Making stroke changes is difficult, especially for younger swimmers. Alexander Popov’s coach, Coach Gennadi Touretski, once said that it took Alexander about 100,000 m of focused swimming to take a minor change in his freestyle. Coaches may sometimes feel that they don’t have the necessary knowledge, or that his/her swimmers don’t have the ability, but this is not the problem. Coaches real challenge in helping his/her swimmers to improve their stroke is to keep them focused until the good skills become habitual and then continue to reinforce and polish those good habits. They have to realize that many barriers stand in the way of positive change.
