Fair and Nomads,met Joe and we sort of hooked up
together and you spoke to Joe.

(19:55):
You know how intense hertraining is, how hard she pushes
herself.
When I was training with Joe itwas a case of I either train or
I don't train and stay on thebackground doing all the county
stuff etc.
Because the training was sointense and she just pushed me
and pushed me and pushed me allthe time.

(20:16):
So I was literally working wornout, training worn out, working
worn out all the time.
So the county stuff went, but Istayed involved in Masters
swimming.
I stayed competing for donkey'syears and when I took a couple
of years break back in 2009, Istill went through every
competition with Joe.
I still talk to everybody onthe poolside.

(20:37):
Then I got involved with Ferrumon their Masters side more when
I came back to swimming.
So I've known most of the topMasters in the country.
I can talk to them on poolside,I've known them all the time.
And then, of course, we set upTrojans and that spiraled out of

(20:57):
control and ended up with thishuge club that we've now got.
And it was recognised by theGreat Britain Masters Committee
because they do a trophy calledthe Chairman Trophy which is
awarded to somebody for servicesto Masters swimming over the
years, giving something back tothe sport etc.
And last year I was at the GBs.
It was a funny story really,because we walked up in the

(21:20):
seats minding our own businessand I heard over the thing that
we're now going to announce aCherryman Award for the year and
I was looking at a friend ofmine and she was looking at me
and they read out like the firststatement was this is a person
who's been involved in Mastersyears for over 30 years.
I went oh, that's reallyjokingly.
And then they made anotherstatement and said, oh, I've

(21:41):
done that.
And another statement oh, I'vedone that and, with our partner,
helped set up Trojans Masters.
I went oh, absolutely no.
And everybody else knew it wasgoing to be me, except for me.
So they were all kiddingthemselves, laughing, and I had
to go down and stand in front of1500 people on poolside but on
the top balcony at Sheffield toreceive the trophy.

(22:04):
It's like so embarrassing.

Did you have to make a speech?

Luckily not too big a one.
They did give me a microphone.
I just sort of said thank you.
Yeah, I'm going to killsomebody in a minute when I get
back up.
That's not big, but it was niceto be awarded it.
But I just thought that I'm thesort of person who is not
worried about the awards.
I'm more worried about what myswimmers can achieve and what I
can do for them.

(22:30):
So yes, to recognize, and it'sset up on the side in the lounge
at the moment.

Well, that's why you awarded it.
That's why you got it, becauseyou are one of those people that
likes to volunteer your timeand your effort and stay in the
background.
But that's appreciated by allthose masters, swimmers out
there.

Well, I mean, even running a masters club, there's
a lot of stuff goes on thebackground and even with the
coaching side is working outwhat to do next, going through
the coaching cycles planning, orJoe and I sit there.
I don't just sit on thepoolside for five and a half
hours a week, it's when we're athome.
Me and Joe are always talkingswimming, always talking about
competitions we want to do andthe clubs to do.

(23:11):
We talked about what sort ofsession we should have planned
for the week, when we're goingto have the easy ones, when
we're going to have the hardones, etc.
So it's ongoing all the timeand we do a lot of research.
I'm forever watching YouTubeand all the different.
I tried to avoid some of thelike the triathlon.

Yes.

Because they're not what they're teaching doesn't
apply to people from.
But I watched loads and loadsof the US and the Aussie Masters
websites and a lot of the swimcoaches just to pick up tips and
ideas, training sessions,things that we can do different,
and so you can see me sat there, sometimes for an hour and a
half, watching tips on how to doflip turns, that sort of thing,

(23:55):
just as taking back a drain.
So just to enhance what I'mteaching, what I'm coaching.

Yeah, I love that and I mean I think you're
passionate about swimming andthat absolutely shines through.
I'm interested in finding outwhat your coaching philosophy is
with your swimmers.

One of the biggest pet hates I've had all my years
as a coach as my swimmer wasbeing ignored by coach really
bugged the hell out of me thatyou could turn up to training,
and particularly when you'retraining with the kids.
And it's fair enough, because alot of the time the likes of me
, joe and some others we and allthe clubs have been with we

(24:35):
trained with the youngstersnormally would like the top
score or whatever, but thecoaches focus is always going to
be on the kids.
The Masters are sort of in thecorner, unless you're super
elite like Joe and a couple ofothers we've had in the past.
And when I was up at the top ofmy game winning nationals and
things then I was, I could beseeing, I was giving things to

(24:55):
do, but I still never as amaster, probably because there
was a master.
I got stroke correction oranything like that.
And so one of the things I saidwas when I start, if I coach,
every single person in the poolwill be looked after, they will
have stroke correction and theywill be spoken to every single

(25:16):
session, every single one.
I make a point During the warmup of asking everyone how are
you, how are you feeling?
How's your body feeling duringthe session?
When it's hard?
Those I know want to be pushed,I'll give them a couple of pep
talk to push them a bit harder.
Those you don't want to bepushed, I know to leave them
alone, but just ask them howthey're doing.
Are they enjoying the set?

(25:37):
So I try to communicate withevery single swimmer every
single session, at least once,sometimes more than once through
the session, and it doesn'tmatter whether they're a skill
swimmer learning to swim,whether they are a master
swimmer who's just got going,but not really fast, not not
going to win anything, or allthe way through to Joe.

