There is no such thing as an eight-year-old champion, Backstroker, an 11-year-old superstar, Freestyle. They just happen to be kids who at that moment in time in their development just happen to do that event a little better than the other kids at their age and stage of development. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer, and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

So, Wayne, thanks for joining me again on the podcast. You’ve been on it quite a few times now and always enjoy chatting with you. I know you’ve been sort of traveling a lot lately, especially over to New Zealand. And one of the things I wanted to talk about first was this video that kind of went viral recently was, you’re over in New Zealand and a parent asked you, how do I know if my child is talented? And your response, I think kind of it hit home with a lot of people and it resonated in a way that not many people have been that blunt and honest and spoken about in that way. And I think it had over a million and a half views on Facebook and that was just from this one page. And I thought the response was brilliant. And can you talk a little bit about basically about that question and that response and why you think it resonated with so many people? Yes, no problem. And it’s always great to be on with you, mate, and talk all things

swimming and sport. Yeah, that as my kids said, I said I’ve become viral. And one of them said, no, dad, you’re more like a virus. Just keep me grounded and stop me thinking too far ahead. But it’s a very common question that I’ve been asked in sporting parent discussions, which I’ve been doing around the world for 20 years. And a parent will often talk about their own child in terms of their athletic ability. And in swimming, someone will commonly say, Wayne, I’ve got a really talented eight-year-old backstriker. And what sort of training should they do? And I generally come down very hard and say, look, there is no such thing as an eight-year-old champion backstriker and 11-year-old superstar freestyler. They just happen to be kids who at that moment in time in their development just happen to do that event a little better than the other kids their age and stage of development. And it is a little bit blunt and confronting because

we all love our kids. You and I are dads and we love our kids more than life itself. And we want nothing more than to see them have every opportunity to be successful in life, to be happy, to realize their potential. And the emotion of believing that my son is a star or my daughter’s brilliant at anything is very normal and natural. But also as professionals, we look at it and think, well, hang on a minute. We have seen thousands and thousands of these talented young kids, so-called talented young kids from eight to 10 years of age, who are winning everything. They’re winning the state 100 freestyle by 15 meters. They’re dominating their age group at eight, nine, 10, 11. And at 14, 15, 16, we’re not seeing them at all. They’re not even in the sport or if they are, they’re certainly no longer dominating. And when you talk to great athletes, and I’m talking Olympic champions and world record holders, and you talk to them about

what have been the real factors of success, what’s led them to be so brilliant. You never hear things like a big VO2 max or great lactate tolerance capacity. It’s always around, I love the sport. I just love the sport. I really enjoy being in the sport. I love training. My coach is amazing. I can’t wait to get to work out and hang out with my friends. So what the great athletes are telling us is that the love of the sport and the enjoyment of the sport and the experience of the sport and teammates and working with great coaches, they’re the things that really matter and they’re the things that keep them swimming. And so the purpose of that presentation was very much to say to parents, look, love your kids by all means, but stay grounded. Your job is not to put them forward as superstars and great athletes. Your job is to love them unconditionally, to value and accept them for no reason other than they are your child and not to value and

accept them for what they do, but to value and accept them and love them for who they are, which is being your child. The other thing I try to point out to parents is to say, look,

if you imagine that there’s a grid and we look at on one side one axis of the grid is talent and the other side is commitment and commitment is critical. Once you’ve got commitment, you’ve got everything because commitment by its nature means that there are no excuses. It takes whatever it takes to be successful and I’m more interested in commitment. I wish I had a device or a tool that you could wear that would give me a level of commitment in the athlete. That would be way more important than measuring heart rate or lactate. And I often say to parents and say, the kids who’ve got great natural physical talent but have outstanding commitment, they love what they do, they’re doing what they love, they’re giving everything that they’re planning, their preparation, their sleeping, their diet, the ones who live for swimming plus they’re talented, you see three or four of those in your life. I can really only think of Michael Phelps and

