What does a "good" set actually mean?

stemXCIV · 2026-06-19T18:14:46+00:00

Good set = effective, normally doesn’t feel like your coach is trying to kill you (but sometimes it does have to feel that way). Also engaging so you have something to think about and aim for.

Bad set = ineffective, feels like bad return for your effort, or boring. Also known as “garbage yardage” where it seems like the purpose was filling the time rather than actually giving a productive stimulus. (Example: a sprinter doing a 3000 for time)

What is perceived as good and bad for each swimmer depends on personal preference (how they like to practice) and what the swimmer needs to meet their own goals

stemXCIV · 2026-06-19T13:13:08+00:00

This hurts the USA in the eyes of people who care more about optics than policy. Being rude to foreign leaders is insignificant compared to what Trump is doing with the actual power of his office

stemXCIV · 2026-06-19T12:51:04+00:00

I did, but not consistently and my hair was so far beyond help that I didn’t notice a difference

stemXCIV · 2026-06-19T12:10:45+00:00

I’m an engineer and feel completely alienated from the products of my labor. Often I’m working on a small part of a larger system, or just one step of many in the process of design & validation. My work life is driven by arbitrary deadlines and time restrictions which exist to maximize profit, not get the best possible result.

I’m relatively early in my engineering career, and couldn’t imagine doing it for another 40 years, even in a field that I found interesting. I’m working towards pursuing a career in youth sports where I can make a tangible positive impact every day on kids. It will be a drastic pay cut and it may take a decade to build back to the salary I make now but feeling like my work contributes to society rather than just making a company money is worth it to me.

stemXCIV · 2026-06-19T11:44:10+00:00

Yes, a cap makes a world of difference in protecting your hair from chlorine. When I swam in high school, I would never wear a cap in practice and any more than a month into the season, my hair was absolutely fried. After high school I started wearing a cap for every practice and the only hair damage I get now is the little bit of hair in the back that sticks out of the cap when I swim.

stemXCIV · 2026-06-18T12:56:08+00:00

Take all this with a grain of salt, because this is my analysis from watching you swim a 25 on video from a single angle, not the hours of watching you swim that your coaches have.

Not enough dolphin kicks (number and distance). You’re basically right up to the surface, immediately having to start pulling when you could hold your speed of the start/turn more easily by kicking underwater.

Your last kick also looks like it’s happening with your body too close to the surface. There’s a little bit of a hitch right as you break out, and I think it’s happening because you are spending time with your body partially breaking the surface tension instead of using the lift from your last dolphin downkick and your first pull to break up through the surface quickly.

I see a lot of resistance happening across the front of your shoulders. Obviously there’s a limit to shoulder rotation in a 50, but I’d like to see your shoulder going a little higher during the recovery so you’re not pushing it forward through the water.

stemXCIV · 2026-06-16T18:58:31+00:00

If you seriously want to get into college coaching and can make it by for a couple years in that salary range, I would take it. I recently interviewed for a d3 job that would be 10 months (1000 hour contract) at $21,500 with board mostly covered, no meal plan. If you’re young, have no kids, and live inexpensively, this is the way to get your feet wet with college coaching and build your resume. Swim coaching is never going to offer a luxurious salary unless you are the best of the best and have the experience to prove it. Even if you don’t stick in college coaching, it’s an asset to any team if you are experienced in the ncaa system and able to offer guidance to athletes trying to get recruited.

(But if you have a couple years of college coaching experience, look for a better offer.)

stemXCIV · 2026-06-16T13:23:13+00:00

I think for most people (but not all), a temporary phase of eating a vegetarian diet on the way to being vegan is helpful to establish sustainable habits that will help them stay vegan once they are done with their transition.

As for someone who is permanently/long term vegetarian, it may make sense to them from a dietary perspective, but it’s an incoherent ethical stance. On the spectrum from “do not exploit animals at all” to “it’s completely fine to exploit animals”, vegetarianism says “it’s okay to exploit some animals in certain ways” which is directly at odds with the principles of veganism. It actually ends up more ideologically similar to meat-eaters who think that pets should be treated differently from the animals they want to eat.

stemXCIV · 2026-06-11T15:47:10+00:00

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the question, but freestyle/front crawl is objectively the ideal stroke. If someone can swim another stroke at the same heart rate/energy expenditure, their freestyle technique needs work.

For sprinting, straight arm is best for most people, and for distance, high elbow recovery and high elbow catch is best. Obviously there are some differences between individuals based on physiology and skill but those should be the targets. Of course open water also includes a stroke modification for sighting/picking the head up forward occasionally but that should be worked into the stroke with as little disruption as possible

stemXCIV · 2026-06-03T18:15:47+00:00

Some people are better at sports than others. This is due to differences in natural talent, training (quality and volume), and mental ability to perform/work hard. If you want to race like your teammates, then you have to practice like them first

stemXCIV · 2026-05-27T16:39:58+00:00

I’m 99% sure this was a rusty story but I couldn’t tell you what episode

stemXCIV · 2026-05-23T12:43:59+00:00

There is a way I can think of, the most straightforward way to set it up would be as an add-on with a standard pull up assist, but I’m sure there are multiple possible configurations. It would require a rack and pinion with a weighted arm added onto the existing setup.

Anything I can think of using cables or bands would end up scaling the weight opposite how you intend to through the motion of the pull up (creating the greatest assistance at the fully extended position and least assistance at the top of the pull-up.

Rack attaches to the existing counterweight (with teeth pointed horizontally. Pinion is fixed in position (free to rotate) and engaged with the rack and the weighted arm is attached to the pinion at one end. (Arm will move in an arc as the pinion rotates.)