(25:57):
Marco will still ask Joe and myeven though that's quite scary
sometimes asking them how theyfeel, because the response you
get can be horrendous.
Sometimes you don't even get aresponse, you just get a look.
So the main thing is I alwayswanted everybody on poolside and
I make a point of doing it tofeel like they're there and

(26:19):
they're enjoying it.
I like to make the sessions fun.
I want to make everybody comeout on poolside like they want
to be there, not because theirparents said get out, you're
doing it.
So everybody comes to training,comes to training because
they're happy, they're lookingforward to doing it we want.

(26:41):
We've buried the sets all thetime.
You cannot say.
If you look back at our programfor the last year, you could
not say that one set is an exactreplica of a previous set.
There may be little bits of itthat different and we try to
bury the sessions all the timeso nobody knows what's coming.
So, for instance, we have asort of philosophy, structure of

(27:03):
which days we're going to havehalf set, half sets, fast sets,
enduring sets, that sort ofthing, and a sort of philosophy
when one of the days might beeasy, I'll flip that on its head
some days and you'll, joe, orflip on it on the head, because
half the time our sessions aredictated to you by how Joe's
feeling.
If Joe's feeling great, thenthe likelihood that she's

(27:29):
training in that sessioneverybody else has got no choice
is going to be a tough onebecause but Joe's feeling really
tired.
It's a good guide as to how therest of them are doing training
the same sessions.
So it'll be an aerobic recoverysession.
So I always vary it, we put iton its head, we change things
around and we make sure that nosessions are saying and we try

(27:50):
to do new things.
That's another philosophy, isthere's nothing worse than keeps
trying to bang out loads andloads of 200 which boring loads
of those are 400 which areboring, which is why I go on the
internet, which why Joe goes onthe internet.
And when we started and havethe 18 meter pool, it was a
question of what can we do in an18 meter pool when we can't

(28:12):
swim lots of distance becauseall they're doing is turning
constantly.
So we we tried the Dave's soloprogram, which worked brilliant
because it's a short, sharp hitreally fast, really slow, really
fast, really fast all the time.
It's amazing how quickly thefitness came up with Dave's solo
program.
Joe loves Brett Hawks, sunnyTrigg, those sort of people, and

(28:37):
so she's signed signed up toall their podcasts and
everything else and all thethings that they broadcast and
she's forever stealing all theirsets that they put posting a
rope.
That one was brilliant.
We're going to have one ofthose.
Will give it a go.
And swim coach Mike I don't knowwhere you've heard of him.
He's another one that Joefollows, and but the other big
one was when I had my neckinjury.

(28:59):
I got into spin cycling andturbo cycling, and so I signed
up for Wahoo, suffolandia,whatever it's called, and the
GCN Cycling Network and some ofthe programs that you can do on
a bike I realized you canactually do in the pool.
We transferred some of the hardcycling, sprinty sets and

(29:25):
endurance sets that you can doon a bike, on a spin bike or
whatever.
We transferred that into thepool and adapted it so we can
use the pool and that through alot of people traditional
trainers, through themcompletely when they're having
to do some of the things I wasasking.
But the fitness levels wentthrough the roof, particularly
in an 18 meter pool, was amazing.
So we we tried to change allthat.

(29:49):
The other thing about myphilosophy of coaching is skills
.
There's no point just leavingpeople plowing up and down with
absolutely awful strokes.
Make the hard work of doingtumble turns.
I mean, the old philosophyalways used to be was coach.
Can you teach me how to dotumble turns while you're doing
them every session?
So you should be good at it.
No, I'm doing it badly everysession.

(30:10):
What's the point of mecontinuing to do it back?
So every swimmer in the poolwhen I'm coaching or the skills
group, I will be watching theirstroke or session and anybody
stroke that sort of goes offslightly or they're swimming
badly.
I'll correct it.
I'll work hard on it.
The people who joined the cluband want good skills we do what

(30:32):
we call stroke master classes.
We traditionally do them at the18 meter pool because it's
ideal for that, where we do awhole session of breaking down a
stroke right back to the basicsat the beginning and starting
again from the kick, from thefloatation points all the way
through to doing the full strokeat the end.
So I'm heavy on skills.

(30:53):
I've won swimmers this from agood stroke, so I don't want to
just plow up and down doingabsolutely nothing.
The other thing about it isalways be positive.
There's nothing worse than notjust that competition.
But on poolside the coach saidyou're doing that badly.
I would never go up to a swimmerand say your stroke is bloody

(31:15):
awful.
Why are you swimming like that?
I'll just look at it and goright.
I want to try and changesomething on your stroke today.
I want you to try and angleyour hand into this position,
that position or whatever.
I want you to try and thinkabout almost trying to touch
your knee with your hand to getthe stroke longer.
So it'll always be a positivecan do type of comment.
It's never a negative.

(31:36):
I don't agree with ever tellingpeople they're swimming badly.
I'll tell them how they canswim better.
It's the same with competitionthey have a bad swim.
I'll try and give themsomething positive about the
swim instead of saying that withbloody awful, what the hell did
you do there.
I'm not a negative person,particularly since my neck
injury has made me even morepositive that if I can come back

(31:59):
from someone like that, thenanybody can come back.
It's the same with anyswimmer's got injuries.
I keep an eye on swimmers.
We're masters.
It's like how easily andquickly you get shoulder cuff
injury.
People got bad backs andeverything else, which is why I
talk to the swimmers, ask themhow are you feeling?
Have you got any niggles?

