OAC

There's been a boom in Bill Boomer's ideas on coaching. The former coach at the University of Rochester has thrown out the conventional approach to swimming fast and has given coaches and swimmers a whole new language for discussing technique. Dara Torres had only swum two laps on her first day of training after a seven-year layoff when Stanford coach Richard Quick lowered a kickboard into the water to stop her. "We don't swim like that any more," he said. Quick is one of a growing number of coaches who is taking a different approach to swim technique based on ideas being communicated by Bill Boomer, former head coach at the University of Rochester. "Bill Boomer has had a dramatic influence on our program," said Quick. "I have completely changed the focus of how I teach competitive swimming." Torres said Boomer's approach to the technical aspects of swimming was difficult to understand at first. However, she says those changes have been a significant factor in the success she's already achieved in her comeback

Quick credits Boomer's ideas with having a significant impact on world record holder Jenny Thompson, and National Resident Team coach Jonty Skinner says Boomer is welcome to pull Skinner's swimmers out of the water at any time to make suggestions on their technique. Indeed, at meets like the Janet Evans Invitational a year ago last July, the World Cup in November, and the U.S. Open in December, Boomer could be seen on deck near the warmup pool making suggestions to some of the top swimmers in the world. "Dara and Jenny won't go anywhere without him," says 1996 Olympic gold medalist Josh Davis. Davis, and fellow Olympic gold medalists Amy Van Dyken and Annette Salmeen, are among the swimmers who have benefited from Boomer's approach. Davis said he had been reading articles by Boomer and trying to apply his ideas to his own swimming even before University of Texas coach Eddie Reese invited Boomer to give a clinic to the Texas swimmers in 1993. Davis has been consulting with him ever since-- usually about once a year at a national or international meet. "I'm so glad I worked with him for two days before Pan Pacs," says Davis. Boomer spent a couple of days with the U.S. team at its training camp outside Sydney before the 1999 Pan Pacific Championships. Unlike team coaches who have to be concerned about all aspects of their athletes' training-from what they're eating to how they're sleeping-- Boomer has the luxury of focusing only on an athlete's technique. "My coach Eddie Reese got the engine as strong as possible," Davis said. Boomer can concentrate on finetuning. At the Pan Pac training camp, for example, Boomer talked to Davis about details like where to focus his energy, reminding him to use his stomach and hip muscles rather than his shoulder muscles. "It's nice to be around a fresh set of eyes," says Davis, who placed fifth in the 200 free at Pan Pacs with a 1:48.98.

Who Is Bill Boomer?

It would be a mistake, however, to suggest that Boomer is a Mr. Fix-it who can patch up the rough spots in a swimmer's technique. Nor is his approach something that coaches an use on Tuesdays and Thursdays while using conventional training techniques the rest of the week. Boomer is talking about a fundamentally different approach to swimming. Ask five different coaches to describe Boomer's approach, and you are likely to get five different answers. Quick says the Stanford program now teaches swim technique "from the inside out," working first on the "core body posture, line and balance" before working on what the arms and legs are doing. Ross Gerry, assistant women's swim coach at Stanford, says Boomer looks at swimming with the eyes of a choreographer rather than a coach. "He sees rhythm and the origins of the rhythm." Mike Walker, co-head coach of the women's swim team at Cal, says Boomer "is a specialist in the behavior of humans in water." Brad Burnham, assistant coach of the women's swim team at UCLA, says Boomer is applying ideas from physics to the sport of swimming. Skinner calls him a "visionary" for his ideas about balance and flotation in the water. They all agree, however, that Boomer has thrown out the conventional approach to swimming fast and has given coaches and swimmers a whole new language for discussing technique.

Boomer's Roots

If Boomer's ideas are unconventional, it is in large part because he did not have a background in swimming before becoming the swim coach at the University of Rochester in 1962. He was a graduate student working with the track and soccer teams when the swim coach retired and the athletic director asked him if he'd like the job. Boomer said yes, even though he'd never even seen a swim meet. As a former competitor in track, soccer and basketball, Boomer said he felt at home on land, but not in water. He felt he needed to have "a relationship with water" before he would be able to communicate with swimmers about how they should move in the water. So, the first summer after he took the job, he spent time floating and swimming in a 16-yard pool, trying to feel the rhythms of the water. Eventually, he said, "I felt the oneness with myself in the water that I'd always felt on land."

Managing the Aquatic Environment

Boomer's ideas are constantly evolving, say the coaches and athletes he works with. One essential element, however, is the idea that the athlete has to manage the aquatic environment to be successful. People walk, jump and twirl on land and do not have to think about those movements to know how they will feel. In the water, however, moving forward, up or around can feel completely different because there are forces other than gravity at work. A flip turn may be nothing more than a somersault in the water, but people who easily tumble on land can become quickly disoriented trying to do the same move in the water. Eventually they may learn to do a somersault in the water by adapting their land movements to the water, but that doesn't mean they are doing it as efficiently as an aquatic creature would do it. Swimmers have to Team different approaches to those movements based on the forces at work in the water. Much of Boomer's approach, therefore, has to do with concepts like relaxation, fluidity, flotation and rhythm. He, himself, sees it as a kind of "aquatic martial arts" in which force is less important to success than balance and stability. This is where the vocabulary comes in. Josh Davis says Boomer talks about intention with tension. Mike Walker says Boomer doesn't talk about underwater kicking; he talks about fishtailing. However, Boomer loses some coaches early in his presentations and articles because it takes him awhile to relate his ideas to swimming. Says Quick, "When I first worked with him, I thought, `When will we ever get to swimming?' " Jonty Skinner says that during a standard 15-minute conversation with Boomer, he might understand about two minutes. Several months later, however, after applying the ideas to swimmers in the water, the conversation makes much more sense. The foundation is important, Boomer believes, because the faster swimmers go in the water, the more resistance the water puts up. The most successful swimmers, then, will be those who can reduce drag at every point in their stroke. For Boomer, a "feel for the water" is not about the swimmer catching as much water as possible in his hands, but moving as efficiently as possible with every part of his body. Indeed, Boomer believes there has been far too much emphasis in swimming on what the arms and legs are doing and not nearly enough on what the body core is doing. When the body core is factored in, the result is the kind of fluidity that is evident in Jenny Thompson's strokes.

