2022 - September conferences
The month of September is usually an early season/start-up month for swim teams in the Northern hemisphere. That also means conference season, and this year I had the opportunity to stop by the American Coaches Conference, and the Icelandic Conference.
I flew in to Iceland on Friday morning, and spent the afternoon in Reykjavik working with their National Team Squad. First I did a brief presentation on training, and then ran them through a version of the “8x50, four different ways” set that was featured by Stefano Nurra in his article on Siobhán’s World Record.
On Saturday and Sunday was the conference up in Borganes at Hotel Hamar, I did two presentations for the coaches. The first was about what I’m currently doing day to day, entitled “High Performance Swimming Around The World”. This basically talked went through our season; training, competition, planning, altitude camps and taper notes. On Sunday my talk was “Ideas of Youth Development on a Performance Pathway”. The thought was to bridge the gap between age-group swimming and our professional athletes. I talked here about how I would go about teaching some of the characteristics we value in our squad.
It was great to be back in Iceland - I had a brief visit in 2018. I did do some touring around with Leifi, the national team coach, but the weather wasn't great for that. I guess I will have to go back again!
The week before I did a quick trip out to Las Vegas 🇺🇸 for the ASCA Conference. I actually only went out on the Friday and returned on the Saturday and mainly did the trip to support TritonWear, and so I didn’t actually attend any of the conference proper. It was great to reconnect with some American, and Canadian coaches as well as meet some new people. We had a good TritonWear dinner with the CEO, as well as Analyst Russell Mark, and coach Todd Desorbo. Hopefully next time I’m at the clinic I can spend some more time and attend some lectures.
For me, my next speaking engagement will be in Lund 🇸🇪 on January 12-15, 2023 at the World Aquatic Development Conference. As well as obviously being able to attend in person, there is an online pass available for 2,495SEK (~€230 or $230USD). In Lund I’ll be talking on a range of topics including my coaching journey, working with sports scientists and addressing gaps in the progression of age-group athletes towards professionals. Check out the full list of presenters and other Information about the conference.
Our next stop is an altitude training camp in Sierra Nevada 🇪🇸 as we get ready for the FINA World Cup tour 2022.