Imagine finding a treasure chest brimming with secrets to refine your swimming technique and endurance. Well, we’ve got something better than that - a chat with the Technique Genius, Paul Newsome, the founder of SwimSmooth and the pioneer of that transformational swimming program. We journey from his successful English Channel swim to understanding the mantra that keeps swimmers focused in the water, "bubble, bubble breathe."
You'll hear how Paul helped Kelly drop major time. Dive into Paul’s passion for coaching as we traverse from a 50-meter pool to the swells of the Swim Around Manhattan. Discover how a proper wet suit fitting can maximize a swimmer's performance and how concentrating on one stroke at a time is the mantra for finishing races.
Ever wondered about the role self-belief plays in the swimming world? Paul delves into the depths of the power of self-belief, the significance of consistency, and the importance of leading by example. He provides insights into his effective eight-week training program that has been a game changer for swimmers worldwide. Plus, there's an unexpected surprise - Paul shares about his past appearance on a UK dating show! Don't miss out on this enlightening and entertaining conversation that will surely leave you inspired to jump into the water and swim smoother and faster!
UPDATE on Paul's "Upcoming Swim" we refer to in the interview. HE WON https://ultraswim333.com/ - 33.3km over 4 days in the Adriatic in Montenegro! Congratulations Paul!
Imagine finding a treasure chest brimming with secrets to refine your swimming technique and endurance. Well, we’ve got something better than that - a chat with the Technique Genius, Paul Newsome, the founder of SwimSmooth and the pioneer of that transformational swimming program. We journey from his successful English Channel swim to understanding the mantra that keeps swimmers focused in the water, "bubble, bubble breathe."
You'll hear how Paul helped Kelly drop major time. Dive into Paul’s passion for coaching as we traverse from a 50-meter pool to the swells of the Swim Around Manhattan. Discover how a proper wet suit fitting can maximize a swimmer's performance and how concentrating on one stroke at a time is the mantra for finishing races.
Ever wondered about the role self-belief plays in the swimming world? Paul delves into the depths of the power of self-belief, the significance of consistency, and the importance of leading by example. He provides insights into his effective eight-week training program that has been a game changer for swimmers worldwide. Plus, there's an unexpected surprise - Paul shares about his past appearance on a UK dating show! Don't miss out on this enlightening and entertaining conversation that will surely leave you inspired to jump into the water and swim smoother and faster!
UPDATE on Paul's "Upcoming Swim" we refer to in the interview. HE WON https://ultraswim333.com/ - 33.3km over 4 days in the Adriatic in Montenegro! Congratulations Paul!
Welcome to the award-winning Champions Mojo hosted by two world record-holding athletes. Be inspired as you listen to conversations with champions and now your hosts, kelly Palace and Maria Parker.
Speaker 2:Hello friends, welcome to the Champions Mojo podcast. I'm your host, kelly Palace, and as usual, I am co-hosting with Maria Parker. Hey Maria, hey Kelly, it's great to be here with you today, great to see you, and what a treat we are in for today. Our special guest today is world-renowned swim coach Paul Newsom. All the way from Perth, australia, paul is the founder of SwimSmooth and if you don't know about SwimSmooth, you are really going to want to check this out and listen to this show. Paul is a former professional triathlete. He raced as part of the British world-class triathlon program while he was studying sports and exercise science at the University of Bath, and you are going to love the story of how Paul helped my own swimming performance from the other side of the world. We'll get to that later, but Paul is not only an amazing coach, he's an accomplished athlete himself. Maria, can you share more about Paul?
Speaker 3:Yes, Paul is an open water specialist who successfully completed the English Channel on 9 September 2011 in 12 hours and 14 minutes. He's completed the Rottenness Channel Swim four times, as well as won the 2013 Manhattan Island Marathon Swim. He also just completed his fifth Rottenness Crossing and, after 14 years of trying, finally broke five hours. Wow. Last year he won the Ultra Swim 33.3 in Montenegro and will be trying to defend his title here in a few weeks. But there's a lot more. Let's just get to Paul. Paul, welcome to Champions Mojo.
Speaker 4:Thanks so much for having me on. It's really great to be here. You are amazing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So, Paul, first I've got to start with a little story of how we found you. How are you on the other side of the world? It's nighttime here and you're fresh in the morning, but we had to talk with you because my friends, my family, my swimming community all they've heard lately is Paul Newsome and Swim Smooth. It's literally like what is going on with Kelly. And now we have even more to tell as part of the story, because most of our listeners know that I just came off of our US Masters National Championship where I won five titles. I dropped all kinds of times. The time you swim and you look up at the board and you're like, did I really just drop 20 seconds in my 800? And so I am not kidding.
Speaker 3:And you're the middle of your age group. So this is an age group.
Speaker 2:And I'm the middle of my age group, which is even nicer, I didn't just age up. But in all seriousness, yes, we all have a team and when an athlete performs well, they have to work hard, they have to put in the work. But what this episode besides? We want to learn about what makes you a champion and what you think makes champions. But we also, I have finally realized how important, even at the top level of the sport, how important technique is.
