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    SwimPath Blog

    United Through Sport & SwimPath - George Williams

    United Through Sport & SwimPath - George Williams

    George Williams - United Through Sport & SwimPath

    My name is George Williams and I joined SwimPath in November 2023. I have been a competitive swimmer for many years with Soundwell Swimming Club in Bristol and then Swansea University for 3 years. I started when I was 9 years old and progressed over the years culminating with swims at British Championships in 2022. I also have a number of National, Regional, and County appearances managing to win a few County Championship titles along the way. I have since retired from competitive swimming and taken up coaching with Soundwell and working at SwimPath.

    Before working at SwimPath I was lucky enough to do some volunteering work in South Africa with a Charity called United Through Sport. I spent 8 weeks as a volunteer in 2022 and 5 months as a programme coordinator in 2023. United Through Sport uses sport as a tool to help kids develop holistically. Their education, their welfare and their overall health and wellness. Identifying kids' talent for sports allows them to access better schools and better educational opportunities and improve their overall life prospects. The charity goes to 4 schools a day and runs coaching sessions with hundreds of kids in a wide variety of sports including cricket, rugby, football, hockey, tennis, netball, basketball, dance, and perhaps most importantly, swimming. The swim programme is something I am particularly proud of. Giving nearly 100 kids the opportunity to have swimming lessons and learn water safety is priceless. Being a swimmer myself I took extra interest in this aspect of the charities programme.

    SwimPath made a donation of swimming caps, swimsuits and goggles that provided the children with the necessary kit required for swimming lessons and learning water safety.

    Volunteers come from all over the world, including The United States, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Weekend excursions organised by United Through Sport included safari, shark diving, bungee jumping and skydiving. This whole experience was incredible and something I will continue to be interested in and is something I would wholeheartedly recommend to young people wanting to do some travel and make a positive difference.

    I am looking forward to working for SwimPath, growing the business and staying involved with the sport I love.

    United Through Sport - SwimPath

    Swimming Pacing Tips - Tempo Trainer

    Swimming Pacing Tips - Tempo Trainer

    For many swimmers, learning how a pace feels and being to hit that pace consistently is one of the hardest but most important things to achieve in training. Translating that pace into a race is also crucial, as you want to be able to feel what that pace is like in order for you not to go out too quick, and instead swim a consistent race and know that you are on track. The tempo trainer offers a great couple of ways to help assist you with this by beeping in different ways to give you feedback, as it sits underneath your swimming hat.

    • Mode 1 – Stroke Tempo
      • A great way to do improve your consistency is through practising stroke tempo
      • Stroke tempo is the interval of time between each of your strokes
      • For example, you would input 1.1 if you wanted to do a stroke every 1.1 seconds
      • The tempo trainer will give you feedback by giving a simple beep every interval, which would be every time you should be initiating a stroke
    • Mode 2 – Interval Mode
      • Input an interval time which causes the trainer to beep every time that interval passes
      • For example, if you were doing an aerobic swim and wanted to rep 34 seconds every 50m, you would be able to gauge if you were on track with the assistance of the tempo trainer.
      • If you are behind the beep you know you need to speed up!
    • Mode 3 – Stroke Rate
      • Stroke rates are the number of strokes you swim per minute and is similar to stroke tempo
      • The tempo trainer will beep every time you are meant to start a stroke
      • For example, swimming a set where one of your aims is to maintain a 38-stroke rate. This would be the stroke rate that you know you can hit a certain time with
      • Simply by continuously practising swimming with your goal rate, it will become easier for you to gauge your pace when swimming.

    Get yours at SwimPath today!