Anthony Blazevich is a Professor of Biomechanics in the School of Medical and Health Sciences at Edith Cowan University. He is also the head of the Centre for Exercise and Sports Science Research, so is a fabulous person to talk to about biomechanics, body types and how our physiology affects our ability to move through water. Listen in to hear how…

Rebecca Olive is an ocean swimmer whose academic research explores the role of sport and leisure in human and environmental health. In particular, her work explores the practices and cultures of ocean swimming and surfing to understand how human and environmental well-being interact, as well as our relationships to all things blue-space, such as sh…

Michelle O’Shea is a Senior Lecturer at Western Sydney University whose research interests dive into the areas of sport, culture and society, particularly with regard to swimming. She has looked into issues such as why swimming lessons for kids are important, as well as the role of the swimming pool in society. Her research particularly examines is…

Primrose Freestone, Associate Professor in Clinical Microbiology at the University of Leicester and science communicator, is an infectious diseases expert, and has dived into the debate of whether swimming in a pool or in the natural environment is the safer option. She also takes us through the cleanliness of hot-tubs (hint, they're gross.) Songs …

Seena Mathew is Assistant Professor of Biology, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. As a neurobiologist, she studies the effects of swimming on the brain, which are many! You can read her article in The Conversation (Swimming gives your brain a boost – but scientists don’t know yet why it’s better than other aerobic activities) or tune in here! Songs…

Episode 50! Swimmer's ear (acute otitis externa) is an outer ear infection that many swimmers will have had at some point in their lives. However, it turns out that you don't have to go swimming to get swimmer's ear. Thomas Schrepfer is assistant professor of head and neck surgery in the University of Florida Department of Otolayrngology, and a kee…

Rolf Hut is a hydrological scientist from Delft University of Technology. Or perhaps he's better described as MacGyver scientist, attacking problems from different and interesting angles. One such problem was the infamous 1962 escape from Alcatraz, in which inmates Clarence Anglin, John Anglin, and Frank Morris escaped from Alcatraz Federal Peniten…

Andy Donaldson is a world-recorder holding open-water swimmer. In 2023, he is attempting to swim the Oceans Seven in one year, and is making a pretty good fist of it, having already swum the English Channel (in a British record time), the North Channel (only 4 minutes off the record), the Cook Strait (in world record time) and the Molokai Channel i…

Pedro Ordenes is an Alcatraz legend, having swum the famous route over 1000 times!! Pedro runs Water World Swim that organizes many swims in San Francisco Bay, California and across the world. I was lucky enough to swim Alcatraz with Water World Swim recently in April 2023. Pedro is an exceptionally accomplished open water swimmer, perhaps the high…

Peta Bradley is a member of the Australian ice swimming team that recently competed at the World Ice Swimming Championships in France. She competed in the 1000m, 500m, and 50m butterfly, bringing home a bronze medal in the 500m. Peta hails from Gilgandra, quite some distance from any coastline, and does a lot of her training in dams. She has also c…

Lynne Cox is arguably the most accomplished ocean swimmer of all time. She set the record for the English Channel in 1972, was the first woman to swim the Cook Strait in New Zealand in 1975, famously swam between the US and the USSR in 1987 across the Bering Strait in bone-chilling 3 degree waters, and then even colder in Antarctica and Greenland. …

Professor Peter Ralph is Executive Director of the Climate Change Cluster in the Faculty of Science at UTS, and is partnering with Australian surf brand Piping Hot to develop textiles made from seaweed for surfwear. Nature-derived alternatives for the fashion industry have the potential to revolutionise products and vastly reduce their impact on th…

Eli Ball is training to swim the English Channel... butterfly. Yes, you read that correctly. Butterfly. He is an exceptionally accomplished butterflying ocean swimmer, having completed a plethora of marathon ocean swims, including the 20km Rottnest Island swim, along the way setting the butterfly record. Songs in this episode - all licensed under a…

Lauren Tischendorf is the first woman to swim solo around Lord Howe Island - 32.2 km of sharks, currents, 25 knot winds and 2.5 metre swell, finishing in 13 hours 50 minutes and 26 seconds. She has also filmed a documentary of the swim, I just went for a swim, highlighting the spectacular ocean as well as the importance of the empowerment of girls …

Brendan Cullen is training to swim the English channel, but what makes his journey exceptional is that he is a sheep farmer from Kars Station, east of Broken Hill in NSW, and is about 350 km from the nearest coastline. Four mornings a week, Brendan swims in the murky waters of Lake Pamamaroo and Lake Copi Hollow in the Menindee Lakes, where he can'…

Peter Hancock has now swum well over 1000 consecutive days, most days in Dumaresq Dam in Armidale, central NSW. Often the temperature is down near freezing. But this is not the first time Pete has conquered an incredible swimming challenge. In 2014, he swam in 333 different locations in the one year, including in the 1.6 degree Fox Glacier River in…