(32:19):
Because I'd rather pick up aniggle and tell them to do
something slightly differentthan I will.
Let them keep on bombing awayand then get shoulder cuff
injury.
I try to avoid and anybody who'sfeeling tired during the
session, anybody who comes backto swimming.
They're obviously going to gettired.
I've set a set.
If they're not going to achieveit, don't keep trying to

(32:40):
achieve it and kill yourself anddammage something or wear
yourself out.
Put yourself off and not comeback.
I would say to all swimmers youcan stop whenever you want to
stop during the set.
If you're blown out and you'veworked your backside off and you
physically can't make the swimrest time for the next time,
miss two lengths and then joinback in.

(33:01):
Have a little bit of recovery.
I never kill anybody.
It's at their level that theytrain to.
They're the ones who want topush themselves.
But if they're telling me theycan't make that swim rest time
anymore, they've had it thenwhat's the point in trying to
force them into it?
So it's.
My philosophy is have a twominute break, have a sit on the
full side when you're ready toget back in, get back in and

(33:22):
then carry on enjoying.
I want people to enjoy this.
Actually, I don't want them tobe hanging there and then crying
at the end of it, saying I hateyou, corbyn, sort of thing.

Well, I think you've got a fully formed
philosophy and I can tell thatthe photos that I see of your
team on Three Joes social mediayou all look so happy and so
connected and so passionate.
So, whatever you're doing withthem, and you're getting lots of
great results as well, so it'sworking.

Yeah the training is working.
The philosophy my philosophyseems to be working.
But the happy atmosphere comesfrom the fact that when we first
started we wanted everybody tobe our best friends.
We want everybody to get on.
I know some people won't get onthat well, but on Pulse I'd be
one to people to have a goodatmosphere.

(34:14):
So first thing we always didwas the County Masters
Championships.
For us and for the othercounties it's a big weekend,
it's a big day and it's a greatlaugh because all of our skills
from us can enter, because it'sa level for me, you don't have
to be a competitive swimmer toenter it, and there's a team

(34:35):
trophy.
And the team trophy is superimportant because I've never,
ever won it.
In all of the 33 years and I'vebeen in some big teams We've
never actually won the teamtrophy.
I've come second so many times.
It's ridiculous.
Basersdoke have been CountyChampionships now for about the
last nine years, I think it is,and we, every year, we are

(34:56):
determined we want to beBasersdoke.
We haven't yet We've got close,we're getting closer.
But every time we sort of thinkwe're getting closer.
Spencer or Oli, two of the bignames in their teams seem to go
out and find somebody else orthey bring somebody up through.
That just literally destroys usagain.
But we will.
We're going to beat them oneday.
But that team spirit comesthrough at the County

(35:18):
Championships and we encourageeverybody to go, and so all the
novice swimmers, the skillsswimmers, see how much fun we
have on pool side and how muchfun that sort of competition is.
It breeds enthusiasm.
So then let me come back to thepool.
And because the skills swimmerstrain in the same session with
the competition swimmers, whenwe're waiting to go in they're

(35:39):
all chatting so that it's nottwo groups.
They're not sort of not talkingto them, they're really they
won't talk to us, sort of thing.
So everybody gets on.
And then when we do go to normalMasters competitions other than
the counties it's often beingsaid by the commentators we can
hear Trojans are in the housetoday, the loudest team on the
pool side.

(35:59):
You know we are mega mouth free.
We cheer everybody on.
We cheer swimmers from otherteams If we know them and we
like them.
We cheer on other swimmers.
You've recently interviewedMichelle Ware, and Michele is a
great friend of ours.
If Michelle Swimmer, I'll alwayscheer her.
I'll always shout out before arace, go, michelle.
But every single swimmer whogoes down for a race, we will

(36:22):
shout go, go for whatever.
Just as they're about to get onthe blocks.
No one gets missed out.
We always make sure everythingwhen the race.
When they announced to swimover the swim team Southbound
Trojans, we all stand up andcheer like hell.
So, yeah, we're well known forbeing the the gobiest noisiest
team on poolside, and when wewent to the AP meet, the second

(36:47):
noisiest team on the poolsidewas Basesturg, alongside us, and
it was a case of who canoutshout each other all the way
through the competition.
It was brilliant fun and it'sjust the way we are, with just a
bunch of kids on poolside,really.

Yeah Well, that's great.
I mean, that's what MasterSwing is about.
That's bringing that joy thatyou had when you're a kid
swimming.
You know, when you sort of getinto your teenage years
sometimes you lose that becauseyou're so focused on the results
and the competition.
But I think, coming back toMasters after you know, when
you're in your sort of old years, you can really enjoy it again,

(37:21):
because it's really aboutracing yourself, isn't it?

It is about fun and I say to every new swimmer
who's come back when they go totheir first competition you are
here for you.
You're not here because yourmum's there anymore, your dad's
there or you've got a coachbarking at you Only entered the
events you want to enter.
We've got a couple of18-year-olds started back with
us.
They came out, started lastyear, they did their first

(37:46):
competition last weekend andboth of them I said what's your
favourite event?
Oh, I don't know why.
Not, because she always used totell me enter everything at the
county championships or go intoan open meet, enter everything.
So I don't really know what'smy best, because I've always
swum everything and Tom's thesame as we've got with Dolphin.
What's your best event?
Oh, I don't know.