Speaker 2:I think that I had been taking it for granted, but it was your videos, your swim smooth videos. Of watching those videos, I realized that I was doing something terribly wrong in my stroke. I had just somehow beared off the path of what really was my normal stroke. So I started doing a catch up stroke. I stopped doing my normal two beat kick. I started to try to do a six beat kick with a catch up stroke because, hey, I wanted to look like Katie Ledecky or Michael Phelps or the Olympian. So I watched your videos.
Speaker 2:You succinctly, scientifically told, very easy to understand, how those things that we're changing in our stroke can slow us down and we're looking at that every night literally made the change. In one night I was swimming the 1500 the next day and I dropped 45 seconds in that 1500. Then two weeks later, I had this national's result. It's because I am using your techniques. That's the long-winded story of why we're so excited about you, why we're so excited about Swim Smooth. Can you just give us some background? What Swim Smooth is, how? This is a revolutionary thing. I really believe it is where it started and where you are today.
Speaker 4:Thanks for that much, kelly. That's an amazing introduction. When you emailed me and reached out to me telling me that result, I was absolutely thrilled. It's great to hear from anybody who's been following our information around the world and how they've been. I was telling all my swim squad that I've got this lady over in America. She's just done this 1500-minute time long course, 50 meters and just over 20 minutes, 20 minutes and 13 seconds. We were all working out the average pace at that, because my squad work a lot off-pacing, as I'm sure your programs do as well. I was saying she's 62 years of age. She's averaging just over 120 for 100 for 1500 freestyle. Everyone's like, oh my God, oh my God, this is amazing. It was truly amazing. You were very kind in your introduction there to say that I've put together this logical, scientific approach and it was succinct, et cetera.
Speaker 4:A lot of the feedback that we've been getting is that the videos were actually just simply too long and we haven't been able to actually watch all the way through them, which is slightly disappointing really, because when you think about it, you spend an hour and a half in your training sessions. The longest video I've put out there is 30 minutes, if you think you can revolutionize and transform your swim session in 30 minutes in the pool and you're telling somebody that you can do that through a video, surely you'd actually listen into that. I think I hear from swimmers all the time and this is just going back to your question about how did this all start. I've always had the belief that people have actually been bombarded with so much information whether it's from a friend, another coach, something they've seen on TV or what have you and people come into swimming very confused. They're not sure what stroke works well for them. They've heard this bit of information, that bit of information, but fortunately that's only got works over the years. With social media I'm not to sing any of the influences out there and stuff like that, but when you've got to cram your information into 60 seconds and make it look pretty and you're scrolling through your phone and seeing all these images and all these bits of advice, it can become really quite overwhelming for people to see that and to try to take it on board. And what I wanted to do was just simply cut through the clutter with those that were my most recent five Stroke Correction hierarchy series. Just cut through that clutter and just say, hey, look, here's the evidence, here's the science, here's the logic. This is what I recommend you do. Go away and do it, and so I'm really glad. If you're the only person who's actually watched All the Way Brutes, that particular video and it's made a difference like that, then I'm happy with that. It's been well worth the effort of the biggie.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and Swimsuit was literally just born out of that. I created the program in 2004, so we're nearly 20 years old now, and I was just on the pool deck. On that pool deck right behind me in the video. If anybody's seeing this snippet, it's Challenge Stadium and it's been used for two world championship events. An amazing facility, three 50-meter swim calls all in the same facility. And when I arrived over here as a long-haired backpacker with a big beard and my beads on, I'd just be traveling around in near and southeast Asia. Somebody said you've got to go and see this facility. It's just the most amazing place. And I rocked up there and, sure enough, I was just blown away by it and luckily I got offered a job as the local triathlon coach and we had quite a big program. There's about 360 athletes in that program and just over the years, I've started to develop a way of coaching, if you like, a way of actually transferring that knowledge across to people, and I came up with this idea in 2004 that I wanted to be able to showcase those learnings in a video format.
Speaker 4:And, bearing in mind, this is way before YouTube or certainly before Instagram I actually came up with the idea of actually creating a three-part DVD series. It's like a DVD box set. And my mom came over from the UK and she said to me what are you going to do with the rest of your life, paul? You work into the local triathlon club. They're paying you $125 a week. You can't keep doing that for the rest of your life. I said I've got to have this idea. I want to create something. I want to put something out there, some videos that are going to help people.
Speaker 4:And the initial idea behind this was just to simply make sure that the swimmers in our squad knew why we were doing the techniques and why we're doing those drills. And she loaned me some money at $4,000 right back in the day, 2004, to actually put this DVD together and I was hoping to maybe sell 100 copies or something like that, and over the years I think we've sold 150,000 copies of that DVD box set. It's really just snowballed and it's really funny because just 20 years ago everyone's into online streaming now, but we still get extra people. Can you do a reprint of the original Swimmers Through DVD box set? I think it looks really nasty. To be honest, the audio quality is absolutely terrible. I look obviously a lot younger than I do right now, but the concept was to actually put this together. We had the Olympic gold medalist, bill Kirby from Hearing, but he was actually demonstrating all of the drills and we had 35 different drills on there. But we also showcased genuine footage and this is really quite important because a lot of times, people putting out videos saying, ok, don't do this and you'll see them actually doing the fault themselves, but it's not a genuine fault. What I wanted to do was actually get a whole host of genuine Swimmers doing stuff wrong that we can all relate to and then show them how to actually fix that. And by putting out this DVD box set again, quite a bit of reputation.
