Paul Newsome

     Writing this book has been a dream come true and I guess my Grandma Rose was correct when she told me that one day I’d write a book. About what? I’m not sure she was able to predict given that she sadly passed away before I had even created Swim Smooth in 2004. Still, here we are, almost exactly seven years since we produced the very first Swim Smooth DVD and with a piece of work of which I am extremely proud. However, none of this work would have been possible without the help, guidance and inspiration of quite a few key people in my life. I was always told by my mum (Linda) at swimming competitions to do my best and that no one else could ever ask any more from me than that. Given that I knew quite a lot of kids with very pushy parents when I was in my pre-teens, this advice certainly helped seal my love for the sport of swimming as a keen interest rather than something I was forced into. My mum’s devotion to taking me training every morning and every night  and suspending her own interests out of commitment to my own passion was totally selfless and something I can only dream of aspiring to with my children. Thanks Mum – this book is for you.
     I read two very inspiring and thought-provoking books just prior to commencing work on this project, which got me thinking about my own development as an athlete and now a coach. The first, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, says that to excel in any field, one must accumulate at least 10,000 hours of practical experience and sound application of those experiences. When I emigrated to Perth in Western Australia I was fortunate enough to find a hub of swimming activity for all levels, ages and backgrounds far surpassing anywhere else in the world. With more 50m pools per head of population than anywhere else on the planet, and a multitude of fantastic open water swimming venues, I found myself immersed in a swimming Mecca with the demand for professional coaching enough to support a thriving full-time business. Over the years I have been incredibly fortunate to work with such a massively diverse group of swimmers and triathletes. If it weren’t for them I would not have been able to formulate the ideas behind our unique Swim Types system. I owe thanks to each and every swimmer who I have ever coached in a 1-2-1, clinic or squad situation for allowing me to analyse their strokes and make sense of what efficiency means, not just scientifically, but on an applied basis in the real world. This book is also dedicated to you all in recognition of the need to sometimes go against convention and discover a more pragmatic way to coach a range of different swimmers.

     In the second book, Bounce by Matthew Syed, discussion is drawn to the fact that dedicated hard work rather than raw talent and chance encounters with the right people at the right time in your life helps nurture success and cultivate new ideas. Every coach that I have worked with as an athlete has always instilled this idea of hard work and dedication within me and fortunate liaisons, close friendships and training and racing experiences with some of the world’s best athletes have all helped form my coaching knowledge, persona and understanding of what it takes to achieve at a high level in both swimming and triathlon. To my coaches: Geoff Edmunds, Tony York, Mike Craven, Mrs Brown and Mrs Greenall who all played a role in getting me started in swimming at my first ever club in Bridlington, East Yorkshire; Eric Elbourne who first suggested to me at the age of ten that video analysis would be a good way to show me what I could be doing better in my own stroke, and Ben Pollard who showed me that swim coaching could be a professional pursuit at the Hull Olympic Club; Martin Mosey who encouraged me (at the time as a triathlete) to join his elite swim programme for solid early morning sessions, and to Maurice Pegg who showed so much passion and enthusiasm for swimming at the Borough of Kirklees Club; my running coach Brian Burgin at the Halifax Harriers who demonstrated how a no-nonsense mindset can drive an athlete far beyond his physical capabilities; David Lyles, Ian Turner and ‘Bernie’ at the University of Bath who again all encouraged me to swim within an elite programme witnessing first-hand how the best swimmers in the UK and Europe train even as a triathlete when many swim coaches might have scorned my triathlon interests; Richard Hobson who gave such support during my university days and Robin Brew who showed me the technicalities of an efficient open water swimming stroke in a language that could be easily applied; Chris Jones my long-term triathlon coach who took me to excellent results at the World Student Games and European Triathlon Championships whilst demonstrating the need to be analytical and scientific in his coaching approach; and to Billy-Jean Clarke, Roy Shepherdson, Jonathan Aspinall, Andrew Blow, Eliot Chaulifour, Nigel Leighton, Brian Squires, Duncan McKerracher, Simon Lessing, Craig Ball, Julian Jenkinson, Jodie Swallow, Mark Foster, Tim Don, Michelle Dillon, Stuart Hayes, Richard Allen, Peter Robertson, Bill Kirby, Shelley Taylor-Smith, Aaron and Warren Milward, Ceinwen Williams, Yann Rocheteau, Wayne Morris, Paul Downie, Lisa Delaurentis, James Forbes, Amanda Nitschke, Judi Clemie, Natalia Vollrath, Bae Hooper, Lawrence Stubbs, Andrew Hunt and Geoff Wilson I thank you all and hope this book does justice to the many, many training hours we have all invested over the years. I am sure I will have accidentally omitted someone’s name in this list, but rest assured, if I’ve trained with you for any reasonable time I owe something to you too – thanks!

