4 Ways Endless Pools Changed My Coaching for Life

Everything is constantly changing, constantly. Clothing trends, what you are/are not supposed to eat, the best way to workout, how to save money… Pretty much anything you can think of will be different 12 months from now. The same goes for swim coaching.

Research helps us improve upon old techniques and allows us to continually help our clients better. New training tools are developed that weren’t even a glimmer of a thought two years ago, and new ways to train are always being brought to the forefront of the workout community. But one thing that will forever be a constant in terms of my coaching? My Endless Pool.

I say this not only because it was a dream of mine (and my husband’s) to own once since I first heard of their existence when I was a little kid. It's also because it’s drastically changed the way my instructors and I coach at SwimBox. The Endless Pool lets us help our swimmers in ways we never thought possible.

First and foremost, the pool gives me the ability to have a completely controlled environment for one-on-one lessons; that kind of control is just impossible to get at a public pool of any kind. You set the water temperature, current speed, and general atmosphere surrounding your pool.

With that comes my favorite benefit of our Endless Pools Commercial pool: being able to stop clients as soon as we see a mistake being made. This prevents the negative reinforcement they would have when taking a lesson in a standard pool as they would swim a complete lap before being able to receive any kind of feedback and make any changes.

Next up would have to be the underwater mirrors. While one of our clients is swimming in place, it allows them to learn new movements more easily as they can watch what their body is doing in real time. This takes visual learning to the next level and gives positive and negative feedback.

The underwater mirrors are also great for when people think they’re making a change but actually are doing the same thing. They let them see that nothing has actually changed. This happens much more frequently than you might think, which I can 100% vouch for as I definitely am guilty of this sometimes. (Okay, maybe a bit more often than sometimes…)

Last but not least is the ability to swim in place – or as close to the same spot as they can be when swimming in the current. This gives me and my instructors a much greater ability to analyze their movements with the naked eye, or with the aid of our underwater cameras.

All of these advantages allow us to question and improve on what most people have come to learn as traditional swimming techniques.