Speaker 4:Coaches started following what we're doing and that's where my biggest passion really is actually helping other coaches, help other Swimmers improve their own coaching, to actually help with that and, yeah, we just around out. In 2010, we got approached by British Triathlon and they said look, we want to use your coaching curriculum with all of our coaches in the UK and that's about 3,500 coaches. And four years later, in 2014, the International Triathlon Union our core, world Triathlon contacted us and said we want to use your methodology in 119 countries around the world. So that's where it went to from there, which is really nice. And it just started in this little pool in the background Not really a little pool, 50 meters, but nonetheless it started here.
Speaker 3:But not only is the proof in the putting and I remember Kelly describing you were able in your video to describe something very clearly, very succinctly, very simply that actually that Kelly went the next day and put into practice and took an amazing amount of time, but you also are able using your own techniques, I would assume to still be an amazing athlete yourself. So I think that says a lot for what you're doing and I love your passion for helping coaches.
Speaker 4:Thanks, marie. The interesting thing when I finished that race in Manhattan, I've got to say, kelly, manhattan is my favorite city in the whole planet. If I could live there, I would move there in a heartbeat. I love the place, absolutely love it I think it's all childhood movies watching it, stuff To have the opportunity to swim around there.
Speaker 4:In 2013, they'd actually ranked this 48 swimmer swimming and they had you have to have some of the English Channel to have done it. So that's why I did the English Channel in 2011 so I could do the Manhattan Swims. So two years later, we had to write us five thousand words say why we wanted to swim around New York. Wow, it was part of the. That was part of the entrance. It wasn't just sign up, pay us your money and let's do it. It was like no riders of five thousand would essay or why you want to swim around Manhattan.
Speaker 4:And I remember Maria reaching out and I didn't expect to win the event. They'd ranked me fourth. I don't know how they did that, but they expected me to finish fourth from that particular swim and I took over the lead after about two and a half hours and it's a seven hour swim, which is great when you work out the average pace of that. Ahmed have newies just swung an average of fifty eight point oh, eight seconds for the men's fifteen hundred at the world championships and my average pay, my average pace, there was Fifty eight seconds around Manhattan, but that's because of the wow.
Speaker 4:Wow, wow, so, yeah, so that was pretty good. I just remember Maria reaching out to the yeah, there's like a basic finishing boy. I reached out and touched the finishing boy at the end of the 48 kilometers I think it is and I just thought you know what I've? The program that I've followed so I should get around and win this race is the program that I've been using at that point for ten years with the swimmers up in coaching and it felt like it was a real, almost like a validation of what I've done, because the guy who finished second, he had a great swim. He was swimming a hundred and twenty kilometers per week in the training leading up to that.
Speaker 4:And I've got a young family you might have even just heard one or two of them just trying to say goodbye to me because they're off to school and the most I could fit in was about 35 to 40 classes training per week, and I think it's really important. You mentioned Kelly earlier on about technique. That's very important, and so too is your approach to the type of training you do and how much frequency volume you get in as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, that race is so elite. I know people that have done it and it is like one of the crown jewels of being an open water swimmer. So 28 miles and you are only training 35k a week for that.
Speaker 4:Yes, it's all I could fit in. I was running a business, my so 2013, my son would have been four and my daughter would have been what she had been should have been less than two years old when I was actually training for that. So you can imagine having a four-year-old and a two-year-old. My wife's a physiotherapist, so she's got her own business as well. I'm running my coaching. On a bull day.
Speaker 4:There's just simply no way that I could do the sort of volumes that I really wanted to do, so I just have to become really smart with the type of training that I was doing, and that's exactly what I did, and really that's that result there by far and away my best result in swimming as a kid you mentioned earlier on.
Speaker 4:Kelly, again, I really appreciate the sentiment you said about how you watch this one video and it transformed your swimming, but the reality is probably what that video really did. Was it just brought you back to where you should have been as an individual swimmer. You've got, you've done the hard yards, you've done the training and stuff. You said you'd experimented with a technique which wasn't quite working for you and really all the video did was it just pointed you back in the right direction, which is what the program, which is what swimsuit is all about. It's about working and making sure that the swimming technique works for you as an individual, and that's the same thing with math, and I couldn't fit the big distances and they're wanting to do. Just had to get really smart with it.
Speaker 2:Being smart, that that is such a key these days to performing well. So, maria, and I love to hear other because, compared to you two. So Maria does the ultra distance 12 hour bike races, 24 hour bike. She's a world record holder and has been in the 12 hour in the 24. So I'm in excruciating pain in a 20 minute race. Okay, so that is that's painful to me, but I still love to talk to other endurance athletes about pain. So when you Maybe Manhattan was the perfect race, because when you do hit that magical race, which sounds like Manhattan was for you, maybe you didn't have as much pain. But talk with us about all these open water swims, these distant swims that you're doing, where you hit that place, where, yeah, you're trying to hold on to your technique, you're trying to keep your mind, but let's talk about that mindset, part of being this champion that you are, and that you know the coach that you are.