Enthorpe that I’ve met. I’ve met some others who are very, very good, but in terms of superb, brilliant individual physical talents backed by an uncompromising commitment to excellence, you see only a handful of those in your lifetime. The kids who have the unbelievable physical talent but who lack commitment, who have a terrible attitude, who have huge egos, who are disrespectful, who need mum and dad basically to pack their bag, clean up after them and set their alarm, the ones that have got this great talent but they lack any of the character, values and virtues that we know are the cornerstones of success. I see them everywhere and I’m not impressed by them in the slightest. Physical talent doesn’t impress me. I’ve been around long enough to know that if anything, physical talent is almost a curse for kids 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, a curse in terms of what that will then lead to by their mid teens. So I try to get parents excited

about developing their kids as kids and helping them to build values and virtues and resilience and dedication and respect and dignity and honor and all those incredible values. If there’s any talent there and I love saying this to parents, look guys you don’t have to look for talent. Real talent is harder to hide than it is to find. You don’t need a test. You don’t need to go to a lab. You don’t need an online genetic screening to tell you what talent is or that your kids got talent but your job is not in the talent space. Your job is the development of values, virtues, character and all the things that holistically we know will underpin the success of your child and a little game that I play Brennan with the parents in my sessions is I say I want you to close your eyes and I want you to imagine that it’s 10 years from now and you’re walking down the street and your child 10 years older than they are today is walking the other way

and I want you to look at them and I want you to walk up to them and have a conversation with them 10 years from where they are now and I leave them in peace for a moment or two and then I say to them did anyone see their child with an Olympic gold medal around their neck and none of them ever and I’ve been doing that exercise for years none of them have ever said yes so did anyone see their child get out of a Ferrari no none of them ever say that what they say immediately is I walked up to my child and they had a big smile on their face and they spoke to me with love and kindness and they were so excited to see me so then I say to parents well guys the answer you seek to be a great parent is right in front of you that even though you say that medals and winning and records are what’s driving you and what’s behind the way you’re parenting really you want what we all want is happy contented compassionate kind

children who become great parents and great grandparents themselves so I think that’s the reason that video went well as you say very honest very direct but also giving parents a sense of hope that they are responsible for developing the child who can then become anything that they want to be that’s yeah that’s that’s really powerful and I I can see how easy it is to get caught up in wanting your kid to be successful in sport life all that sort of stuff but you know now that I’ve got an 18 month old and it’s you know doing having these little milestones where it’s talking putting some words together walking all that sort of stuff and it’s very easy to compare you know here’s those milestones his development against other kids it’s just that it’s a natural thing and I catch myself doing it you know with with other kids his age and you know in the grand scheme of things that’s not going to mean anything but then

later on when he’s if he’s competing at a sport it’s going to be very easy to compare him to to other kids of his age but if you know by doing that exercise and and think about all right what do I really value here so I couldn’t care less whether he becomes a great swimmer or whether he becomes great at any sport it’s is he happy is he doing well is he a is he a positive force in society and you know that’s that’s really what what I care about is that the character and that the person that he he becomes and I know you’re growing up my dad was my coach and one of the biggest things and still today one of the biggest things that he coaches is is that is life values and building character and culture that kids may not get at home they may not get at school and I think that’s why the you know the swim club that my my dad coaches is the parents really enjoy that side of things because a lot of times the schools

aren’t developing it parents sometimes don’t have enough time to spend with their kids to to create that sort of environment and so if they can send them somewhere where their child’s going to develop character and values then the results of their actual swimming they don’t that’s secondary to developing that other stuff and I think that’s and that’s kind of what we were talking about before the the podcast was you know we were talking about the future of swimming and how coaching really has to to change in order for people to stay in the sport because it’s such a time consuming sport and I know you’re writing an article on this at the moment can you talk a little bit more about you know what we have to change from a from a coaching perspective to help people stay in the sport for longer well look that’s a really good question that’s probably the thing that I’m personally most interested in at the moment certainly the

work that I’m doing in different places around the world in in a variety of sports is all centered on the challenges of competitive sport and we know and the data is incredibly powerful on the Australian Sports Commission website the Canadian equivalence website sport New Zealand website the sports websites in the UK we know that the number of kids in competitive sport is declining all around the world and even recently some friends of mine from Texas and some other friends that I’ve got from Florida who are tied up in the academic side of sport have all said to me they’re starting to see the same trends even in the US which for some reason was the last one really to show these global trends and what all the sports have done in response to seeing the decline in the number of kids doing competitive sport and the sports that are showing the greatest decline are the big time commitment sports swimming diving rowing

