As championship season approaches, swimmers often ask, “Can we practice our starts and turns?” But in a typical training week, an athlete may already have hundreds of opportunities to practice every wall, streamline, underwater, breakout, and transition.

The question isn’t whether they’re practicing them. It’s what they’re practicing.

Starts, turns, and underwaters can easily become afterthoughts when the focus is on completing the next repeat. But every rushed streamline, sloppy foot placement, poorly timed breakout, or well-executed transition reinforces a habit. Over time, those habits become the movements athletes rely on when racing.

And small differences matter. Where a swimmer breaks out, how much speed they carry or lose off the wall, when they initiate their final underwater kick, or when they set their catch can change how the rest of the race unfolds—even determining whether they finish with a full stroke, a short stroke, or a long glide.

This two-day RaceBetter workshop focuses on three areas:

• Starts — creating force, controlling the entry, and carrying speed into the first three cycles
• Turns — managing speed into the wall, moving efficiently through the turn, and accelerating out
• Underwaters — developing body line, effective dolphin kicks, and the timing and distance of the breakout

Through technical instruction, dryland connection work, in-water application, objective feedback, and competitive challenges, athletes will be encouraged to experiment, ask questions, understand what they’re doing, and make more intentional decisions about how they move through a race — then carry that understanding back into everyday training.

Our goal is simple:

Help swimmers recognize the opportunities already built into every practice—and develop habits that will serve them when it matters most.