Speaker 4:You know, I think, man, if in swimming teachers a big lesson in life, if you like, about keeping going and soldiering on and moving forwards and not looking back and just focusing on the way you're actually heading to, and I think with the marathon swimming events that I've done, man, you're quite right, manhattan did not feel hard at all. I it was so weird, it was almost like I was having an out-of-body experience. When I was actually swimming it, I People said to me wasn't the water dirty? Wasn't it smelly? Didn't you? Were you worried about getting sick? And I was worried about all of those things. But I remember the water looking like minty blue. He was just weird.
Speaker 4:It was 14 degrees Celsius, so what is that? 56 degrees Fahrenheit and we're on wet suit, so we weren't allowed to wear a wetsuit, or in there for seven hours and a bit. And unfortunately, I People said, yeah, was it really hot? Can't tell them it was hard, because I actually felt Rillian on that swim, like everything just worked, like teetop basically went really well. That being said, of course I've done other swims where it's been terrible.
Speaker 3:I have really gone through the ring, as we call it over here in Australia, and the workouts certainly some of the workouts leading up to it were hard, so how do you manage that? Absolutely.
Speaker 4:I got a few friends who say train to, train smart, or train hard so that you can actually feel easy on the day, and that's really what it felt like for Manhattan. But it was an event the Montenegro event that I did last year. It's really interesting concept. So it's it's a four-day event. It's called the ultra swim 33.3, so four-day events. So it's a little bit like stage race, a little bit like 20 France, if you like, and I went over there. It was the inaugural event. Last year. They'd asked me to coach everybody who was who I was gonna race against, which was an interesting concept. So we rock up there. There was, I think there was about 50 people racing and I had to do a video analysis session with every single person. That's part of their entry. So over the four days I was actually racing, I was actually coaching 15 16 people a day as well.
Speaker 4:So we do the races morning enough to work for eight or nine, ten hours back to back to do the stroke correction with them, but unfortunately it left me feeling Absolutely terrible during that four four-day swim and the bad feeling in terms of the physical bad feeling that I had just the back to my mind and just thought gotta just keep going here. One stroke, one stroke, one stroke, one stroke, one stroke after the next. Basically a little bit Like Dory. I know everyone uses a terminology just keep swimming, just keep swimming. But it's absolutely true. And is it life like that is keeping soldiering on, moving forwards and making sure you're not looking backwards.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that. And so that self-talk literally is one stroke, one stroke, one stroke.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, even for Manhattan. So Manhattan was freezing cold. He was on seasonably cold, but I hate getting into cold water just like anybody else. But I have I seem to have this sort of natural affinity once I'm in there and working well with it. So I've been and I couldn't focus on anything else other than just one stroke, the next. I've got a little mantra within swimsuit. I call it bubble breathe, which is just basically focus on your exhalation underneath the water. And people said to me how did you win that race? What did you do? And I said I was just thinking what did you do with technique? I was just saying bubble, bubble breathe, bubble, bubble breathe. And I think I worked it out. I said that 36,000 times. That's all I did. That's it. There's no, no magic to it, sort of being just literally Consistently saying the same thing over and over again.
Speaker 2:Maria, you're loving bubble bubble breathe, aren't you aren't? So, paul, maria is a new swimmer and you, she. I want her to ask you some new swimmer questions because so her very first swim race she's ever done. Remember, she's married to my brother, who is a great swimmer. Okay, he's sure he's a great swimmer, just excellent swimmer. We convinced Maria to do her first masters us masters race, which just happened to be our US national championship.
Speaker 3:You can do this.
Speaker 2:It's a two mile cable swim in Lake Placid. Oh, this was her first race and she did it. She, she did the race. But so a swimmer like Maria, who really is her technique, is Uncoached. She just is like somebody who Does triathlons. She swims in a triathlon and so when Jim and I look at her, we try to help her with general stuff. But if you were going to give some advice to just our listeners that are triathletes, or to Maria I love bubble bubble breathe. Is there anything else?
Speaker 4:Well, bubble bubble breathe is really useful because it just focuses and you sense as you're on one thing that you can control. So I like the idea and the concept with the bubble bubble breathe because it's just super, super simple. When people are nervous and anxious, the first thing they do is they tend to hold onto their breath, like this basically, and what they tend to do is they're going to a little bit of panic and they'll be going to take a breath in, but they'll still be blowing out when they should be breathing in. So just like getting them, say, bubble bubble in the water silly as that sounds it just helps you really focus on that rhythm. Another couple of little tips that I like, especially for new listeners, especially in the open water, is one if you're going to be wearing a wet suit, for example, a lot of people put these wet suits on and they don't spend the time putting them on properly, they don't pull them up properly over their shoulders and they tend to feel really quite tight and rigid. Wet suits should feel very nice and actually help you improve your swimming with the buoyancy, etc. But if you don't take the time to actually pull it on properly over the shoulders, we've got a really useful video on that. Actually, I call it the human shoevorn. So you get somebody in there and they're actually shoevawning you into the wet suit. Basically, you know, that's a really useful thing.