(38:06):
Don't know really.
Well, what do you really wantto do?
Oh, I don't know.
So we'll just enter some of theSouth East regions there.
Enter what you like the soundof and fits into the programme,
and then see if you like it.
If you don't, then next meet,enter something else.
So it's all about swim a racethat you enjoy doing.
If your coach says you're abrilliant 200-butterfly and you

(38:29):
absolutely hate it, don't do it.
Don't do it.

Don't do 200-butterfly.

With all the kids who come back.
I say to them just enjoy thesport.
It's not like kids meet.
You're not swimming for thecoach, you're not swimming
against everybody else in yourheat, don't worry about them.
You're swimming against you andyour time.
If your time is good enough foryou to pick up a medal, it's a
bonus.
If you don't pick up a medal,it doesn't matter, I'll buy you
one, of you that desperate for amedal.
So everybody goes and theythoroughly enjoy it.

(38:58):
Once they get over the firstrace nerves, they just enjoy it.
We enjoy it and we have a greatlaugh whenever we go out.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I want to just dive a bitdeeper into the coaching.
When you are looking at yourprogramme for the year.
Do you do it in three-monthcycles, six-month cycles?
How do you sort of set that up?
Can you give us a bit of aninsight?

Maybe it's almost a six-month cycle because in the
UK you have the GB long-coursechampionships predominantly in
June and the short-coursenational championships at the
end of October.
That's pretty much the same,unless you get a world's gets in
the way, so the GBs may comeforward a little bit.

(39:42):
So we work on a long-courseformat for the first half of the
year.
As soon as the long-course GBsare done or this year we've got
Belgrade Europeans as well assoon as the last big long-course
meet of the year is done, we'llthen turn towards what do
people want to do on theshort-course season, and then we

(40:05):
enter more and moreshort-course competitions.
So there's two cycles and Iwould say that it starts early
November after the short-coursechampionships.
So we'll go into wintertraining mode A couple of weeks
after the nationals.
We'll do a lot of skillssessions, a lot of aerobic

(40:26):
sessions, not a huge amount ofdistance, just working on
technique, loads and loads oftechnique work, getting people
to get their stroke back in theway it was.
We'll do the masterclasses,even for the elite swimmers, the
top swimmers, the wholecompetitive squad.
We'll do the butterflymasterclass, because some of

(40:48):
them can't do fly and you do amasterclass over something I
like that, I'll do it.
You do a breaststrokemasterclass and the
non-breastroakers learn a lotand it gives them more options
going into next year.
So we have three or four weeksof aerobic skills and quite
often a lot more kick goes in atthat point in time in the year
because kick gets ignored.

(41:09):
Everybody hates doing kicks.
If you're not killing them inthe pool with big endurance sets
, then we'll do some kick setsjust to keep them going.
After that we go headingtowards Christmas.
We traditionally as a clubtrain right through Christmas If
the pool's open.
If they let us have the poolopen, everybody wants to get

(41:29):
down the pool.
So we have quite full groupsover Christmas whenever the
pool's open.
So we will then go into heavyendurance training work with a
lot of fresh old sessions.
So we'll mix it up two freshold sessions or a speed
endurance and a fresh oldsession and then an aerobic

(41:49):
recovery and then we'll go backand do it again.
So we go all the way through,right the way through to this
sort of period.
Southeast regions have justgone first long course meet of
the year.
We've now not got anything biguntil the Welsh Masters in March
.
So we're now back into theheavy.
Lots of 200 sessions, that sortof thing and lots of endurance,

(42:13):
lots of fresh old short restjust pushing people getting the
fitness levels up, the staminalevels up and everything else.
And even the 50 sprinters,which we don't have many of, we
all do the same session.
They may not push the fresh oldstuff, they'll go into a lane
where they've got more time todoing so they don't have to swim

(42:35):
too fast.
But the 50 sprinters will pick.
I'll tell them which bits ismore suited to them and so on.
You plot along at this onedoing the 200s but going that
lane with the slowest room resttime so you're not killing
yourself.
And then near the end we'll doa couple of 50s max for you or
whatever.
And so they enjoy that sort ofthing During this period as well

(42:59):
.
When everybody thinks thatthey've had a really hard, fresh
old session, all of a suddenthey're all stopped with seven
minutes to go.
They look over and watch theircoach swim down and go.
Nope, everybody out.
50 max from a dive on the watch.
But it's not just 50 max, it's.
I want them to hit race paceand they have to go for it.

(43:19):
And I'd sort of say do not bescared of this.
This is part of your trainingphilosophy.
If you can do 2,800 meters of afresh old session, you're
totally worn out and you get inand can push towards your 50
meter sprint best.
At the end of the session.
What's it going to tell youwhen you're on poolside you're
feeling tired, but you've gotcompetition, you've got your 53

(43:41):
coming up or your 50 metersprint.
Just say to yourself I did itafter 2,800 meters, I can do it
now.
So it builds a mindset and I'mall about building a speed
mindset for competitions.
So I chuck in these things andif I've been a really evil, I'll
chuck in a max 100 from a dive,which is even worse.

