Dobkanize Coaching Process

As athletes, we all strive to test ourselves and cross the finish line as fast as we can. A pro may train more often, and may train differently compared to a weekend warrior. However, the great thing about the sport of triathlon is that it is accommodating to all abilities. The weekend warriors get to do the same races as the pros.

Most triathletes do not show up to races expecting to win. Most are happy with the experience of competing and finishing and have their own unique goals and challenges. I want to make you as fast as possible in the least amount of time and effort to you. You can use my expertise to make measureable improvement in your own races whether you are a pro or amateur. Though the process is the same, it is likely that I will be telling pros to work on different things from amateurs.

This article covers what you can expect in a 1-1 triathlon swimming session with coach Dobko. I am excited to work with athletes of all levels of expertise, from pros to first time finishers. Often, it is athletes with the least swimming ability that force me as a coach to think of swimming in a way that I have never thought of before. Or other times, it is challenging to find that little extra something that the pros need to succeed. Thus, I consider it an asset to work with all levels of the sport.

The process I follow in coaching has 5 basic steps. In the first step, I watch and listen to you so I can prepare for instruction. In the second step, we try stuff out and you get the instruction you need to get faster. In the third step, we talk about homework you need to work on in order to get faster on your own. In the fourth step, we take metrics and do a quantitative analysis of how your swimming is coming along. In the fifth step, I document everything we covered and all of your swim times so we can compare to future sessions. These 5 steps are detailed below.

Step 1: Watch & Listen: Before we meet, I send you a questionnaire. It helps me plan ahead and estimate what I will see when we meet. Once at the pool, I have you warm up in a way you normally swim. This gives me a chance to watch you and determine what needs to be worked on first. Sometimes I can get all I need by watching you from the deck. Other times I will be jumping in the water and watching you swim from below. After all, what happens below the water is more important than what is happening above! At the conclusion I may ask you specific questions on why you swim the way you do. Some clients don’t know. Others say they are trying to match what they have read in a book somewhere. I use all of this information to put together the kind of instruction you need, plus an estimate of the difficulty you may face as you strive to improve.

Step 2: Try Stuff Out: After you have warmed up and I have watched you swim, we go into technique analysis. I have found much better success in teaching one thing at a time versus re-inventing the wheel. I will not hand you a laundry list of drills where you do not understand the intent. More appropriate are one or two drills that are specific to the one thing you need to do to get faster. You may leave one of my sessions doing several small things incorrectly in order to focus on one or two of the big opportunities. I see my job as tweaking your technique just enough to maximize the improvement every time out. When you have taken advantage of one opportunity, we move onto the next.

Step 3: Homework: I try to give you a few (at most 3) “homework assignments” to work on and we will work together to verify that you understand what is involved. I assign priorities (if you can fix just one thing, that is…), so that it is clear to you what to work on first that is going to give you the biggest improvement. Most of my clients follow a similar pattern for things to work on. As a result, these people are instructed to follow my well-tested techniques, training methods and stroke drills. Some clients have unique opportunities. These clients can expect unique drills and instruction to work on, often invented on the spot for your individual needs. Steps 1 through 3 generally take the first half hour of the session.

Step 4: Metrics: The last half hour of my swim sessions involve taking metrics. I time you by stopwatch in various distances and sets, most of them challenging, in order to get a real picture of your swimming improvement. This is important for three reasons. One, it gives us both a solid quantitative picture of how your swimming is coming along. Two, it exposes you to the kind of workouts that help make you fast. Three, a challenging set exposes technique issues that we may not otherwise see. All times are recorded, and times from one session are compared to times from the previous sessions. If your times are dropping, then it means we’re doing the right thing. If not, then we go back to the drawing board to figure out why.

Step 5: Document: After the session is over, I send you the results and a brief summary of what we talked about. This is an important reminder for you on what you need to do and whether or not you are improving. It is also used as a record if you choose to work with me again so that we cover all-new stuff in future sessions.

I try my best to make my 1-1 swim sessions fun and informative. I stress over and over again that we progress at your pace. I am not going to try and convince you that you should become elite if you just want to learn enough to finish. However, I will never use the word “can’t” when it comes to how much you can succeed in the sport. I have had first time finisher clients who are in their 70s, and clients who could not even swim a length sign up for ironman events. Other people have called them crazy. I say they are inspiring, and tell them what they need to do to get where they want to go.

In general, my instruction is very iterative based. Many times I have found that I see something the client is swimming incorrectly, but it is really a symptom and not the cause. Many times the symptom is actually helping alleviate some deeper problem. When the symptoms are ‘fixed’, the client can actually get slower. The real root cause is not always obvious. I have seen clients unable to pull efficiently only to find that shoulder flexibility prevented them from correcting. I have seen clients cross over the centerline on the pull, only to find that it compensated for a poor kick and excessive body rotation. This is why it is so important to me to take your swim times. It is a validation that we are fixing root causes.

Many people who work with me are initially shocked by my trial-and-error approach. They have a pre-conceived notion that a coach should behave like an encyclopedia. I have a vast amount of swimming experience, but that doesn’t mean I understand you and your swimming needs. I see a swim session as an elaborate human experiment, where I am the engineer and the client is the lead technician. We try stuff, and the client responds favorably or unfavorably according to the results. We find the root cause when you get faster. If you get slower, we only found a symptom. We keep trying until you get faster, period.

I hope you can use this article to make an informed decision if you want to work with me to improve your swimming. The five step process has been a great way to structure my swim sessions. It provides greater clarity in the instruction and constant verification that you are learning, improving, and having fun in the sport. I am always inspired by the energy and enthusiasm in my clients. You are taking on such an immense challenge in the sport of triathlon, and I look forward to doing my best to help you reach your goals! Until next time, happy training.

Coach Duane “Dobkanize” Dobko