Speaker 4:By and large, when people are first getting into swimming, One of the biggest things that they're actually trying to overcome is drag. They're trying to reduce how much their legs are dragging in the water. Now, that's not universal across all swimmers though, because a lot of especially a lot of female swimmers, even when they're very new swimming, do tend to float pretty well in the water and they have a. A lot of people would say it's a different body mass and those type of things, percentage between fat and muscle, but a lot of it to be honest with you, a lot of it can be just a lot of ladies just take it a lot steadier and a lot smoother.
Speaker 4:A lot of guys actually, when they're first getting into it, just fighting and bashing against the water, and that's not efficient at all. So I think, by and large, most ladies I start out with there's a lady called Megan who swims here in in Perth. We've since called her mega Megan because when she joined the spodge she was swimming two minutes 14 per 100 meters in the long course pool when she started out and in my squad over here in Perth that would actually put her at the back of our slowest lane in the entire squad and just by working on her technique and refining the type of training she was, she managed to knock off. She was actually swimming one minute 34.
Speaker 4:Wow, wow, she sustained over a five K swims of 40 seconds. Wow, for a hundred meters. And the interesting thing with Megan is that just answering that question again about tips and techniques and stuff Megan, when she started out, already looked quite good in the water. She was a little bit slow, a little bit timid sort of thing. Her stroke rate was a little bit on the slow side, but we focused on improving that, getting her rhythm up, allowing us to like really become the true swim of that she wants it to be.
Speaker 4:And a lot of that was about Kelly mentioned, about you experimenting with your leg kick and increase in stroke rate. That's basically what I did with Megan as well and also encourage you to just come along and do the training sessions, because somebody with a very low swimming background might be discouraged from actually doing proper training because they think, oh, that's too far beyond me, I'll just do some drills and what have you. But I didn't do that with Megan. I encourage you to come along to all the planning sessions.
Speaker 4:She understood the concept behind some of the harder training sessions that we do, like endurance and those type of things, and she one of the nicest things about the story we've heard that we become really good friends over the years is sometimes I'll tell swimmers normally the blokes. I'll say I want you to do this, I want to do a lap, and they'll argue back and they'll say why Megan didn't do that. She just literally turned the brain off and said okay, this guy appears to know what he's talking about. I trust what he's talking about. I'm just going to follow what he does and that's, and it took a lot of the ambiguity out of what she was doing. It made it simplify the whole process for her basically.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great yeah, and that's encouraging to me because I'm where she was. So you're so right about relaxing in the water, because the first thing that happened in my first two mile cable swim was I thought I got out there. I was like I'm usually very comfortable in the water, but I had I got all bunched up. I thought am I going to drown? Am I going to which I never? That? That didn't occur to me. That thought would occur to me once I started swimming. Of course, I relaxed and it was fine. But so there there's probably a lot of us, people like me who weren't swimmers, weren't age group swimmers growing up, and but love the idea of being participating in these longer events or in triathlons and so I love, I love your style.
Speaker 2:Okay. So we say we don't talk a lot of X's and O's, we like to talk the broader. So we we've talked X's and O's, which I could talk all day long about, but we do want to ask you you are a champion yourself. You've been around so many of these champions, from Ironman champions, ironman champions to everybody that you've studied. What do you feel like are some of the characteristics that really make someone successful, a champion?
Speaker 4:I'm gonna sound a little corny, a little bit cheesy here, but the Netflix series no, sorry, not Netflix is actually on Apple. Ted Lasso my wife tried. She tried to get me to watch this during COVID and it took me five or six attempts to get into it and I just couldn't. What was the guy Jason Stakis? I just could not get into it. It was too. It was a bit too happy for me at the start, especially during COVID, because we're struggling with all of that and getting through that. But I finally sat down and watched it and I was blown away because the message behind that story is all about Belief in yourself. And they have this big poster up on the wall and the soccer team there. They all have to believe in themselves a lot more. And when he comes to looking at great champions true champions A lot of them are actually misunderstood. A lot of people say he's got or she's got so much bravado, there's too much he out there, there's too much self-belief and stuff. But I don't really believe you can have to you. There's not enough belief in the world. To be honest, we are not. A lot of people believe themselves, but those champions they do that and I just watched at the weekend and Netflix Documentary the cyclist Mark Cavendish, who's again another guy that I've followed a lot over the years, and if you haven't watched that documentary it's fantastic.
Speaker 4:Because I've asked a few people in my squad I said what did you think of that interview? And half of them will say I was too brash, he was too arrogant at any to do and some people like, oh my god, didn't he go through some major obstacles and didn't he bounce back really well? And it was just his belief that he knew that he was the world's best cycling sprinter. But he just had to bring it out of himself again and he's equaled Eddie Merck's world record of 34 Tour de France stage wins. He didn't quite get to 35, but and then he crashed out this year, unfortunately. But the overriding thing that I see in all those great champions is belief.
Speaker 3:So how do we use that as a tool, like I just watched the Arnold Schwarzenegger? So good same idea. This guy's very brash, but he could see himself so clearly doing the succeeding it, what he wanted to succeed at. So how would you use that? What do you call it? Confidence, or brashness, or visualization? How would you use it? How can we all use it as a tool regularly, so every time?