gymnastics athletics they’re the ones those traditional big time commitment Olympic sports they’re the ones that are showing the biggest decline and even more powerful these the data around rural and regional Australia rural and regional places around the world where sports like gymnastics and swimming and diving and those big time commitment sports and rural and regional areas is just being decimated talking to John Sieben fairly recently the Olympic gold medalist 200 fly from 2000 or not 84 that’s how old I’m getting but John and I were talking in Townsville last year and I said how are things going in a very very strong traditionally strong swimming area and John I said you know a few years ago the North Queensland swimming championships were a four-day meet he said now it’s about a day and a half and if you’ve got your heartland those coastal areas those warm areas of Queensland showing that sort of decimation of numbers you can just imagine how that’s flying through

into rural Australia I’ve just come back recently from northwest New South Wales and and the numbers of kids there and those big time commitment sports who are committed to competitive sport was also very low now what sports have been doing around the world printed to try and respond to that is they say let’s make sport really interesting and sexy and they’re doing short versions of the game so I give you a really practical example in a sport like cricket for example they knew that they were in real trouble with the numbers of kids committing to one day or multi-day cricket so cricket Australia went to the clients so the kids and the parents and said why aren’t you playing cricket anymore and they said well my kid just wants to hit the ball over the fence but the fence is too far away they can’t hit the ball because the the bats are too small they can’t bowl in a straight line for 22 yards and they’re sick of sitting in the grandstands all day waiting their turn

so in response cricket Australia have said all right we’ve now got a version of cricket which is being trialled around Australia over the last two years with wider bats shorter pitches narrower boundaries and substitutes in and out and what cricket’s done is no different to hot shots in tennis the junior dolphins in swimming they’re all trying all the sports are trying some sort of modified game the more recently in Australia we’ve seen the introduction of what we call AFLX where it’s decreased number of players smaller ground hoping to make it more exciting more interesting and more dynamic for the spectator so around the world sports are all trialling very very similar things and they’re not working to be absolutely honest they’re not working and the reason why I believe it’s not working is that the relationship between the sport and the athlete is the coach so you can have the most brilliant modified sport

you can come up with the greatest idea of all time to actually modify the sport but if the coaches in the case of swimming for example are still standing at the end of the pool are still yelling times are still standing there making kids do 40 100s on 140 with paddles on who are not giving the kids individualized instruction or feedback who are not connecting engaging with parents they’re killing the sport and I can’t put it any stronger than that and I know some coaches listening to this may be horrified that I’ve said it and look at me as a heretic but colleagues I’ve got to tell you you need to change whether it’s right whether it’s wrong it’s irrelevant our clients children and families around the world are saying the way that we are coaching is not good enough we have to be smarter we’ve got to find new and better and more engaging ways of enhancing performance and world records are going to have to keep

getting better but we as a group of coaches as colleagues around the world we’ve got to be finding new better interesting more exciting ways of delivering the experience of swimming or we’ll have nobody at top level it’ll change the face of sport I was saying to a group a little while ago I said guys if the numbers of kids in swimming continued to decline the way that they are the sport’s going to have to restructure what we’ll have to see is a very small number of clubs who are able to focus on high performance there’ll be very few clubs will be able to provide the coaching the environment the resources and the facilities to produce world-class athletes the majority of clubs that’ll be left will have to be junior development clubs or community engagement clubs the chance of one club and how to produce great talented juniors fantastic teenagers and elite level that’s about to go out the window because we just don’t have

the number of kids staying in the sport so unless we change unless we are committed to being outstanding in every aspect of coaching the whole structure of the sport is about the change significantly and maybe permanently and I can’t overstate the importance of quality coaching in turning around the numbers that we’re seeing in swimming

and what are those changes what sort of things can coaches do so you’ve got someone who’s coaching juniors listen to the podcast what what sort of things would you like to see them them doing their squad to help make that change well give four or five things practical things off the top of my head if the swimmers going to go if they’re doing a six k workout you need to move seven kilometers so if they’re going to swim six k you go seven k give the swimmers more energy more enthusiasm more passion and better coaching than you’re asking from them second thing stop being a slave to physiology i am a physiologist so i’m allowed to speak ill of my own people but in coaching we have been obsessed with physiology with sets with reps with volume with sessions swimming is technique it’s skill it’s attitude it’s resilience it’s character it’s team development it’s individual development of of values and virtues it’s so much more than heart rate

