Swimmer's Daily

  • Cam McEvoy won Olympic gold in the 50 freestyle in Paris and now holds the world record, but the approach that got him there started with a session that looked like almost nothing. Katie Hoff Anderson asks him what day one was like when he began training this way at the end of 2022, and how he kept believing in it.

    In October 2022, after more than a year out of the water, his first session back was six parachute sprints of 12 strokes each. It felt easy. Within about two hours of getting home he was fried, with brain fog and a thousand-yard stare on the couch. Cam had never napped between sessions, even through 50, 60 and 70K weeks, and this time he slept for two hours. In his words, he was “out like a baby.” He explains the novelty of sessions where he would not even touch the wall at the other end of the pool, and the trust he borrowed from the strength and track worlds, where these ideas had decades of results behind them.

    The results came fast. Within eight weeks of coming back, he beat his Tokyo Olympic time in the 50 free, and within nine months of doing no swimming at all, he was world champion. He also shares the one time his confidence wavered, in May 2023, when he pushed the new training too hard because he could not feel it working, fell into what he calls an absolute hole, and was told by his coach Tim Lane not to swim again until his warm-up at the meet. Five days later he went 21.8, the quickest swim of his season to that point.

  • If you were building a swim program from age 8 all the way to pro, how much volume would you give young swimmers? Katie Hoff Anderson puts that question to Cam McEvoy, the Olympic champion and world record holder in the 50 freestyle, and his answer challenges how much volume the sport asks of kids.

    Cam believes swimming has done physiology well for a long time but has overestimated how long and how much volume it takes to get a swimmer from A to B. Between 8 and the teenage years, he would hammer the fundamentals: technique, strength, mobility and what he calls body movement intelligence, with general exposure to speed, middle distance and distance without maxing out any one of them. He also makes the case against specializing early in either direction. The argument that young swimmers should not specialize in sprinting, he says, applies just as much to specializing in distance and volume.

    He explains why speed and strength only work when swimmers are given real space for them instead of having them piled on top of the usual volume, why gym work for a 14-year-old does not have to mean weights, and why he thinks this approach would keep more kids in the sport. He knows the alternative firsthand. From 11 until 18, he says, “if you’re only doing 40 to 80 kilometers a week, then it kind of, kind of sucks after a little bit.” His answer is detours: three months in a year for pure speed and three months for pure gym while everything else is on maintenance.

    For coaches, swim parents and age group swimmers, this is how the fastest 50 freestyler in history would build a swimmer from the ground up. The full conversation with Cam is on the Unfiltered Waters channel and wherever you listen to podcasts.

  • A grand jury determined that there wasn’t evidence to warrant charges in the death of Nolan Wells, a black college student whose body was found after a July 4 boating trip and party on an island off the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Wells’ family swiftly pushed back on the findings.

  • Gov. Reynolds orders flags at half-staff for student and teacher drowning victims

  • With less than six years to go, the 2032 Brisbane Olympics and Paralympics will mark a major milestone this week.

  • Mind over matter becomes so important when you’re an open water swimmer

  • Before the start of the 2026 Asian Games Yu Zidi was one of the biggest names I was looking out for, it’s an easy and OBVIOUS pick. During last summers world championships she made history becoming the youngest finalist in world championships history finishing 4th in three different events at just 12 years old. In 2026 after turning 13 she got even faster, and now we’ve seen her at her fastest yet as she just ripped an ABSURDLY quick time in the 200 IM and in the process reclaimed the Asian record in the event, broke the world junior record, and swam a time faster than any Olympic gold winning time in the event’s history.

  • Build better leg strength for swimmers with these three exercises. Increase your power and fight fatigue in the pool.

    Swimming is often seen as an upper-body sport, but powerful legs are essential for maintaining speed and stability. If you struggle with late-race fatigue, adding targeted leg exercises to your routine can make a significant difference in your performance.

    This video demonstrates three specific movements designed to build swimming endurance through improved lower body mechanics. We cover lunges with steps, single-leg deadlifts, and bench hip thrusts to help you generate more swimming power off the walls and during your stroke.

  • A Capitola woman is recovering from injuries suffered in a sea lion attack. It was the second such incident in Monterey Bay that day.