Speaker 4:Without taking it as, in a way, from Arnold Schwarzenegger, I would say go and watch that documentary, first and foremost because His level of self-belief and his visualization of how he mapped out his life. It's in three stages, right, so it's a three-part documentary. First one's all about being the athlete with bodybuilder, second ones about being the movie star and the last one's about being a politician and I'm not into politics at all, but I still enjoyed the last one because it's still Arnold Schwarzenegger featured it. How do you take that self-belief? I think, especially in today's age, people are always saying don't be, we've got this term over here. I'm not sure how they in the US back tall poppy, don't be a tall poppy. A tall poppy gets his head right, right poppy syndrome.
Speaker 4:But the reality is we're all doing these events and things that we're doing, but a manner of different reasons. You might be Arnold Schwarzenegger wanting to win world strongest, not world strongest man, mr Universe. You might want to become the best movie star and the biggest packet sort of thing. You might just want to do your local triathlon event and just get around the swim, because that's the thing that's being created in the biggest sphere. And I think that belief, having that self-belief is super, super important. Like I said, I don't have it 100% of the time either, but I think you can promote that self-belief. You can treat, you can encourage that self-belief, and one of the ways of doing that is just by setting yourself a little bit of a routine, having a little bit of a formula about what you guys do and then just sticking to it. And I've just, literally just last week, put out a blog to our subscribership, as 120,000 people follow this swimming club each week and People being sending me feedback about the videos some people that videos are too long send me something short-ass and Okay, what is it that you want me to write? What content do you want me to put out there?
Speaker 4:And a lot of people say I just want to know how to actually improve when I'm not improving and and they're all looking for some sort of silver bullet from me, something that sort of say that's that it's gonna make a 30 second improvement or what have you. But equally, a lot of people been asking me to just go back over some of the basics, just cover some of the basics, and that's what I've done is I've compiled an eight week training program that people are actually following online. We put out a survey, I said. I said, look, I'm gonna select eight people from around the world and You're gonna tell, you're gonna be part of this process, we're gonna document your improvement process. It's a little team of eight people. I'm gonna be your coach and then we're gonna put it out to the blog readership. Each week. I'm gonna let them know how you progressing, where you doing Well, where you falling back on a little bit, and we're just gonna keep it real life, real world situation, putting it out there and I'm thinking that's gonna be, and I'm hoping that's gonna be really beneficial people to see how this thing works and it's not rocket science.
Speaker 4:There is no silver bullet Sorry, that's a bit of a spoiler alert. You're not gonna get any but what it's actually trying to encourage people to do is just to find a rhythm in their routine and Despite what else is going on in their life. We're all dealing with good stuff, bad stuff and stuff like that. I've always believed that if you can stick to that routine Up throughout all the ups and downs in my life, one of the things by constantly my life is that I know how good swimming makes me feel and I go into the pool Even if I'm not feeling like a swim, I will get in because I've set some time in my schedule. I'm gonna do a half an hour swim today.
Speaker 4:People say to me oh, half an hour, that's not. What's the point in doing half an hour swim. I thought you're a marathon swimmer. You should do 20 kilometers. I've only got time for half an hour. I'm gonna get in and do half an hour. I'm gonna feel great on it and I've stuck to that routine and Even with my work life as well, by being on the pool deck and stuff. I say to the swimmers all the time it's super, super important, you are consistent in your training and it's super important and consistent as you catch and that I will show up On the pool deck at 5 30 in the morning when I say I'm going to be there. And in 20 years of coaching I've only turned up late for my coaching once. We were selling a house and my we're selling a house. 10 years ago and I remember having a heart attack. I woke up and it was 12 minutes past the start. This swimming sessions, oh my gosh and I raced in there.
Speaker 4:I got in there a few minutes late, sort of thing, and I think that's about 15, 16 minutes late in total. And I got there and one of the one of the swimmers who's been pushing, putting up with me, I'm gonna say many years he's got a love-hate relationship with the sessions that I create. He'd just taken the, he'd taken the ball by the horns and just written a session up on the board and everyone started to follow that. But he never, ever, lets me forget that one time in 20 years I do 12 squad sessions a week, every week of the year for 20 years and it's the one time, whereas like 14 minutes late, showing up for the swims and I think In terms of being a coach, leading people and stuff, it's so important they can see that you are being true to what you're actually putting out. It's no good me saying people system, turn up and do your work If I'm not going to be consistent and turn up and do my coaching or if I'm not going to turn up and actually do my swimming and stuff. And I've had people over the years tell me oh, no one really cares if you're into doing your swimming as well, they prefer to be, just to be, you know, one of those big swimming coaches on the side of the pool, but that doesn't really inspire confidence in people.
Speaker 4:I'm super of the belief that what I do and what people see me doing, and that's really all it's about and that's what this eight week program is all about. It's just about, okay, identify what your goals are. It can be something really big and hairy, big, hairy, audacious goal. It can be something really just very minor, but just set your intentions, set those improvement intentions and then let's go about this eight week thing, a week program, and just simply stick to that plan as best we can.
Speaker 4:And I think part of the process through with these eight swimmers some of them are really high achievers and they've set you can already, you can tell they've already set themselves goals and a schedule which is not going to be really steep, to actually steep to. So actually tell them to just be kind to yourself, flip back a little bit. If you say you're going to do five, but you think you might not be able to just say four, let's just start with four and let's just try and tick that box and I'm a bit of a checklist guy. I like to tick off my checklist basically step by step and stuff, and that's all I've got. People doing is just literally just ticking up that checklist and getting down to the pool and doing it.