lactate and muscle contraction so for coaches a very practical thing when you’re riding your workouts sure you’ve got to look at the number of repeats and time cycles but constantly look at what you’re doing in terms of exercise prescription and say how can i engage the athlete’s mind better how can i touch and inspire their heart more effectively coaching is the art of inspiring change through emotional connection coaching is not riding workouts that’s what trainers do the art that we have as coaches is to change lives we connect with athletes we understand who they are we understand their motivation and in doing so create the environment and the opportunity for them to be exceptional that’s the art form of coaching and if all you’re doing is riding workouts and standing at the end of the pool yelling times you are missing opportunities to change lives and make an enormous impact on athletes thirdly evolve your workout strategies

guys i’m still seeing and i last year i think looking at my diary the other day i think i was at 74 different programs around the world last year and that’s in nine different countries i’ve got a pretty good feel for what coaches are doing around the world and most of it has not changed since the 1970s it still sets reps time cycles i’m not seeing coaches right on a workout board sets rep time cycle something to do with attitude or i’m not seeing them he’s a great example a fantastic example is a practical example if you’re doing a workout and your main set is you know again let’s pick on the obvious ones 3100s on a 145 cycle the old thinking and the coaching that’s killed us is the stand at the end of the pool yelling times maybe stroke counts if a really and just saying go go go go go what i’m seeing the best coaches do and i’m talking about the best the NCAA the best in Europe that i’ve been working with and seeing they’re going 1415

16 of those 100s and then given them a 10 minute break and in that break getting the kids to eat something to drink something and then walking around and spending just a moment with each of the athletes to give them something that they can focus on emotionally or mentally to give them something that they can then and the upshot is they do that 1415 16 they get back in the water after that 10 minute break and the rest of the set is done at a higher standard with better engagement with better connection they’re still doing their 30 100s and i can tell you i am a physiologist and i have been around this for a long time that 10 minute break who cares if the kids are 5100 swimmer who cares that their heart rate drops a little bit they don’t swim 3000 meters in in any event kids are going 5100 that middle break that 10 minute break they refuel rehydrate refocus re-energize reconnect with the coach the overall standard of the workout is

superior and i’m seeing it would surprise you the names that i could list out some of the best known respected coaches who are over their 60s around the world who are now shifting to this different way of doing things so that’s that’s some practical things there brendan that that it’s changing the way we coach that’s great i think those the practical tips the ones you know i think you know me as a coach personally i the practical stuff that i can implement that i can start to introduce to to my coach and that’s what i really get i really get a kick out of and i mean you obviously work with so many different clubs and you’ve you’ve been doing this for a very long time you’ve seen it across many different sports so you’ve got a really good idea of what what works and those small practical things well it might only be four tips but i think they’re you know it can make a big difference it’s you know back when i was i was

growing up there was a a coach of a local club you know not too far from where i grew up and he would sit by the side of the pool on his chair with a i think a coffee and he would just put the workout on the board and his swimmers would swim for an hour and a half he wouldn’t even look at them and you just go no wonder the no wonder you’ve only got two swimmers in the lane two swimmers in your squad no one’s gonna no one’s motivated or inspired to go there and swim if you don’t even have the the decency to even look at your swimmers while they’re there so that you know it’s it’s about that having the passion having that engagement with your swimmer and talking to them on an individual basis and giving that feedback and an example that that i’ll give is there’s a a club close to me here and uh there are a club an age group club so working mostly with juniors and they’ve got me in they’ve got me in to do some underwater

filming with all four strokes with a lot of their swimmers and i did an individual analysis for each stroke with probably 15 to 20 of the the kids and when i did that analysis i just kind of did it at home and recorded it and sent it out because it was a lot of footage but i spoke to them on a on a sort of one-on-one personal basis there and they look through the video and they can see it they’ve got me in their ear slowing things down sort of just breaking down the stroke and and showing them what they can do to get faster and then i’ve come in and i’ve run some technique sessions with them in a small group working through those faults and working through those parts of the stroke that we that we want to change and it’s been i’ve seen in a lot of the kids is especially the kids who are who are motivated and they love their swimming they’re getting a real kick out of that that one-on-one time and that feedback and the i guess the challenge of changing their stroke and with the with the end