(44:02):
So from now and through tillMarch is the endurance side.
We'll pretty much swim throughthe Welsh nationals in March and
then we'll change towards speed, pace sets, lots and lots of
pace sets, lots and lots ofsingle-limb speed, 50-speed,

(44:23):
100-speed paces.
For the 200 swimmers they'llget 200 pace sets.
The 800 swimmers will do thesame sessions as everybody else,
but I will give them targettimes per length, per for 200,
based on what their 800 timewill be, what their 400 times
will be.
So they get lots and lots ofpace sets, working on 50 splits,

(44:49):
and the couple of 800 swimmers,helen one in particular.
She trains with us, but shealso goes public sessions to get
more distance in for herself.
And she'll say to me we've justdone this, what should I do at
the session tomorrow, when I goon my own and I'll say right, I
want you to do 2050s of shortturnaround, five, 10 seconds

(45:11):
rest to swim off, 50 seconds or55 seconds.
But I want you to hit yourtarget, your 800 target time of
46 every single one, or 44 ifshe's going for a 400 target
time.
And I want you to learn, teachyour body to swim to that sort
of pace.
So when you get into a race,you know what 44 feels like, you

(45:32):
know what 46 feels like there'snothing worse for an 800
swimmer to dive in.
And they get an outfit, they'regoing I haven't got clue where
I am.
So all the way from Marchthrough to the GBs, which are
earlier this year, it's we'rebuilding the speed, we're
building the pace, and then, twoweeks out from the GBs, we

(45:52):
start the taper Again.
That's a minefield,particularly with masters
swimmers.
Everybody has got their ownidea of what their taper is.
So I normally some people Iknow now new people I get out of
chat room and say find out howtheir body's feeling, try and
get the body to rest with Joe.
Joe's taper is almost full ontraining if she wanted it up to

(46:16):
two days before the competition.
My taper is two weeks out.
I'm going to ease right backoff and my distance will drop
massively.
And I always used to stoptraining, not actually getting
the water, for five days beforea competition continued.
That's what made me feelbrilliant.
When I got to a competition Iwas desperate to swim.
My body was completely relaxed.

(46:38):
The warm up at the competitionfor the first one will loosen me
off and I swam brilliantly butsaid that to Joe she'd be stiff
as a board, she'd be moody ashell or weak because she hasn't
swam and she'll be an absolutenightmare to live with.
So it's different for everysingle person and all of our
masters' rooms are different.
Helen the 800-roomer she likesto keep going right up to almost
the day.

(46:58):
Other people, the sprinters forinstance sprinters love it
because they're getting less andless meters.
They're probably only doingabout 800 meters, to be honest,
and 600, that's a warm up andthey will stop early, apart from
maybe doing a little bit moregym work.
So the taper varies for everysingle swimmer and I'll say, but
the standard is that in thelast week, my last session that

(47:22):
I will coach them properly willbe like a Wednesday if the
competition starts on a Friday.
But the Wednesday will be very,very easy A couple of
single-dose sprints at speed andmaybe no more than 1500 meters,
and then we go off to thecompetition and then, as soon as
the competition's over, acouple of weeks, easy, and then,
from June onwards, we get tothe short-course season with all
the short-course competitionscoming up and we start it all

(47:44):
over again and we'll trainthrough most of the competitions
right the way through to earlyOctober, with all the endurance
sets Again, pushing people hard,getting the fitness levels even
higher, and then we go backinto the same speed sessions,
building up towards thenationals.

I love the way that you've described the
differentiation that you've usedfor each of your swimmers, from
sprint and middle distance anddistance swimmers so it just
shows that you are really takinginto account everyone's likes
and dislikes.

When we first started and set the club up,
clive is a young man, he's about25.
I think he might have justbecome a full master.
Before he was at the 18 to 24age group, clive was an out and
out sprinter.
He's a 50 freestyler.
Double's in the 50 club he wasa 50 freestyler.

(48:38):
He's a 23.3 freestyler.
To him he's like the old MarkFoster's type swimming training
8.50 per session and that's thesession done.
Doesn't want to swim anymorethan that.
It's all done in the gym.
It's all big muscles andeverything else.
When we first started, clive andI had a vision that we wanted

(48:59):
to try and have a lane forsprinters at least once a week,
a lane for the middle distanceswimmers, the hundreds and 200s,
and then a lane for the others,the triathletes, the 800
swimmers, et cetera.
Let them plod on.
Never, ever, has worked outlike that, because you never
know who's going to turn up on atraining session.
You cannot tell.

(49:21):
The club structure doesn't helpin it works brilliantly, but it
doesn't help in trying to set asession specifically for a
different group of swimmers.
We've got three lanes and theclub constitution says that,
apart from Tuesdays, which ismega packed, so there's a

(49:43):
waiting list of people thatthere's designated people who
are allowed to train on Tuesday.
Anybody else is by invite.
Only if somebody drops out onthe day the first person on the
invite list can do it.
Everybody seems to want totrain Tuesdays so it's always
mega packed All the othersessions where we've only got
three or four lanes.
If somebody signs up for foursessions a week they've

(50:07):
basically got 16 to 18 sessionsa month and they can go to any
session they want to get their18 sessions in.
So somebody, if they're onshift work, could do five
sessions one week and then thenext week maybe they'll only do
a couple and then the next weekthey go back to five.
We have a lot of swimmers signup for three sessions a week so
they can come any of the fivesessions if they're down as a