Speaker 2:If people want to follow these eight people, is that at Swimsmoothcom.
Speaker 4:Yes, swimsmoothcom. Or if you go to Swimsmoothcom, we actually put out the entire plans each week every Friday afternoon. It'd be Friday, friday AM, your time. I basically just send out. Okay, this is what we're doing this week. This is how the swimmers went from last week. So they're almost like they're following what I'm doing. They're a week ahead. They're basically a week ahead of the subscribership and they can just follow along with what we're doing.
Speaker 4:So last week it was all just about setting your benchmark, knowing exactly where you're starting, what is your threshold pace, without getting too scary. Sometimes people think I get really scared about setting a threshold pace or setting any time. I hate doing a time trial, I hate setting that. But if you don't know where you're starting from, how are you going to know if you've improved at all? So many people say to me oh, my swimming's not improved for three years. I said so. Tell me where is your swimming at the moment and they'll go. And they can't honestly answer me exactly where they're at. They can't tell me what their PB is. They can't tell me what pace they hold for 10, 100s because they're just simply not tuned into it.
Speaker 4:So you don't have to become super anal and pedantic about numbers. I love numbers. You don't have to become that person. You do need to know your starting point. You do need to know where that benchmark is at and you don't need to be afraid of doing it. Who cares what it is? Who cares whether you're swimming at 220 per 100 or 145 per 100 or 150? Who cares? It doesn't matter. You don't need to tell anyone, you just need to know it yourself. And if you know where it is, then you can set those intentions to actually move forwards from that point. And that's really what this program is all about. It's like I say, it's not rocket science, it's not a silver bullet, it's just focusing on those basics and those fundamentals.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, and there's so much great content on your website, like literally everything we've talked about on the show. And this new these new hate swimmers sounds fantastic. We're going to ask you the last question what is a little known fact about you that our listeners might enjoy?
Speaker 4:Believe it or not, I was on the UK dating show in 2000. On TV it was the most watched TV show, that nearly 25 million people tuned into this dating show and it's called blind dates. I don't know if you've got a similar show over there in America, but basically there's one person, either a guy or a girl, picking, and then behind this screen there are three people. It just so happened that they were doing interviews for blind date at the university where I was at and one of my friends said I'm going to go on, I'm going to go on and apply for this. We come down and support me and I had no intention of going and interviewing for this thing. Why don't you just come along and have a little bit of a go, just be a bit of fun? So I did it. I did the first round of interview and I got called up for the second round and then I didn't hear from them for about three months and I was out riding my bike training up for a triathlon. And then one day I got this phone call and it was the producer and he said we want you to come on TV. You want the payloads down to London be on the show. The producers are like we hear you doing triathlon. This was interesting.
Speaker 4:I've seen them wearing some funny clothing on this, on these triathlons. What is it you wear? So I have to wear this Speedo skin suit and it's really tight and I said we want you to wear that on the show. Oh well, there's no way I'm going to wear that Speedo skin suit on that show. But they twisted me behind my back, they applied me with a couple of beers and, sure enough, I went on this show, this film live and stuff in this, from this live audience and when I'm the show in this tight Speedo skin suit with a uni jack flag wrapped around my shoulders and I had to tell my story about triathlon. And ultimately, this girl, anita, was a nice. She peaked me because she I was talking about being an athlete and she had this picture of an athlete being the six foot four guy with massive board shoulder, maybe like Michael Phelps or something like that, and she saw this scrawny little guy walk out from behind the screen. I'm five foot 10. Back then I was weighing oh God what 140 pounds or something like that.
Speaker 1:Oh, no Tiny skinny, skinny, skinny.
Speaker 4:I was shorter than she was, oh no I was wearing this uni jack, had this tight skin suit, and she just thought, oh my God, what have I let myself in for? The great experience that was fun.
Speaker 2:It's great. It sounds like triathlon has led you to some of the greatest things in your life, right?
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:I want to be helping people improve their swimming, and that is what I want to do. That's the life that I set out for myself, and I wouldn't trade that for anything else. That's beautiful.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful and the cool thing is that your content is reaching people across the world, so that's really cool.
Speaker 4:Thanks, Kelly.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, paul, we do have the sprinter round. Are you ready?
Speaker 4:I'm ready. Take your mark.
Speaker 2:What is your favorite sandwich?
Speaker 4:Oh, cheese and pickle.
Speaker 2:Okay, what do you own that you should throw out?
Speaker 4:Oh, GoPro video cameras.
Speaker 2:Okay, what is the scariest animal to you?
Speaker 4:Dog.
Speaker 2:What celebrity would you most like to meet?
Speaker 4:In the swimming world? Certainly Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps.
Speaker 2:What is the hardest swimming event in the pool?
Speaker 4:And you're my good question. I think 400, I am.
Speaker 3:Okay, kickboard. No, keep on if you have to listen to a song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Speaker 4:Sorry if I had to listen to a song, any song song. I love Coldplay, so probably Coldplay clocks.
Speaker 3:All right window or aisle.
Speaker 4:Window definitely.
