Новые технологии в плавании: как объективные данные меняют работу тренеров

Courtesy: Todd DeSorbo I’ve been coaching long enough to remember when “data” in a swim program meant a stopwatch, a lap counter, and a coach’s eye. That eye still matters – it always will. But what coaches can “see” has changed enormously over the last decade. At UVA, we use a range of tools to understand what our swimmers are doing beyond what we can see from pool deck. Underwater video is a big part of that. We’ve experimented with accelerometers to better understand movement patterns. And more recently, we’ve used eo SwimBETTER which allows us to measure things we previously couldn’t see at all – including the propulsive force a swimmer generates through each stroke. What I like about that kind of information isn’t the data for the sake of data – even though I am a numbers guy. It’s what happens when you put it alongside what a coach sees and what a swimmer feels. It changes the coaching conversation when you’ve got something objective to put alongside what you’re seeing and they’re feeling. Every coach has been there. A stroke looks good. The swimmer can feel like they’re working hard. But the stopwatch tells you they’re not getting any faster. And none of those things necessarily tells you why. Being able to see where force is being generated, where it’s being directed and how consistently a swimmer can reproduce it gives you another piece of that puzzle. Sometimes it confirms what you already suspected. Sometimes it tells you something completely different. Either way, it gives you a better conversation to have with the swimmer. And I think that’s one of the most interesting changes happening in coaching right now. The best use of data isn’t to give coaches more numbers to look at. It’s to give swimmers better feedback. If an athlete can see the difference between what they thought they were doing and what they were actually doing, they start to understand their own stroke differently. They can connect the feedback they’re getting from a coach with something objective, then take that understanding back into the next set. Over time, that creates more independent swimmers. You’re not trying to make athletes dependent on technology, just like you’re not trying to make them dependent on you. You’re trying to give them enough understanding that they can recognize what good swimming feels like and reproduce it. But access to that kind of information isn’t evenly distributed across college swimming. Some programs have been able to adopt new ways of measuring what happens in the water faster than others. And I think it’s important that the benefits of that kind of information extend beyond a relatively small group. Because the questions we’re trying to answer are the same at every level of college swimming. A swimmer chasing a best time at a Division III school is trying to understand the same things as one of my swimmers at UVA: Where am I losing speed? What can I do better? Is the change I’m making working? The division next to your program’s name shouldn’t determine whether you can get better answers to those questions. Because when information can help a coach identify something sooner, help a swimmer understand something faster, or make the connection between technique and performance clearer, that’s valuable at any level of the sport. Good coaching will always matter more than any piece of technology. Data doesn’t replace a coach’s eye, experience or instinct. It gives them more information to work with. And the more of college swimming that has access to that information, the better I think our sport becomes. eo SWIMBETTER is a SwimSwam partner.