(50:30):
Tuesday swimmer as well.
So I can't tell when they'regoing to turn up and that could
be based around their work,their kids, how they're feeling.
If I've given them a reallyhard session one day, they may
not come the next day or theymay come the next day.
So I can't ever plan specificsfor any one type of swimmer so I
have to do more as a generic,with a little bit of something

(50:53):
built in for everyone.
The ones who probably lose outthe most is the 800, 1500
distance swimmers.
We don't have the pool time togive them lots and lots of 400s.
And if you gave them 400s andmade everybody else in their
lanes win 400s because we've gotsuch a diverse amount of age

(51:15):
and speed if you gave somebody alane 400, five of them could
get that by the person thefastest person and is jumping in
that way.
And there's nothing morefrustrating than swimming along
and having to keep pulling outthe way because someone's coming
past it.
Which is why we struggle with200s as well.
If we have six people turn up,we can just about get by with

(51:36):
doing a 200 session if the lanestructure is right and they're
all the right speeds.
So the slowest person can pushoff and just about turn on their
six length before the firstperson's coming in.
So it gets really difficult.
So the structure never has.
We've never been able to do adedicated sprint lane.

(51:57):
So we try to structure everysingle session that at some
point I can turn around to thesprints to go this bit.
I want you to go balls out max,kill yourself on it.
You're only doing three ofthese and then you can back off
and set the back of the lane.
But they know what I mean.
This is your bit.
This is the 200s room is a bit.
This is the 800s room is a bit.

(52:17):
So we try to structure itsomewhere.
And also we will every now andthen just chuck in a full on
sprint session, a fast pacesession and just before
nationals.
We've done it twice now andwe're going to continue to do it
, even though we've got a lot ofpeople who have been on the
sprints for a long time.

(52:38):
We've done it twice now andwe're going to continue to do it
, even though everybody hates it.
One of my favorite ones is tochuck in the 850s on four and a
half minutes, which are everysingle one has to be at their PV
pace, climb out, sit on thepoolside After five.
If you need to throw up,there's a bucket over in the
corner, but you're still goingto finish all eight.

(52:59):
They're all on the watch and Iwill be making a note of the
times that every single one ofyou do.
And I love taking that sessionbecause I am a sadist.
I do like to see swimmersfalling down on poolside screen,
I'm sure, and it does go downabout.
And then the sprinters thenhave got that one and a couple

(53:22):
of the other sessions where it'snot quite as intense, but the
sprinters then get that chanceto go pools out and do some
really fast stuff.
So that's a good plan.

Absolutely Well.
Afterwards it's on reflectionit's good that they've done it,
but I'm sure at the time they'renot happy with you.
Oh yeah, they're not happy Imean every first time we did.

It was probably about before last year's, not
last year's the national wasbefore that and Joe decided that
she wanted to.
And she's a 200 swimmer, let'sface it, it's not her thing.
Joe decided it would be good ifwe do it.
It might have been swim codemine.
So one of those has said thatbefore you go it's good for

(54:07):
building up your lactatetolerance and all that sort of
stuff.
So she decided we're going todo it.
Every single person at the endof that session hated me for
making them do it and hated Joeeven more and Joe hated herself.
In fact, there was Joe I thinkit was Joe and somebody else had
to be helped off the poolsideback to the changing rooms.
Somebody else was in the toiletfor a short while afterwards

(54:31):
feeling extremely ill, and therewas a couple of people sat on
poolside holding their heads,not knowing whether they could
stand up for the next 10 minutesafterwards.
So for me it was great.

For me it was great, but Joe was the one who
said I want to do this.

I reckon we could do this.
It'd be great fun.
We can do it, and thenafterwards go never again, never
.
But then we did it again, so itwas worth it.

And with your swimmer's strength training?
Do you have much of an inputthere, or they all go off and do
their own thing?

A lot of people do their own thing.
To be honest, a lot of myswimming swimmers don't do
enough strength training.
Most of my swimmers don't doenough strength training.
Two years ago when I started totake my swimming seriously
again because when I was doingthe coaching stuff I was just
going to David Lloyd training onmy own twice a week, just

(55:25):
poogling up and down, minding myown business Then when I got
back in and started trainingproperly because I got the bug
back, so I got in with Mark andJoe I wanted to do I had to
rebuild all my muscles in mybody because all the muscles
down my right side had faded,disappeared with the neck injury
and nothing worked properly.
So I had no muscles.

(55:45):
I couldn't do 50 fly properlywithout dying near the end of it
.
So I thought I'm going torebuild, I'm going to write a
program, a strength trainingprogram for myself that I can
work on over six months to 12months to try and get all my
muscles back to where they usedto be.
And I researched a lot of the USmaster's websites and there's a

(56:07):
lot of good information onthere.
Then I spent weeks just readingdetailed reports from different
master's groups.
What's good for a master,what's bad, what exercises do,
what muscle groups For whatstroke, et cetera.
And I come out with a bigspreadsheet of all the different
exercises, which muscle groupsthey were, which stroke they

(56:28):
work, what you shouldn't do andwhat's not even worth bobbin
about doing, because it's aprofessional master's one.
And it's not just weights, freeweights, it was also the
plyometric stuff, the med, ballslams and everything else.
And Joe was also doing somestuff for herself because with
the menopause coming on, she washeavy into the side of effects

(56:51):
of the menopause and some masterswimmers, and so we took that
into account as well, looking atwhat it does for master
swimmers and the muscle lossthat female master swimmers have
when they go perimenopause.
So we took it all into account.
I wrote a program for myself.
Joe took some of that off to doher menopausal weightlifting

(57:11):
program, as she calls it, so shecould try and get over the
effects.
And before I knew a couple ofthe younger female swimmers.
They said they wanted to do aweight program.
So I showed them what I've done.
I said I'm not a weight coach.
You have to make sure you'redoing this correctly.
It's always stress.
Don't try and do it.
Make sure you lift it properly.

