While drafting Volume 3 - Full Potential, I hit a wall. Every path toward illuminating "full potential" kept circling back to one barrier for comprehension: repetition.
After tackling repetition head-on in the last volume, readers now have a better understanding of how the prescription of repetition interferes with the development of full potential.
"Repetition is Our Nemesis," is now a necessary precursor to this article.
In Volume 1, I mentioned Eddie Reese and his thoughts on the importance of technique. In that article, Eddie offered an overlooked insight on potential:
"The first is that most swimmers—the vast majority—only reach about 90 percent of their potential. A swimmer who goes beyond 90 percent, that’s rare, but that’s the nature of the beast. Now, if you don’t have fundamentally sound strokes, you can only achieve about 90 percent of your 90 percent. That equals 81 percent."
We talk about "potential" constantly in this sport—but what does it actually mean?
If we can’t define it, how can we expect to develop it? Let’s build a working definition—and then expose how our current model consistently prevents swimmers from reaching it.
Operational Definition:
Full potential is the fulfillment and convergence of five developmental areas:
Technique Development, Physical Maturation, Training, Mental Health, Tactical Development
If even one of these is underdeveloped, a swimmer’s true potential remains out of reach.
Recognize that each category can be broken down into several subcategories. This article is meant to be a surface-level look at full potential.
1. Technique Development
Volume 1 of this series explored how excessive repetition locks in substandard technique.
In hundreds of clinics throughout my career, I have never had a swimmer attend a butterfly clinic and perform butterfly kick correctly on the first attempt. In fact, when I do clinics I forewarn coaches about what they are about to see and how we are going to address it.
Take this example from a recent clinic. During a short break, Coach Megan Bilko of PEAQ asked me to assess her butterfly kick. I showed her the flaw, ran her through a simple stationary drill, and on the very next lap—no warmup, no buildup—she nailed it.
That’s the power of targeted technique education. No magic. Just awareness, simplicity, and coaching.
Good butterfly kick isn’t optional. It’s critical.
So why is it such an undeveloped skill in swimming?
Coaches aren’t being properly educated
Our system prioritizes quantity over quality
The result? Swimmers across the country are not learning the correct skills AND locking in flawed ones. Understanding that those are two different things is necessary for realizing why most swimmers leave their technique development bucket half full.
2. Physical Maturation
Swimmers are quitting the sport before they reach physical maturity.
Research by Allen and colleagues (2014, 2015) shows that male Olympic swimmers peak at age 24 - females peak at 22, while the NCAA states that only 9.4% of high school swimmers continue competing in college.
Even without more statistics, the reality is clear: swimmers overwhelmingly exit the sport before their bodies are fully developed.
Our model doesn’t just limit development—it nearly slams the door on full potential before maturation is even possible.
3. Training
We excel at building aerobic engines—but that’s only one gear.
When consulting with teams on training cycles, I ask:
Are you overdeveloping aerobic systems while neglecting anaerobic power and race-specific utilization?
Great training isn’t about volume. It’s about alignment with race demands.
One last thought on training: Want to enhance your training bucket?
Optimize recovery so that the intended benefit of overload is actually realized.
4. Mental Health
We’ve all read about elite athletes taking breaks for mental health. I commend them for their honesty.
It’s as if these athletes sense the risks of prolonged participation at the highest levels and are trying to spare the next generation.
Mental strength works like muscle strength. Overload must be followed by rest, evaluation, and recovery. Growth is the goal. But too many athletes are breaking down.
To perform at their best, swimmers need to be resilient, emotionally balanced, and happy.
Want a place to start understanding this breakdown? Ask ChatGPT:
What are the symptoms of chronic glycogen depletion and how does it apply to competitive swimmers?
Please go down that academic rabbit hole, for the sake of your swimmers and your team.
5. Tactical Development
This is one of the most undervalued aspects of full potential. Tactical development refers to race strategy.
Swimmers can’t reach full potential without repeatedly planning, executing, and refining race strategies and outcomes. The two primary obstacles to maintaining velocity in a race? Technical breakdown and bonking. Strategy should directly address both.
I used to tell my swimmers and parents: You need to swim a specific race at least 20 times before you understand the synergy between practice design and race execution.
The Problem With Our Current Model
Swimming’s developmental model places training at the top of the priority list. But here’s what that gets us:
Substandard technique gets locked in
Frustration rises during plateaus
Mental and physical health suffers
Swimmers leave the sport before reaching maturity
Let’s use a simplified, conceptual model to visualize how underdeveloped categories compound. This isn’t exact math—it’s a conceptual tool:
Training = 100%
Tactical = 80%
Technique = 65%
Mental Health = 75%
Maturation = 70%
Let’s apply Eddie’s logic of multiplying fractions:
100% x 80% x 65% x 75% x 70% = 27%
That means a swimmer in today’s model may only be realizing 27% of their full potential.
You may think that’s low.
I think it’s the beginning of understanding why our attrition rates are so high.
If full potential is our goal, then our chosen developmental model demands more.
Balance. Patience. Skill mastery. Joy. Systematic progression.
Anxiety and uncertainty are rippling through our sport. But I believe we’re standing on the edge of something extraordinary: the opportunity to reshape the future of swimming.
Swimmers. Coaches. Parents. Organizations. The time has come for a new narrative—and a new developmental model.
It’s time to embrace THE IMPERATIVE: IMPROVED TECHNIQUE DEVELOPMENT.
Doug, So much of your philosophy resonates with me on many levels. I was a product of quantity over quality mindset of the 90s. I managed to swim through college but not without some degree of burnout and the feeling left short of my potential. Now as a father of three who swim, I feel trapped in a system which is not serving the best interests of children. My 14 and 12 yo are practicing up to 8 times per week. Almost all of it is obsessively based on their aerobic interval. Very little time is spent on technique or working other energy systems and when they do, it is counterproductive because they are not rested enough to do it properly. Even worse is my 9 yo is being encouraged follow a similar path with almost no technique focus despite serious stroke flaws. I have looked at the other clubs that are a reasonable distance to travel but they appear to follow a similar philosophy. The revolution in our sport you speak of is desperately needed. Keep fighting for the future of our kids and our sport.
The compounding loss model makes the cost of imbalance uncomfortably clear. Have you seen programs that structure for technique first without sacrificing race-readiness?