Speaker 3:Okay, describe your life in five words.
Speaker 4:Oh, fortunate, exciting, challenging, some more fun and Energetic.
Speaker 3:Okay, last one. What word comes to mind when you dive in the water?
Speaker 4:release.
Speaker 2:I like that Beautiful. All right, paul, this has been such a pleasure, so wonderful, and we just thank you for being on here. We know our listeners are gonna love this interview and get a lot out of it.
Speaker 4:Thank you very much. Thanks so much for having me always been great chatting with you.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's terrific, thank you.
Speaker 1:Stay tuned for the takeaways.
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Speaker 2:Okay, maria, the takeaways for Paul Newsome from SwimSmooth. What an incredible interview. I even though it is now 10 o'clock at night while we are recording this and we are so. Energized we're usually asleep by now, but there were a lot of takeaways. What was your? Your very first takeaway?
Speaker 3:I love set your benchmarks, know where you're starting from. I think lots of times we can just throw ourselves into I'm gonna get started tomorrow or I'm gonna get started going, and and you, if you don't have a benchmark, you don't know if you've improved and you don't know if you're improving. So I think that's he talked about. I think it's probably harder with swimming than it is with cycling. We do that in cycling pretty easily. You always do a functional threshold test, but I have never done it in swimming. I have no. I have no idea what where I'm starting from. So I love the idea of set your benchmark so you know where you're starting from.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and it's actually easy to do in swimming, yeah, arguably easier than in cycling. You've got a pace clock on every pool deck and you literally Swim a hard 50, see what your time was and Right down that time, so setting your benchmarks, know what that paces? Was that a hundred percent? Was that 80 percent? Was that 50 percent?
Speaker 2:Yeah so I. It would always floors me when I'm in practice and we're doing like a set of pace 50s and I might turn to somebody and say what were you holding on those? Oh, I have no idea what I was holding on those we should know what we're hold.
Speaker 2:We should know what we're holding or what we're capable of holding. So, yeah, I love that. Set your benchmark my big. The whole theme of for me, what I've learned from it and what I benefited from and what I think swim smooth is about, is Efficiency versus aesthetics, and we all get wrapped around the axle what we look like in the water? Do we look like we have to take too many strokes? Do we look like we're our stroke is short? Do we? Are we too splashy? Whatever it is, it's about efficiency, and Paul really frees us up from worrying about what we look like as long as we are efficient and that's based on tempo and the number of strokes that you're taking and the power and what you're doing efficiently, and not just what you look like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, body drove that point home really well and that's encouraging for anybody, especially a beginning swimmer. Surely there's technique. I know I can improve my techniques terrible. But just thinking about getting more efficient and not worrying about where is my hand or my elbow or whatever I'm sure that there are things that could be I could do that would make me more efficient, but I don't know just that whole idea, like you said, of not looking a perfect swimmer and just being free to get out there and swim hard.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So how about your?
Speaker 3:last one, second one I love this. Something that I think about a lot is belief. We talked about in my, about confidence. This is a hard one for me, just because I don't like to overpromise and Underdeliver, and but I love the concept of telling yourself it's self-talk, it's it's vision, it's a believing in yourself, my belief that I can, that with what I've got, I'm gonna go and do the best that I can and feel confident.
Speaker 3:Going in that confidence, I thought that was really good and we talked about how you can use that and In life and in swimming. And, like he said, when he went to the Manhattan swim, he knew he had done what he could with what he had and he was just gonna get out there and do the best he could. He knew was gonna be able to do that and he felt great and he had a great swim and I think that's just a great thing to remind myself. I get, I don't know, just Distracted from that. I almost always go into the event having done all the preparation that I could, so I just need to Focus on that and believe myself. So that was a good takeaway for me yeah, beliefs is.
Speaker 2:Half of this is just what we're telling ourselves. Just that. That's huge, Just yeah yeah believe in yourself. It's an important trait of champions.
Speaker 2:Yeah and my second one to talk about is just Consistency, just consistency and training. How important it is to get in a routine and just stick with the routine. Yeah, and then that gives you. It gives you the belief, it gives you the confidence if you've done the work. And he said for 20 years he's done, he's coached 12 sessions a week and never missed. He's never missed one. I think he was late to one in 20 years.
Speaker 2:So he walks the walk as a coach, he lives the consistency and that is the way that we become successful is with consistency.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's not I yeah, I love that idea. And it's not that you have to be consistently working out six days a week. You got to be consistent in whatever you're gonna do. If it's a to, if you're working out two days a week, yeah, just put your two days in every single week and don't let this slip to one or zero. So I it doesn't have to be consistent meaning, oh my gosh, you're doing this huge volume and I love he told that story about his own Performance based on what time he had for. So I think I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah if you only have time for 20 minutes swim, then you only swim for 20 minutes, and then you just do it and you do it, yeah, consistently Okay. Yeah, all right, Maria. Another great one in the books.
Speaker 3:Love you, love you too, kelly, bye, bye.
Speaker 1:Bye. Thank you for listening to the champions mojo podcast. Did you enjoy the show? We'd be grateful if you would leave us a five-star review on iTunes to help others find us, and we'd also love to hear from you. We're on all social media platforms or you can reach us at champions mojocom.