insight being faster times better technique and we’re going to do a follow-up in a couple of months time with it with another filming session and for the you know for a lot of the kids there it’s they’re really enjoying that because it’s not just about the laps it’s about developing or it’s about the challenge of getting better and for the ones that appeals to they they really get a kick out of it so yeah and i think there’s really no there’s really no excuse to not at least once a month get just get the iPad out film instruments show them what they’re looking like show them what they can do to get better i mean that’s my sort of specialty is the technique and so that’s i kind of look at it from that view for for a lot of things but you know there’s no reason why you can’t just pull out the iPad or phone and and give a little bit of feedback with that these days it’s just it’s too easy to not do it well it is it and and that one on one and that

that and the capacity of technology now Brendan have somebody like you with your expertise doing that work who can then send them an email who can post it to social media on a closed group who can send it to them as a series of instagram photos who can share that information with him in so many formats so the kid can be sitting home so lying down and bed at night about to go to sleep and getting quality personalized individual individual instruction that they’re really engaged with if you send them a picture of Michael Phelps and what an incredible athlete he is but what he’s doing is not relevant to little Johnny or Susie under 14 in Victoria it’s it’s them looking at what they’re doing and how can they get better at what they do and a great example I had just a little while ago working with with a really exceptional coach just to give you an example the end of workout and was a pretty solid workout the end of workout he gave one of the girls

in the team 2100s and she was on a 130 cycle and she was holding pretty quick times and

at the end of the 20 it looked like she had something left now and we talked about this on deck and he said in the old days he said I would have stood there and gone you’ve got more in you get up and do another one or do another five but the way he handled it Brenton and this is where I think this is the difference between training and great coaching and he said to a great job really fantastic what are you trying to do this season she said I want to qualify for this meet and he said I think you can do it he said I really think you’re doing some great things and who are we going to try and beat at the meet so he’s asking to these questions where she’s starting to think what’s what am I doing not what is he making me do but what do I want to do what am I motivated to do so he says what are you trying to I really want to beat her when I get to that meet he said if she was training this morning do you think she’d be

leaving the pool with anything left no okay she’s a great trainer he said so what do you think you need to do to ensure you’re doing all you can to achieve your goals and defeat her at the next competition I think I’ll do another one coach great decision so instead of telling and yelling and and almost imposing his will on the athlete the athlete themselves has come up to the conclusion that if they want to reach their own goals that they’ve stated that they need to take responsibility and they need to jump up and work and so the coach and athlete become partners in that performance and they’re working together and listening and sharing and learning from each other that’s where coaching’s got to be the old days of grabbing athletes like her and others and saying it’s not good enough do more do more do more that’s gone that’s dead we’ve still got to find ways there’s no shortcuts but we’ve got to use coaching skills and quality

coaching so the athlete is driven and motivated to work hard to achieve the goals that they themselves want because they want to do it and and again this guy’s in his late 60s an exceptional coach and very very experienced and even he’s got the message that it’s not about him it’s about him and the athlete working together as a team yeah I think the the Socratic style of of coaching where you you ask questions and get them to come to the realisation on their own it’s really powerful and an example I’ve got with that is I’ve had a a coach work with me for a number of years now basically just a business coach and the structure that we go through each week when we we chat is what’s your win or your wins for the week what challenges are you facing and what’s one thing you’re going to commit to doing by next week and the way that he’s the way that he coaches is is very much that it’s the Socratic method where he’s he asks questions

and he’ll speak in a way where he’s not really telling me what to do he’ll give me examples from his experience but very much it’s asking questions and I’ve got to the point now where I’ll ask the question or I’ll think of the question and I’ve already got the solution in my head because for a lot of these you know any issues I run into or you know any any things that I’m wondering about I actually know what I need to do in most cases and it’s just because he’s sort of coach me in the right way where I can I can come up with the solutions on my own and I’m much more likely to do something if I’ve if I’ve come up with that myself than if someone’s told me and I think you can take a lot out of that and put it into swimming coaching and what I’ve been asking these these young kids to do after we do the technique session is all right what’s what’s one thing that you learned today that you’re going to commit to taking away and

practicing over the next couple of weeks when you’re swimming so which one aspect of the your technique or what one drill you know what what resonated with you and what did you actually learn from today because if I just go up to you know to Alyssa and say look you’ve got to get your hand entry a little bit wider and you’ll be a lot better off it’s like well that’s that’s great but she’s not going to really take take that back if she has to think go back into her memory and think oh what actually made me feel a lot better in the stroke and and go through that she’s much more likely to remember that when she’s when she’s training and I think questions can be very very powerful in coaching the right questions yeah exactly yeah and it is because more than anything I think that people who live in their head and they wish and they hope and they dream that they could better if it only stays all of all that stuff just stays as thoughts with