(57:32):
Go to the gym, get something toshow you how to do it properly
we're not sure.
Watch the internet, get thispositioning properly.
And for now, but for a coupleof Sundays in the summer we had
everybody around in our gardenand we went through all the
weights that were on the programand made sure everybody was
safe and doing it.
And the type of program we didwas it's a 12-week cycle broken

(57:57):
down into three-week cycles, soyou do your maximum one lift
weight, whatever that is.
So if it was overhead liftswith dumbbells and you can lift
10 kilos on each dumbbell youthen for the first two weeks,
three times a week, do four repsthree times with only 80% of
that weight.

(58:17):
Then the second week you dofour reps four times.
Then when you got to the thirdweek, you double the number of
reps but you reduce the quantityto 65%.
Then at the end of the threeweeks you re-measure your weight
what can I lift?
And you move on.
If it barely changes, you juststay where you are until you get
further down.

(58:37):
You do that for 12 weeks andthen you start the whole cycle
again, see how you build andrebuild.
But you also have to fit thatin with your training cycle.
If you got competition comingup, I said to him try and start
the 12-week cycle at least 14weeks before competition.
It works.
You can do it all the waythrough.

(59:01):
Guff of the Swimmers do it.
Joes takes her bits from it andshe adds her own other bits
into it.
So whenever I go to the gymwith Jo because we ve got Jim
out in the garden, I never knowwhat she s doing any day because
she changes it so much, becauseshe gets bored of it.
She gets bored of doing thesame thing.
Whereas I like the systematicroutine of the three-week cycle,

(59:21):
the three-week cycle, and I vesaid to a lot of the Swimmers as
well when you get to a certainpoint where you think your
muscles are big enough, don tcarry on building muscle,
because you re just going tolook like a monster and you re
not going to be able to swimproperly.
You re going to get stiff,unless you re a 50 sprinter.
Then I ve written a more ofendurance program which is based

(59:43):
on between 12 and 15 reps but60% of your maximum weight, and
then you just work through thatendurance program for 12 weeks
and you work on instead of threeweeks and then test yourself,
move up.
It s more a case of start offon 12 reps three times and then,
when you can lift 13 reps eachtime, do 13, 40,.

(01:00:07):
When you get to 15 or 16 repson that way, then add a little
bit more on a start again backat 12 and then build it back up
and then go back to thebeginning.
So that s what I m doing and Ipass that on to a couple of
other Swimmers as well.
So that s what they re doing.
So we have a sort of structure,but most masters don t like
doing it.

Danielle Spurling (01:00:26):
No, no, and I think masters are time poor as
well.
So it is, and the priority isto get in the water.
So I find myself.
I aim for three strengthsessions a week, but sometimes I
only get one, depending on whats happening with my life at the
time.

Tony Corben (01:00:43):
If you re working, if you ve got family around, you
ve got you know even down towhen it s people s birthdays.
If you ve got a couple of yourfamily members, three birthdays
in two weeks completely messesup the training.

Yeah, it doesn t it you?

ve got all the meals to go out with, so it s
easy to get to missed sessions.

Yes.

For me and Jo.
Jo runs a swim school so shecan actually plan around when
she s on pool side.
So Jo s what s the word?
Bestidious?
She is fixated in.
I have to train today.
I don t care how I m going todo it, I ve got to find space.
This is my weight training day.
This is my swim training day.
I have to train and she willfind it some way to make sure to

(01:01:25):
train.
She very, very rarely missesanything, but that s probably
what she s up there superstar,backstroke or whatever I quite
happily can go.
I have to train today.
Oh no, I ve got to go and do soand so on the car.
Damn, I missed the trainingsessions.
I have to force myself more Fora lot of swimmers, if you re

(01:01:47):
working, you come home from work, you re tired, you really want
to go out to the cold gym, outin the garden, all the way back
to the leisure centre 30 minutesaway, queued to get on all the
machines.
So sometimes it s easy not toget it done and I totally
understand that.
I m lucky in that I retiredfrom full-time work 18 months

(01:02:07):
ago and now live off Jo all thetime.
She just paced my wedding.
I do a little swim teaching forher and I do the coaching, and
that s my life.
So I really don t have a lot ofexcuse not to go out in the gym
or to turn up to training threetimes a week, but if I m not
feeling it I ll find an excuse.

Look, everyone that comes on the
podcast.
I love to ask them the deepdive five, which is a bit of a
snapshot of your swimming, but Ive made yours very focused on
the coaching side of things, soI wanted you to give us your
best freestyle drill.

