David Marsh's Training Tips: Improve Your Speed

David Marsh, CEO and Head Elite Team Coach at Mecklenburg Aquatic Club, a United States Olympic Committee Center of Excellence in North Carolina, is almost legendary in the swimming world. Although he holds a business degree, he soon realized that his true calling lay in coaching. During his years as head coach for men's and women's swimming and diving at Auburn University, he was recognized as the National Coach of the Year eight times. Marsh has led the Auburn swim teams to multiple NCAA National Championships — seven for the men and five for the women.

Marsh shares his tips for improving swimmers' starting and turning times — and explains how CTS equipment can be valuable for helping swimmers change old habits that die hard.

Try new techniques. "Athletes train at doing the same thing over and over," Marsh says. "We want their motions to feel normal. The downside to this is that, when you try to make a change in what they are doing, it ends up feeling weird to them."

Change their focus. Swimmers are accustomed to starting with a horn, says Marsh, and changing from the horn to a light flash can actually increase their focus and decrease their starting times. Also, Marsh notes that keeping track of everyone's start reaction times can add a little competition and motivation to the training process.

Address mistakes as they happen. "Coaching is about communication between coach and athlete," says Marsh. "When you are trying to improve (change) someone's stroke, you generally talk to them between repeats or sets. Better communication will give you better results. As they are swimming and making the mistake is when you want to be able to remind them, not later." Marsh recommends that coaches use an underwater speaker and a wireless microphone to help swimmers correct stroke flaws and improve turn speed.

Provide instant feedback. Marsh recommends using your CTS equipment to improve start times and turning times. A relay judging platform (RJP) measures start times within a hundredth of a second, allowing swimmers to know whether the changes they have made are having an effect on their speed. And setting up a Pace Clock Pro with a touchpad can do the same thing for the swimmer's turns — giving instant, accurate results. That's helpful because, as Marsh notes, "As you make changes in their form, you can both see the results instantly measured to .01 seconds."