July 17, 2018 9:56 pm

Wednesday, Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice Get a Swimming Lesson from the Sport’s Insiders

Grab your swimsuit, make sure it has been thirty minutes since you’ve eaten, and join us in the deep end! On this episode of Playing with Science, hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly get a swimming lesson from some of the sport’s leading minds.

To start, Gary and Chuck chat with Dr. John Mullen, physical therapist and author, considered a swimming science guru, to help us understand what goes into bringing the best out of swimming’s elite. You’ll hear about the importance of core strength development and how understanding the repetitive nature of the sport can help prevent muscle imbalance.

We also look at which stroke uses the most energy, how to develop more mobility from an elite swimmer, how to deal with hypermobility, and how far we can push the development process.

Next, we hear from Dr. Brent Rushall, Professor Emeritus at San Diego State University and original developer of the Ultra Short Race Pace Training (USRPT) method for swimming. The main idea behind USRPT involves training in a high intensity environment and aiming to achieve race-level results each session resulting in optimal performance in actual events. You’ll learn how the body can learn to train at race-specific speeds throughout training and how the USRPT brings down a swimmer’s time. You’ll also find out about pushback and resistance towards USRPT.

Lastly, we hear from Peter Andrew, father and coach of 19-year-old swimming phenom Michael Andrew. Peter tells us what it’s like to be the father of a teenage phenom athlete, the nuances that come with coaching your own child, and how Michael’s changing body factors into setting goals. All that, plus, Peter explains why he thinks Michael turning pro at 14 has helped his career going forward.

Please join us tomorrow night for Swimming Science and USRPT right here on our website, as well as on our Playing with Science channels on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn. If you’re an All-Access subscriber, you can watch or listen to this episode ad-free.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Ian Mullen