Right.
Best freestyle drill, which isthe one that I want all my
swimmers to do all the time, isto work on the EVF.
Evf works.
Before I started coaching Inever even been told by a single
coach in 30 odd years about EVF.
I was old school swimming inHamlin and it went through some
sort of cycle underneath thebody and came out the other end

(01:03:01):
and that was all I ever taughtand that s how I first found
front core.
I was even taught the swimmingfront core so it came down the
center of the body line andpronounced.
When I then started learningabout coaching, I suddenly found
out what the EVF was and allthat lot.
So my favorite drill and nearlyevery single one of our sessions
that we write has drilling, thewarm up or drill.

(01:03:24):
I m going through the session.
We always have a drill sectionand I always say to all the
front crawlers if you do a frontcore drill, I want you to do
what I call the EVF drills,which is, if it s 100 meters,
one length with this.
One length with just the fingersticking out, thinking about
turning the wrist down.
One length with two fingersturn the wrist down.
One length with two fingers anda thumb, turn the wrist down

(01:03:46):
before you start the drill.
That s my favorite one and Ilove watching it, that whenever
they start the drills I can lookin the water and nearly
everyone who s a front crawleris doing the EVF drills that I
like.
So they listen and theyactually say it.
I also say to them wheneverthey go to a competition, once
in the warm up pool, get thefirst 400 or 300 out of the way

(01:04:09):
and then do a couple of 100meters of drills and if you re a
freestyler, do your EVF drill,because it really puts the mind
in the right place and when youswim in your race you ve got
your arm in the right position,your hand in the right position.
So that s my favorite one.

Yeah, I like that, I like that and it works
it works.

I mean it s up drills and all that.
They all work, but to get thestroke in the right position.
For the rest of the session Iprefer the EVF drill.

And how about your favorite backstroke?
Set for a backstroker.

Three 200s backstroke at fresh old level,
really pushing her, and thenchucking maybe three 100s at
fresh old level again to workhard, and then maybe eight, 50s
backstroke at speed right at thevery end of it.
So try and just to make her getthat mindset going.

And how about your favorite breaststroke
drill?

The big thing that I, like, I want to emphasize on
breaststroke is at the end ofevery cycle, finishing as flat
as possible the water, arms andlegs fully outstretched front
and back.
So the drills I like to do andit s a traditional one anyways,

(01:05:24):
like two kicks or three kicks,one pull, but at the end of
every kick I want people toglide for two or three seconds
in the head with their arms andlegs fully stretched flat on the
surface so they're not sinkingbefore they go into the next
cycle.
So it s full kick glide, kickglide, kick glide and then back
to the pull again.
That's the one that I, like, Iwant to try and emphasize using

(01:05:46):
the power of the kick and theglide at the end of the kick,
because so many swimmers willstart pulling and they've lost
what they've done.
They start pulling too soon,they've lost what they've done
on the kick and it s pointless.

And how about a butterfly training set?

My favorite set is really simple on butterfly is
1250s on 115 or 1 minute.
When I was younger I used to beable to do 1250s on 1 minute as
a 200 flyer, so I'd be goingabout 45 seconds, 15 seconds to
rest and go again.
Just keep on going.
And it s more about repetition,short repetition without the

(01:06:22):
stroke breaking down.
The problem with butterfly isthe stroke breaks down once you
get past 50 in training.
If you do a load of hundredsyou're just from a poor
butterfly and wearing theshoulders up.
So you're better off doing1250s off a minute or a minute
and a quarter with perfectstroke.
And the whole thing is emphasison do it perfect stroke.

(01:06:42):
And even now when we do flyingtraining or part of the medley,
I'll say to the weaker flyswimmers push off the wall, do
your underwater phase, breakinto your stroke, swim as many
strokes perfectly.
When you can't do it perfectlyand you'll go into a hanging out
position or whatever, do singlearm or do front wall Next up,

(01:07:03):
do it, try and go an extrastroke and keep on pushing
yourself till you can do a wholelength with perfect stroke.
But to be a 200 butterfly youhave to be able to swim it with
perfect stroke.
You can't let your stroke fallapart, so the only way you can
do it is to train perfect stroke, and so everything is shorted
distance on butterfly, notkilling yourself.

Which British Olympian should we be watching
Paris Olympics this year?

I love Tom Dean.
I really enjoy watching TomDean because you never know
which way he's going to go.
I mean the amount of times he'sbeen not the favourite behind
Duncan Scott and whatever andhe's come through and he's
murdered him out of the pool orwhatever.
You're just not sure whatyou're going to get.

(01:07:46):
Plus, he's a southern lad, sohe has to support the
sub-ladders, not the Scots.
He's ginger like me, so he hasto support the ginger lad.
So it's alright like that.
After meeting Mr Pety at theAdam Pety meet, I really wanted
to get back and achieve it againthis year.
Whether he will or not, whetherhe can get back up to the top
level, that's up to him and hismindset.

(01:08:08):
I hope he does.
It would be nice if he can atleast push him at the top end.

Well, tony.
Thank you so much for joiningus on the podcast today.
It's been delightful talking toyou and hearing all about what
you're doing over there with theTrojans.
It's great, lovely.
Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, you're very welcome.
Okay, then Take care.
Cheers, bye, bye, take care, pa.
Thanks to Tony for joining uson the podcast today.

(01:08:33):
He's kindly sent through two ofhis sessions to try out.
If you want to get your handson those, just drop us an email
at torpedoswimtalk at gmailcomand we'll send it through to you
and pop you on our newsletterlist.
Until next time, happy swimmingand bye for now.

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