     Swimming coaching is notoriously ‘system’ oriented and the large majority of successful coaches tend to work for local, state or national governing bodies who are able to support and assist with funding and salaries. Unfortunately this approach has never been for me as I have always preferred to have the freedom to do things my way and in a manner that I believe in–devoid of politics and committee decisions. With freedom, though, comes risk as a self-employed coach, and without doubt I have to credit this entrepreneurial spirit to both my dad, Shaun, and my step-dad, Stephen, who have both shown me the organisation, mindful planning, tenacity, will to succeed and, above all, a love for their craft, which has been so important in my development as an independent coach. My dad and my sister Sheryl’s love of graphics, animations, text / fonts and visually stimulating displays of colour and motion in their line of work has also arguably had a massive impact on my desire to make Swim Smooth a visually attractive learning tool. After all, if a picture paints a thousand words, imagine what an animation can do!

      Many things have led me to where I am at this point in my coaching career but none so interesting as how I came to meet my now business partner, Adam Young, on an internet site no less! Shortly after I released the original Swim Smooth website in December 2004, my attention was brought to a popular triathlon forum in the UK called TriTalk. People write in and discuss various matters pertaining to triathlon, with some of the more hotly ‘debated’ areas being that of correct swimming technique. Between 2005 and 2007 I had been a regular poster to the site under the ‘avatar’ of ‘Swim Smooth’, and aimed to help a wide range of swimmers and triathletes solve their swimming inefficiency woes. On the forum at the same time was someone going by the pseudonym ‘Younggun’ who posted some excellent advice about cycling and running. We struck up a few conversations via email about training philosophy and our shared interest in photography and after Younggun had attended one of our Swim Smooth Clinics in Windsor, I suggested he come over to Australia for six months and see how we do things ‘Oz style’. A great friendship was born and in early 2008 Adam officially became my business partner in Swim Smooth. For the next 15 months we worked feverishly hard building and developing the Mr Smooth animation and the website as we now know it, all with the single-minded goal of helping the world’s triathletes and pool and open water swimmers improve their knowledge and understanding of what makes an efficient freestyle stroke for them. Adam’s work ethic is incredibly fastidious and together we started releasing the ideas and methods that I had been generating for the last few years in a manner that could be accessed easily by all, most notably the Swim Types system. Without Adam many of these ideas would have stayed just that – thoughts without any substance or practical application. We now blog on a weekly basis to over 52,000 people worldwide (as of November 2011) and would like to believe that we have helped create a movement against there being just a ‘one size fits all’ approach to swim coaching. We hope that our recently appointed status as coaching consultants to the British Triathlon, and our work with the thousands of coaches worldwide who share our philosophy, will aid this effort further. The world needs better swimming.

     Thanks also to Giles O’Brien and Paul Moss at the British Triathlon for seeking our help with the British Triathlon coaching programme and to Miles Kendall, Andrew Kennerley and all the publishing team at John Wiley & Sons Ltd. who have allowed this dream to come to fruition by approaching us to produce this body of work you have in your hands right now.

     And, finally, a massive thanks to my wife Michelle and my children Jackson and Isla who have supported me through all of the hard work and devotion to my swim coaching career. I have to sacrifice much on a daily basis to do what I do and I often wonder if a nine-to-five job would be a better pursuit in this respect. However, this just wouldn’t be me and I have massive respect for Michelle recognising this within me. Michelle has been there from the very start of Swim Smooth: from the very early days travelling around the UK and Europe in our Swim Smooth camper van trying desperately hard to fill clinic places, to now selling out clinic places around the world within a couple of hours of date release. Michelle has witnessed the rapid growth that Swim Smooth has achieved in the last three years as I partnered with Adam, and, as a well-respected physiotherapist herself, is primarily responsible for my knowledge and desire to know more about the anatomy of the shoulder joint, which helps to prevent and cure shoulder pain in swimmers. Without Michelle, none of this would be possible and I thank her for the love and patience that she continually shows me.

Here’s to smoother swimming for everyone!

—Paul Newsome
Perth, Western Australia, November 2011