actually becoming an action that’s where they live at that great line that says live in your head and you’re dead that unless you actually commit to action and I find what happens with questioning instead of telling them what to do and saying you will do this and you need to do this by getting the question they really take it in and they start to think and then they’ve got to verbalize it they’ve actually got to give you some sort of response to say well it means this or I will do this and from that action then comes which is what it’s all about that all the wishes and hopes and dreams in the world are worth nothing unless they’re backed by action and I think that’s what the questioning does it’s a better stimulus to get them to act and to change their behavior yeah and that’s I’ve introduced some of that into our how we camp that we run in Thailand each year is the we’ve been doing a sort of goal session where we look at what people

want to achieve why they want to achieve and we break it down and and the structure that we used last year was getting them to pick their their main event that they’re working towards and then have an a b and c scenario so a is if you have an absolutely dream swim everything goes to plan what what will that look like b is what are you what are you expecting if you have a good run in the lead up to the race and and things go pretty well for you and then c is what is what’s the absolute worst case scenario you know if all things fall apart what would that look like and I get them to write them down and then I get them to write down what things well actually the the problems that could arise there and then next to that we write down what can you do to stop that from from happening what can you do to put in place to prevent those things happening and while they might have maybe thought about some of this stuff

I guarantee very few of them have actually been asked to put that on paper and to really deeply consider it and spend an hour out of their day thinking through those things and so what that does is it gives them that plan on paper it gets them to really thoroughly think things through and really think all right what what could go wrong here and and how will I go about making you know making sure that that that doesn’t happen and you know we just we just don’t get asked and what we what we’re feeling what we’re thinking what do we want out of life we don’t get asked that enough I don’t think many people get asked that at work even with your your spouse or your family and friends how often do you really have a deep conversation and asked about you know why why are you training for this swim what do you you want in the next five to ten years they’re they’re important questions that we just really don’t spend enough time

thinking about and so I think having a coach that can put that question to give you some time out of your day where you’re not on your phone where you’re not at work where you’re not distracted have that time outside where you’re thinking deeply about this stuff I think it can make a real a real impact on on the way that you choose to not only swim and train but really live your live your life and give purpose and meaning behind it because um yeah I’m guilty of it I don’t spend enough time thinking about that stuff and I kind of get to the point where I feel I feel like I’m not on not on any track to to work towards a goal like that my goals swimming wise or with effortless swimming yeah sometimes that that fades a little bit so then I’ll sit down and I’ll just write down all right what am I doing this for what would I like to what would the next 12 24 months look like if um if everything goes to plan and just

just that alone sets me back on track and my motivations are a lot higher um I do better work with people and uh yeah and so it’s important to do that on a pretty regular basis but it’s very easy to not do it now I think the keyword you’ve just said there is is motivation I think we’ve we’ve we’ve come to understand motivation very differently I think 10 15 20 years ago that we would say to coaches you’ve got to motivate your athletes or if you’re a business leader you’ve got to motivate your sales staff for example but I don’t believe you can motivate anyone to do anything I think that our job as coaches is to understand the motivation of the athlete and that’s the gateway to helping us to coach them more effectively so best example would be if I’ve got three kids who walk into your swimming program and you say to them why are you here what do you want from this swimming experience why have you come to this program and the first one says look to be honest I just love

triathlon I’m really busy doing my schoolwork and my running and cycling and I don’t have a lot of time for swimming in the old days we’d say well go and find another program this is a swimming pool I’m a swimming coach go and find another program now once we understand their motivation we say look you’re really welcome here it’s fantastic that you’re going to do triathlon it’s a great sport this is our triathlon sessions our triathlon lanes please bring your bike on Friday and you can spin in between sets and reps in the pool the next one says look coach I’m I don’t really like swimming all that much but I’m trying to get fit for my school carnivals well that’s great we’ve got a school carnival program all based around dive start turn finish and sprint 50s and acceleration and you’re really welcome and these are our times and let me know if you can help you and so by understanding their motivation we provide them the opportunity environment to achieve their goals third kid says