Jaimee Rogers hosts the Big Sports Breakfast program on Sky Sports Radio, is a national level swimmer in the 200m breaststroke, and is now tackling the English Channel. She is raising money with Gotcha4life to support mental health programs. You can sponsor her here. Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License: Balmoral - …

Jon Stagg has completed the Dark Mofo Nude Solstice Swim every year since its inception. What makes someone swim nude in the middle of the Tasmanian winter? Jon has some fabulous stories - he even did it himself when the event was cancelled during covid! Songs in this episode - all licensed under a Creative Commons License: Nude Beach - Le Blanche …

If you live on the east coast of Australia, your ocean swimming season has been rudely interrupted by the weather, with swims cancelled up and down the coast because of high swells and flooding. Australia has just experienced its wettest summer for five years because of a climate cycle known as La Nina. Associate Professor Andréa Taschetto is an oc…

Associate Professor Anna Clark is an ocean lover, fisher and historian at the University of Technology, Sydney. She has extensively researched the history of beach culture in Australia, an important place for thousands of generations of Indigenous culture, a place of last resort during the Great Depression, and a place of upheaval during the more r…

John Sheely is head gardener at the Warrnambool Botanical Gardens, an acclaimed ocean swimmer who, with pools closed due to covid, has now swum 300 consecutive ocean swims, and is aiming at 365 - a fair achievement when you consider he's swimming without a wetsuit off the coast of Victoria! It will end up being over 1000 km swum. He's also got quit…

Chloe McCardel is probably the world's best ocean swimmer. She holds the record for the world's longest unassisted ocean swim (124.4 km), has crossed the English Channel 37 times, was inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame in 2016 and was International Marathon Swimmer of the Year, 2014 & 2015. Her achievements are too long …

Craig Clarke is a champion Australian surf life-saver who has had a dream of swimming the English Channel since watching Des Renford in the 1970s. He had a slot booked in for this year, and then Covid-19 hit. Undeterred, not wanting to waste the training, and to raise money for Beyond Blue, Craig developed the 36 km “Coals to Newcastle” ocean swim …

Heather Massey is a senior lecturer in the Extreme Environments Research Group at the University of Portsmouth. Heather has done extensive work into the human response to cold water, both the physical and mental effects, and her areas of research interest include thermal, altitude and survival physiology. She's also an amazing ocean swimmer, having…

Bold and Beautiful are an informal Sydney swim group for all ages and abilities who meet out the front of Manly Life Saving Club every day and swim at 7am, 7 days a week from Manly to Shelly Beach and back. Dorset Sutton is a philanthropist and along with Bold and Beautiful has been a key part of Operation Crayweed, an effort to bring crayweed back…

Crayweed, a type of seaweed, forms dense forests on shallow reefs all the way from Port Macquarie to Tasmania. However, there is a 70 km gap in crayweed off the coast of Sydney. Sometime during the 1980s, crayweed disappeared completely between Palm Beach and Cronulla, likely due to the poorly treated sewage that used to be pumped directly onto Syd…

Dr. Shane Gould is the only swimmer to hold every world freestyle record from 100 to 1500 metres and the 200-metre individual medley simultaneously. She is the first female swimmer to win three Olympic gold medals in world record time, and the first swimmer to win Olympic medals in five individual events in a single Olympics. She is also the only A…

Caroline Clements and Dillon Seitchik-Reardon run the beautiful website Places we swim and have just released a book, also called Places we swim, a travel guide for water-loving people, exploring Australia through swimming. The book takes us to beaches, pools, waterfalls, lakes, hot springs and gorges all over the country. Caroline and Dillon visit…

Hannah Sassi is a virologist from the University of Sydney who studies the persistence of viruses in the environment. She is also an ocean swimmer who trains with BondiFit, whose local beach is Maroubra. Right now during the Coronavirus pandemic, many swimmers are wondering whether it is OK to go for a swim. At the time of recording, a lot of world…

DISCLAIMER: My experiences are anecdotal at best. You should always do any extreme form of exercise or activity with great caution and be certain you are in good health or consult a doctor prior to attempting cold water swimming. At the time of this recording, the World is in a state of chaos from the Coronavirus. Aquatic facilities and pools are c…

The Cole Classic is one of Sydney's oldest and largest ocean swims. It has a storied history and in 2020, ownership of the swim moved from Fairfax to Manly Surf Life Saving Club, meaning essentially a whole new swim had to be organised. Simone Hill is a member of Manly SLSC and runs her own company My Crew Travel. Simone coordinated the volunteers …

A common conversation I have with first year triathletes is… “If I am riding my bike I can slow down, stop, or get off the bike.... If I am running, I can walk. But what about if I get tired or out of breath while swimming…? I’ll sink!” Here is what Craig, one of our online Academy members, figured out this week during one of his long endurance swi…

