Swimming Performance

The Physiology of Performance: Understanding the Swimming Taper for Championship Meets

Physiology, Strength & Conditioning, Swimming Performance / By

The taper is an integral part of the competitive swimming experience. Swimmers usually first experience the taper at the end of their first competitive swim season, regardless of age or skill level. Even though most swimmers have undergone a taper and most coaches have facilitated one, few understand the physiological underpinnings that make the taper …

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Our Most Popular Posts of 2020

Board Sports, Cycling, Expedition 118, Featured Fitness Content, Hunting, Latest Posts, Leadership and Discipline, Microblogs, Nutrition & Wellness, Physiology, Strength & Conditioning, Swimming Performance / By

As we wrap up 2020, there’s a great deal of negativity surrounding the year we’ve just lived through, some have a positive outlook moving forward, some others–not so much… We get one shot at this and should make the best of it. For anyone anxious about the new year or depressed about last year, I …

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Outdoor Conditioning Workout Sign Ups

Strength & Conditioning, Swimming Performance / By

Because of the current shut-downs affecting Pennsylvania-based high school athletes, Ruthless Performance is opening up our new Mobility & Fitness Studio early for outdoor conditioning workouts for high school athletes. The Ruthless Performance Mobility & Fitness Studio is located at 2205 W Market St Pottsville, PA 17901 (in the Revive Chiropractic Building). This second round of COVID shutdowns stipulates that only …

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A Comprehensive Look at Our 3 Day At-Home Swimming Dryland Program (Program 2)

Latest Posts, Strength & Conditioning, Swimming Performance / By

With the new shut down measures in Pennsylvania, I wanted to get out a new workout for our swimmers to do at-home. This program is designed for high school swimmers, any high school swimmer, but it helps if the athlete has trained with us in the past so that they are used to the formatting …

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Featured Fitness Content: Volume 85

Featured Fitness Content, Strength & Conditioning, Swimming Performance / By

This week’s list of featured content is as eclectic as ever. The Featured Fitness Content series actually outdates the origin of Ruthless Performance. Prior to ruthless, the featured fitness content series was hosted on The Fitness Resource–the business from which ruthless evolved. The Featured Fitness Content series is a great opportunity for me to stay …

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Foundational Series: 3 Common Lower Body Training Mistakes

Board Sports, Cycling, Physiology, Q&A Series, Strength & Conditioning, Swimming Performance / By

If I’m being honest, the most common lower body training mistake is simply not training the lower body. Dedicated fitness enthusiasts of the latter half of the last century had a somewhat similar notion to this–strength training for the upper body, plus some running or jogging for the lower body. In my early training years …

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Foundational Series: Over-Training & Under-Recovery

Physiology, Strength & Conditioning, Swimming Performance / By

Q. Should I Use a Deload Week at the End of Each Training Cycle? The concept of ‘deloading’ finds its way into many lifters’ training programs far too early in their careers. Deloading typically refers to any time within a training cycle where there is a sizeable cutback in volume, load, intensity, or variable otherwise, …

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Featured Fitness Content: Volume 79

Featured Fitness Content, Latest Posts, Microblogs, Nutrition & Wellness, Physiology, Strength & Conditioning, Swimming Performance / By

Before we dive into this week’s featured content, you may be interested in viewing the last installment, which can be found here. Regarding this week’s content, we have a few housekeeping items to cover… First, the Coal Region Campfire episode with Coach Ned Hampford is a few months old, breaking with our tradition of posting …

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Featured Fitness Content: Volume 76

Featured Fitness Content, Hunting, Latest Posts, Nutrition & Wellness, Physiology, Strength & Conditioning, Swimming Performance / By

We have lots of content to cover this week, from Ketogenic Diets to sleep routines of the ultra-successful, and aging to asthma. But first, you might want to take a look at last week’s Featured Content. You can do so here. At the time of this publication, I’ll be bow hunting Idaho’s Frank Church–River of …

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Exercise of the Month: The Build & Balance Complex

Board Sports, Posture, Strength & Conditioning, Swimming Performance / By

Rather than using a single exercise for this installment of Exercise of the Month, we’re going to discuss an exercise complex; one which we use frequently across our athletic population. Like many training evolutions at Ruthless, the Build & Balance Complex came out of my own training experiments. In this particular case, I was looking …

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