coach I want to be the best in the world I live for swimming I dream about it I’ve got autographs of all the dolphins posters of Michael Phelps on my wall I desperately want to be the best in the world well they get the old blood and guts routine and they get the fight and die for Australia routine and they get the 10 sessions a weekend because they’ve said to you that their motivation not mine as a coach but their own personal motivation their dream the thing that they want is to be the best of the best and then you can give them what they’re looking for as I said I think the old days we just say to those three groups of those three athletes if you’re here you do what I say the way that I want because this is what I want and the smart coaches now I think are taking time as you say to understand the athletes understand what it is it’s motivating them and then provide the opportunity for them to be all they can be whatever that happens to be

yeah and it’s yeah it’s more work as a coach but you’re going to be a lot more well you’re going to have a lot more retention in the sport but ultimately it’s more satisfying when you’ve got people there who are there for the right right reasons they want to be there and they know that you’re you’re looking out for them and as a I used to coach a master squad and there’s many different motivations there for for masters athletes some of them really competitive really want to get faster some of them it’s a stress relief from work some of them are just training purely for fitness a lot of them it’s social and so as best as I could I try to manage that and I was never going to come down on someone who got out halfway through a set if I know that their goal wasn’t to you know if their goal was to just basically get some fitness release some some built up energy if their goal wasn’t to compete I’m not going to come down and on them like you know like you might with

possibly younger kids because they’re not going to stick around for long and I’ve seen a lot of people move squads or change out of squads because the coach has basically they’re they’re imposing their motivation on on all the swimmers and that that can show in masters or or juniors or age groupers like it’s it’s across the board so it’s just about getting to know your swimmers on an individual basis and asking those questions and seeing where they’re coming from and what they want out of the sport and you know you might not have 10 champions in the in the squad you might have one or two champions and the rest are maybe there just to more for enjoyment or a bit of fitness or cross training for a different sport but you know it’s you’re probably you’re probably going to get better results in the long run from from that anyway because you know why they’re there yeah exactly and and the the technique I always use Brendan with that is the I just call it

the 5 why questions so that if I say to somebody why you want to swim and they say oh because I like swimming so you but why do you like swimming what is it about swimming that really captures your heart and mind oh because I like going really fast what is it about going fast why do you really love going fast in the water so much and because I find with most kids particularly if you say why do you do that it’s like asking them how was school they say good you get a one word answer I think you got to spend a bit of time as a coach with and I do this a lot when I’m working with other coaches I say to them why do you coach and I say because I love coaching well it’s great why do you love coaching because I like changing the lives of young children that’s great but why is that so important to your coach well when I was a young kid I had a lot of talent but I had a really terrible coach and because of him I dropped out of the sport okay now I’m starting to understand

what is your real motivation for being here and then you can work with them more effectively so I think that’s the key now it’s no good trying to sell vegetarian burgers to carnivores or hamburgers to vegetarians we’ve got to understand why our clients have come to us what is it what product or service so they come to us for and then if we’re smart we find really good ways of delivering that to them and and sort of putting that back on you what what’s your motivation what’s your reason behind doing what you’re doing working with so many working with a lot of different clubs and parents and I know you’re involved a lot with rugby so what’s if we sort of dug down five wise there where’s that life for you a complete fear from my wife that if I don’t do it I’m in real trouble that’s my motivation here no look there’s I think now that that I’m getting a little bit older I can see the potential and the power of impacting on

coaches and parents even more than athletes because if I can get to coaches that there’s a magnifying or multiplying effect if I can affect 30 40 50 rugby coaches in a country I can in effect make an impact on almost every player in the country because over the course of their life those 40 50 coaches will impact on thousands and thousands of young players and it’s a tremendous for a really rewarding feeling brand and get the end of the day saying you know what if those coaches just picked up that message about engagement with athletes or listening to and respecting their athletes or taking an holistic approach to building better human beings if if they only got that one message and they’re in coaching for 20 years we’ve now made an impact on thousands and thousands of players who in turn will be mums and dads brothers and sisters who will then their behaviors attitudes the potential impact of working with coaches