The Stanford Connection

In 1986, Ross Gerry, then a swim coach at Clark University, went to the NCAA Division III nationals "and saw a team warming up that was so graceful and beautiful that it stopped me in my tracks," he said. "It was like watching a bunch of Baryshnikovs at a dance recital of 10-year-olds." It was the University of Rochester team. Gerry introduced himself to Boomer and began to pick his brain at every opportunity. Gerry joined the Stanford coaching staff in June of 1991, just after Boomer began working with the Stanford team. Boomer had been given an open invitation to visit Stanford by men's coach Skip Kenney after he had read some of Boomer's articles. One day, when Boomer was traveling in California, he stopped at Stanford. He talked with Kenney and Quick for about two hours before Kenney invited him on deck to work with the team. After working with one of the Stanford swimmers for a short time, Boomer had earned the trust of the Stanford coaches. "It was one of those moments," Boomer says emotionally. It was one of those moments for Richard Quick as well. He cites his association with Boomer as one of the two or three experiences in his 25-year coaching career when the right thing had come along at just the right time. Of course, no one would have blamed Quick if he had simply thanked Boomer for coming to Palo Alto and returned to coaching the way he had for years. Quick is one of the most successful swim coaches in history, and Boomer had coached only a Division III team that sometimes had an undefeated season, but sometimes went winless. Indeed, had Boomer been churning out national champions, his ideas might have caught on a lot sooner. But ask coaches to learn a new approach and a new language from someone who can't point to his successes, and the resistance is high. Quick, however, was not reluctant to take a chance on a new idea. "I don't want to leave a stone unturned" in trying to find the best way to train swimmers, he says. "If there's a new idea, I want to investigate it." He can always go back to doing things the way he did before, he says. Not all the Stanford swimmers were as keen on changing their approach as Quick was. "Some of the athletes got into big arguments with (Boomer)," Gerry recalls. Top-level athletes were being told the foundation they had built on to achieve their elite status was a little shaky. "That's pretty strong medicine," Gerry said. One of those who didn't resist the change was Jenny Thompson. A lot of factors have contributed to Thompson's success, her coaches say, but they agree her openness to Boomer's approach has been a significant factor-starting before she set the world record in the 100 free in 1992. Quick notes that the best athletes are often those who are most willing to look at anything that might improve their swimming. Jenny Thompson, he says, "has worked very hard for a very long time, but part of her hard work has been her willingness to work on technique even when she was the best in the world."

Good Ideas Travel Fast

Brad Burnham was particularly interested in learning how Jenny Thompson was doing her flip turns when he worked as a counselor at a Stanford swim camp in the summer of 1993. As a graduate student and assistant coach at Colorado State University, he worked with Amy Van Dyken. Van Dyken, he said, had terrific speed going into the wall, but had trouble carrying her speed through the turns. After having contact that summer with the Stanford coaching staff and Thompson, whom he'd known growing up, Burnham started applying Boomer's approach to Amy Van Dyken, although he admits he didn't have a full understanding of the approach at that time. The following spring, Van Dyken set an American record in the 50 yard free at the NCAA Championships. On the way home from the meet, Burnham found himself on the same plane with Boomer, who'd been impressed with the changes he'd seen in Van Dyken. Boomer and Burnham soon developed a close working relationship. Burnham began work as the assistant women's swim coach at UCLA the following season and began to apply Boomer's ideas to the college program. Annette Salmeen was one of the UCLA athletes who took to the ideas quickly. A chemistry major who became a Rhodes Scholar after graduation, Salmeen understood the underlying scientific concepts of the approach. In 1996, she surprised some people by making the U.S. Olympic team in both the 200 fly and 200 free, and she won a gold medal as a member of the 800 free relay. Quick, however, doesn't think it's necessary to have an analytical mind to benefit from Boomer's ideas. "If you believe significant swim improvement is related to significant technical improvement, then you're open to (Boomer's) information." Although Boomer spends much of his time these days consulting with elite athletes, he has also worked with USA Swimming to produce a series of videotapes, "The Boomer Chronicles," that communicates his ideas to a much broader audience. These tapes are available by visiting Swimming Technique's web site at swiminfo.com/swimshop, or by calling 1-800-352-7946, ext. 1.

About the Author
Lois Melina is a free-lance writer, author and former sports information director at Ball State University. She is currently working on the book, "By a Fraction of a Second," the inside story of nine swimmers pursuing their dreams of the Olympics, which will be available from Swimming Technique this fall.

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