Therese Spruhan must be one of Australia's experts on the cultural impact of the swimming pool. Her recent book, The Memory Pool, is a fabulous nostalgic anthology bringing together reflections on the childhood swimming pools of 28 Australians including Trent Dalton, Leah Purcell, Shane Gould, Bryan Brown and Merrick Watts. You can taste the hot ch…

This is the recording from that December 20, 2019 "Ask Me Anything" session in the Swim Squad Facebook Group. There were TONS of great questions covering topics such as: Recommended gym equipment for getting stronger and faster USRPT Training When do seek medical attention (for injuries, etc.) Why some swimmers do not like using a pull buoy Pro tip…

This is a live recording on-location at our local open water swim venue near Louisville, KY. I interviewed three athletes and asked each of them to share their #1 tip when it comes to gaining more confidence in the open water. Whenever you’re ready... here are 4 ways I can help you with your swimming: 1. Join our free Facebook community This is whe…

Dean Summers has conquered the triple Crown of open water swimming and as I type this, is waiting for his chance to swim the Cook Strait between the North and South Islands of New Zealand, part of his attack on the Oceans seven. Only 18 people have completed this astonishing series of seven incredible channel and strait swims around the world, and …

Once in awhile inside our free facebook community, I will do an 'Ask Me Anything' session. In other words, post any swimming question you can think of and I will do my best to answer it for you. Well, it's been a while since we have done one of these and last week we had some great questions. I like responding to these in a follow-up Facebook Live …

These are the exact 3 steps I use with athletes who struggle with breathing while swimming... ... And how I help those who struggle to swim more than just one lap of the pool (even though they are super fit land athletes) Whenever you’re ready... here are 4 ways I can help you with your swimming: 1. Join the free Facebook community This is where as…

Here are three strategies that one of our local athletes used to break free from a performance plateau he had been experiencing: 1) Video your stroke 2) Have a qualified swim coach help you make technique adjustments 3) Commit to a long-term plan for developing stroke technique, specific fitness, and open water skills Whenever you’re ready... here …

Today I received an email from a local athlete who started swimming a couple of weeks ago. He asked about how to balance training and technique/form. In this episode, I will talk about my coaching philosophy on how to balance your swim training. In other words, how much should you focus on form and technique? How much should you focus exclusively o…

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This is the audio replay from the Ask Me Anything session recorded in the Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/theswimsquad/) from Nov 22, 2019.Topics covered include the following:2m15s -- Level 3 of the Stroke Correction Hierarchy.9m44s -- When you hand exits the water, at what point does the other hand start moving back through the wa…

In this first episode, Coach Mike will talk briefly about his swimming and coaching background and share how his coaching evolved and got him to where he is today.Join the free Community on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/theswimsquadTo work with Mike personally and inquire about the online group coaching program called The Swim Squad A…

Tim Garrett is an extraordinary athlete. Not content with swimming some of the world's most famous and gruelling waterways, Tim tags on runs and rides of hundreds of kilometers to his swims. For instance, Tim has completed the Arc2Arch: Run - 87 miles from Marble Arch in London to Dover, Swim - The English Channel, Bike - 181 miles from Calais to t…

Wild swimming is something of a cousin to ocean swimming. Or is ocean swimming a subset of wild swimming? Either way, wild swimming is huge across the world, and particularly in the UK and Europe. It's also often stunningly beautiful - search #wildswimming on instagram and you'll see what I mean. Calum Hudson is the middle brother of The Wild Swimm…

Dr. Mark Hemer is a Principal Research Scientist leading the Sea-Level, Waves and Coastal Extremes team within CSIRO's Ocean and Atmosphere Climate Science Centre. Mark has researched offshore renewable energy for the past 10 years, exploring the potential of Australia's renewable offshore resources. We chatted about offshore energy, and among many…

What is the likelihood of a tsunami hitting your favourite beach? Dr. Hannah Power, from University of Newcastle's School of Environmental and Life Sciences, conducts research on ocean waves, and recently published on the likelihood and consequences of a tsunami hitting Sydney Harbour. She has also developed the risk forecast for the Figure Eight P…

Have you ever had the visibility in a swim drop to a few centimeters? Has it ever gone a bit brown? Perhaps you've ended up swimming through sewage! This happened to Dr. Ian Wright in the 90s, and is likely to have happened to any ocean swimmer who was swimming off the coast of Sydney in that period. Ian is a keen ocean swimmer and a senior lecture…

Scott Portelli is an acclaimed wildlife and underwater photographer, and has swum with whales and other magnificent creatures of the deep in some of the world's most exotic locations, like Antarctica, Tonga, the Falkland Islands and Norway. Among many other awards, Scott was awarded Wildlife Photographer of the Year in 2016, and he runs tours that …

During winter, you're probably familiar with human snot, but are you familiar with whale snot? Dr. Vanessa Pirotta is! Vanessa is a marine biologist, naturalist and science communicator, and has been collecting snot from whale spouts using bespoke drones in order to understand whale health. She's collected viruses, bacteria and DNA from the snot, i…