is considerable I’ve got on the bottom of my emails a very simple phrase that I love it says change a life become a coach change the nation coach the coaches the impact that you can have working with coaches is incredibly rewarding and and I love every minute of that but parents so I think parents have been the undervalued often overly chastised group within sport but the truth is 99% of the workforce of sport around the world is parents and we need to not just open our arms to them but embrace them welcome them in drag them in and see them very much as partners in helping kids be all they can be because as a coach you’re exceptional at improving dive start turns finishes swimming technique underwater writing training sets improving fitness improving speed that’s what you do the parents job in shaping values virtues character they’re shaping not just their child but their grandchild they’re shaping every aspect

of their child’s life and I’m so committed to parent education because I can see the impact and the potential value of it not just for this generation they have in their house but for the next generation so coaching and parenting are two of the most powerful change agents in the world and that’s what drives me every day to work in that area and I think you’ve really found your calling in in speaking to coaches and to parents I know you’ve you know you have done a little bit of work with a swim squad you know starting on swim squad and that sort of thing but I think your greatest impact is is doing what you’re doing speaking to large groups and then and passing on this stuff so that they can hopefully take something away from it and spread that to many more people and it you know on the podcast as well several thousand people are going to listen to this and I know based on our previous episodes that we’ve had together that people have said to me geez that that episode was great

you know I took so much away from from what you what you Wayne said that you know that they’ve they really enjoyed it and I know it’s gonna be the same with this one so I think it’s great that you’ve really I guess doubled down on on what you’re doing because it’s it’s really important and you can have an impact on thousands and thousands of people by doing this podcast by going out speaking to to many groups of coaches and parents in in many different sports and you know you’ve been doing a long time so you’ve already had that that impact and it’s great to see you continuing with that so what’s what’s next for you what have you got coming up and and how can people get in contact with you if if they would like to get you into speak to group of parents or coaches and that sort of thing well it’s easy to find me I’m on the internet and we’ll have some contact information placed no doubt at the back of the link to the

podcast but if they google Wayne Goldsmith more gold M O R E G O L D that’s more gold M O R E G O L D dot com dot au my contact information and contact forms and phone contact and email is is all on there I’ve got a youtube channel as well which you can access through the blog and on the youtube channel there’s 40 50 might have been more now I’ve just started a new series of short coach education coach development videos that I call sport thoughts sport thoughts and they’re going to be one will be released every monday until the middle of june they go about a minute a minute and a half the first two have been on the topic of what is coaching and the one that I released on monday just gone are three things that great coaches do the one that’s about to be released are how to spot a terrible coach so it’s a short grabs very punchy very direct and I believe really practical apart from that just continuing to do the things

that I’m doing in the coach development space particularly interested at the moment on how can we help coaches connect more effectively with individual athletes within training I think it’s a it’s a difficult thing to get across to coaches again because of this commitment to physiology and to training it’s very difficult to say to a coach I think it’s worth stopping an athlete in the middle of a workout even if it’s for 30 seconds to a minute if there’s an opportunity to impact on their self-belief their confidence their commitment their attitude I think sometimes an opportunity presents itself in the middle of a workout that doesn’t present itself before or after and if coaches will take a leap of faith and and just accept the fact that if they’re in the middle of a workout it’s it’s worthwhile more than worthwhile to allow an athlete’s heart rate to drop 40 50 60 beats while they change their life they might have a moment which

can impact on that entire athlete’s life if they grab it at that moment in time that they might miss if they leave it to the end of the set so that most of my work at the moment is around that how do we get coaches to think broader than physiology and incorporate really quality coaching in the physiology the biomechanics and the other things that they’re doing so that will be my drive for the next few months that’s yeah that’s exciting and I think the examples of other coaches doing it like you’re talking about the 31 hundreds one of the coaches that you know you’re getting them out halfway through the set to have some food have some drink have a chat to each one of them individually that sort of stuff I think for me at least that’s I get a lot of learning out of that and I can see myself doing that more just based on examples of other coaches so I think anything like that that that you’ve seen that you can give direct

examples of you’re excellent with giving examples for each of the things that we’ve spoken about I think that really hits home for a lot of people and they can they can start to see how top coaches use that as part of their own coaching so I appreciate you being on again and I think this is probably number four or five I know um I’ve had you on as a guest a lot and I’ve gotten a lot out of today’s podcast I’ll make sure I put all those links in the show notes at effortlesswimming.com and Wayne it’s been a pleasure thank you again always a pleasure my kubup the great work thanks for listening to the effortless swimming podcast if you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.effortlesswimming.com