Today’s episode features swim coach Andrew Sheaff. Andrew is an assistant swimming coach at the University of Virginia, winners of the last two NCAA women’s championships. In addition to swim coaching, Sheaff has an extensive background in strength and conditioning, including an internship under Buddy Morris. A collegiate swimmer at Pittsburgh, Sheaff was named the Senior Athlete of Distinction. He was a four-time Big East Academic All-Star and a four-time University Scholar Athlete. He writes on numerous aspects of coaching education at his website, coachandrewsheaff.com .
A quote on Andrew’s blog that made a lot of sense to me was a quote by former cricket player and ESPN writer, Ed Smith, that “Because the important things are hard to coach, it is tempting to take refuge in the small, irrelevant things because they are easy.” I find this to be extremely relevant to many approaches to athletic development where drills are often over-emphasized and over-controlled, while the actual sporting skill is often left relatively un-changed from season to season.
I have found it a common theme, in modern coaching, to attempt to overly “control” an athlete’s technique through the over-use of drills, exact positions, and discrete instructions. This can range from cues in the weight room (butt back, chest out, through the heels!) to the track (heel up, knee up, toe up!) to exact arm positions for swimming movements.
On the show today, Andrew speaks on elements of control vs. athlete empowerment in coaching. He talks on training methods that lead to lasting change in technique and performance, with an emphasis on the constraints-led approach. This podcast was a fun cross-pollination of ideas between the worlds of swimming, track and physical preparation, with important concepts for any coach or athlete. Whether you are interested in speed training, technical development, or just overall coaching practice, you are sure to find this a really informative conversation.
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Timestamps and Main Points:
4:51 – Why Andrew got into both physical preparation/S&C, as well as swim coaching, in his coaching career 6:35 – Why Andrew believes swim training remained so “old school” (based on large yardages and distances) for so long, compared to track and field 8:53 – Why so many coaches take refuge in the small/easy/controllable things, when more focus is needed on bigger, but more rewarding, real problems in athletics 12:10 – How coaches seeking “too much control” plays out in the world of swimming 15:36 – Basics of how Andrew uses constraints to allow swimmers problem solving opportunities, vs. trying to control smaller elements of the stroke 23:46 – Bondarchuk’s “Push the Hammer” cue, and the power of slightly ambiguous coaching instructions that don’t over-control the athlete’s movements 31:28 – How the unique situation of training in a 25 yard or 50 meter pool, can create more interesting training options for swim athletes in terms of constraints 35:13 – How Andrew uses constraints that are purely for exploratory perspective, versus constraints from a timed perspective 41:23 – How fatiguing particular body sections or muscles can offer a unique constraint in both swimming, or land activities such as plyometrics 46:04 – The spectrum of “boredom tolerance” between athletes, and how Andrew manages this in practice 51:58 – Why and how Andrew thinks more “standard volume” type training methods can be successful, and if they are sustainable or not 55:12 – The importance of not taking away individuals “athletic identities” away (such as excessive weightlifting or speed-endurance work) if the athlete identifies with it 58:54 – How Andrew specifically creates engagement for swimmers in his training process 1:01:32 – How looking at athlete’s overall states of readiness can become overly-mechanistic, compared to simply asking an athlete how they are doing, and comparing it to their training times 1:11:47 – How to help athletes to “undo” a poor technique, when they first start working with Andrew“A lot of times, there is a focus on the nuances, little things that are almost asthetic, but they don’t really determine performance”
“(Small changes the coach can see) don’t really get down to the fundamentals that actually matter”
“In swimming, the things to work on are kind of subtle and not really obvious”
“You give them a puzzle to figure out, and you use constraints to take away some of the options that they would use to cheat it, and then the only way they can solve that problem is to move in different ways….. they may not figure it out in today, a week, or a month but whenever they do figure it out, you know that you have made a change that matters”
“I think your training should be your technique work, and that’s where those constraints come in”
“Bondarchuk had one cue: “Push the hammer””
“You focus on the one or two things that matter, and you have to ignore everything else, and you don’t give them feedback on anything else, and you make sure they just get that one thing… if you take that approach, you have to know what the fundamental thing is, and you have to apply that”
“In the short term you might think you are getting more out of it by telling people exactly what to do, but in reality you aren’t really addressing the real problem”
“From an exploration standpoint; as soon as they get the right idea, we are training”
“When you time stuff, it’s not always maximal, but its fast enough to be relevant”
“Short-term fatigue can be really useful for challenging skills too, because you are going to have to figure out a way to move differently”
“If you give people success, and they see results from what you are doing, they will do pretty much anything”
“In general, you need to be careful of taking away people’s identities as athletes, or as groups”
“You’re not going to be able to change everything (in an athlete’s technique) so pick the thing that’s going to have the biggest impact”
“Most people don’t change anything (technically), ever, they just change some cosmetic stuff”
“(An athlete might not have a technique issue) they might just be out of shape”
“Sometimes you have to be more extreme, and that comes with more risk… you have to put them in situations where they can feel new ways of moving, versus just telling them what to do”
About Andrew Sheaff
Andrew Sheaff is an assistant swimming coach at the University of Virginia, winners of the last two NCAA women’s championships. Andrew carries a background in strength and conditioning, and writes on numerous aspects of coaching education at his website, coachandrewsheaff.com .
Andrew helps coaches tackle the problem of faster swimming for every athlete, examining all opportunities to improve one’s coaching practice. Andrew believes that our answers lie in the questions we ask. He is interested in the relationships between components, rather than the components themselves.
Prior to Virginia, Andrew was the associate head coach for Northwestern men’s swimming from 2012-2017, where he also handled dryland and strength training duties for the team, particularly the sprinters. Andrew also served in coaching at Bucknell, Maryland, and the Bison Aquatic Club.
Sheaff has an extensive background in strength and conditioning. In 2007, he worked as an intern at Pittsburgh before interning with the Cleveland Browns throughout the summer. A collegiate swimmer at Pittsburgh, Sheaff was named the Senior Athlete of Distinction. He was a four-time Big East Academic All-Star and a four-time University Scholar Athlete.
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