Transcript

Interviewer

I’m at the huge outdoor swimming pool on the campus of the University of California Berkeley, which is just outside San Francisco.

So as you started your coaching journey how soon did you begin to question what were the conventional training methods and develop your own system?

Teri McKeever

Honestly I think I probably started questioning them as a collegiate athlete myself.

Iwas in an environment where if we all swam a 200 butterfly and there was four of us then we were all supposed to have the same race plan and race the same way and that didn’t make sense to me either because I didn’t think my strengths were the same strengths that my teammates had, so why would we all want to do it the same way.

Interviewer

And one key aspect of training, simple aspect, that you questioned relatively early on was this idea of distance over quality.

Teri McKeever

I think there’s a place for volume but there’s also a place for quality. And I don’t always mean quality is faster,I think quality is about quality technique, quality is about purposefulness, intention, relationship to your racingevent. There are elements of racing and if I can put the athletes in those situations and they know that they can manage them and they develop their own problem solving then when they’re in the race they’re empowered to be faster, better and it’s them doing it, it’s not a plan that a coach has given, it’s a plan that they’ve developed for themselves.

Interviewer

So you put a large part of the onus in terms of development on the athletes themselves, you can’t tell them everything?

Teri McKeever

Absolutely, absolutely, that is huge, a cornerstone to what I believe is different. I think a lot of people think the difference is about the volume or end quality, I believe the greatest difference is in those subtleties of asking the athletes to use their imagination to connect with the race experience, to put themselves there emotionally, physically, mentally.

Interviewer

And one interesting part of your training techniques is that some days you will actually avoid the pool completely.

Teri McKeever

Absolutely, I think initially I felt that being in even the weight room or doing dance or having a spin class or taking a boxing class, I saw it as a diversion from what can be a very monotonous, boring sport.

I think often times the traditional model is coach has the information, athlete needs to do it. I want to have a model where I have information, the athlete has information and we’re partnering in that.

And then kick, see the difference? Now you can feel it in your stomach right, go like that – see – that’s how you swim, that’s how you want to go…

You know it’s not about me standing on deck giving information, you take the information, do something with it, it’s me giving information, it’s me asking, just like you’re asking me questions to get an essence of who Iam, myj ob is to ask them good questions to get to the essence of what they’rethinking.

Right? Do you feel that? That right there, if you make that adjustment, golden.

It’s not for everybody, I fully know that not everyone is motivated or I would not be the right coach or the right team leader for everyone.