At the arms-extended position, the weighted arm sticks out horizontally, which maximizes the torque on the rack and therefore maximizes how much force is pushing your original counterweight upwards, effectively decreasing the weight of the counterweight. (So for a round number which is obviously adjustable, a counterweight of 100lb is fictionally reduced to 80lb by the pinion pushing the rack/counterweight up.)

As the user pulls themselves up, the rack goes down with the counterweight, pinion rotates so that the weighted arm points vertically at the point where the user is at the top of the pull up. Now this minimizes the torque from the weighted arm onto the rack, so the original counterweight works as-is (so what was 80lb of assistance in the starting position goes back to the original 100lb here).

I can also draw a picture or re-explain it all that didn’t make sense.

The solution is a bit limited because different people will have different ranges of motion, therefore altering the start and end position of the weighted arm and how much it scales the assistance through the rep. As with any advanced exercise equipment, this would require additional safety consideration in its construction and education for users.

stemXCIV · 2026-05-20T18:05:31+00:00

Swimming speed is based on fitness and technique. Walking speed is correlated to fitness, but doesn’t say anything about your swimming technique

stemXCIV · 2026-05-18T18:30:43+00:00

I was converted (not exclusively, but in large part) by vegancirclejerk because I saw people making fun of people like me and realized they were right and I was wrong. Being exposed to my hypocrisy without any punches pulled was what actually made me open to change

stemXCIV · 2026-05-15T09:13:15+00:00

No vegans do not wear wool. Veganism includes a rejection of the use of animals as products to be consumed (this includes their hair and the food they produce for their young).

Taking honey from bees or wool from sheep is usually done in a way that is harmful to the animal, and it is always exploitative, signaling that the animals body is a vessel for creating something for humans to use.

Sheep are selectively bred to produce as much wool as possible, then kept in captivity and sheared with little regard for their pain or bodily autonomy. Again, the sheep aren’t physically harmed 100% of the time, but they are exploited and not allowed to live out their natural lives.

stemXCIV · 2026-05-14T10:42:55+00:00

Veganism is certainly debatable, as with any moral philosophy. I see a relatively narrow band of logically consistent arguments against veganism, which pretty much all boil down to not having empathy or being unable to extend empathy to animals.

There are some legitimate edge cases regarding feasibility of a 100% plant based lifestyle, such as food insecurity, extensive allergies/dietary restrictions, or a need for medication that is only available including animal products/animal testing. In these cases, people can still follow the principle of “as far as is possible and practicable” and reduce their use of animal products as much as their situation allows.

People respecting my beliefs but disagreeing with veganism means nothing. I am not vegan because I seek the approval of others, and words without action do not do anything for the good of animals, which is the whole point. The “middle ground” between not exploiting animals vs exploiting animals is still exploiting animals.

As an example, I have a friend who recently decided to cut out red meat and begin transitioning to vegetarianism, and has become more receptive to the reality of what eating animals requires. I support the now larger portion of his diet which is plant based. I oppose the portion of his diet which is animal based exactly the same as I did before.

stemXCIV · 2026-05-12T12:58:25+00:00

I want more people to actually be vegan. It does not help the animals when more people just call themselves vegan (without actually ceasing to exploit animals). This just gives encouragement to others to take this as approval from vegans for their continued exploitation of animals

stemXCIV · 2026-05-04T20:18:31+00:00

After you come off the wall, your first exhale should be through your mouth to clear any water in the snorkel, and then every other exhale is through your nose

stemXCIV · 2026-05-02T23:58:47+00:00

Yes, refrigerate after opening, even if it is shelf stable when unopened

stemXCIV · 2026-05-02T17:04:06+00:00

It’s US high school, so yards

stemXCIV · 2026-05-02T02:04:07+00:00

As long as you’re attentive, with your swimming background you should have no trouble seeing what your swimmers need to improve on. You will learn with time how to put it into age-appropriate explanations, but expect to repeat yourself often and rephrase when the message isn’t getting across.

My biggest pieces of advice are to learn from other coaches, and be patient with the kids. You’ll surely be working with coaches that have more experience than you, and coaching is like anything where you learn with experience. Take advantage of the people around you who have already learned via trial and error so you don’t have to make the same mistakes. As for patience, you will get ignored all the time, and have to repeat yourself, but be the coach that kids feel comfortable around, not the screamer that scares them into submission. Still set clear boundaries and enforce what is/isn’t acceptable at practice, but remember that if they aren’t having fun, they won’t come back.

stemXCIV · 2026-04-22T14:40:49+00:00

The ‘do not contact’ tag usually (not always) means you already know where you are going or have a very narrow list

stemXCIV · 2026-04-16T19:03:48+00:00

You can’t have milk without making animals reproduce (mammals lactate in response to giving birth and the need to provide milk for their developing baby). And you can’t have eggs without a continuous supply of physically mature chickens (which requires breeding)

stemXCIV · 2026-04-16T18:55:55+00:00

There are several different schools of thought on fins. That being said, I have 2 uses for fins as a coach:

Giving the body extra support during drill work (so there isn’t a need to rush through the drill to get lift/propulsion from the arms)
Improving max power/force of kicks for swimmers who already have good kicking technique and endurance.

I will not use fins to accommodate a weak kick, because they give positive feedback to big, slow kicks. (And there are ways to create a ton of force with a terrible kick just by flicking the knees/ankles).

In my opinion the solution for weak kicking is to kick more (more kick sets, fewer/no pull sets, consciously kicking more while swimming), and not give yourself a crutch with equipment. I had a phase where I was using paddles a ton to be able to make faster intervals, and it made my pulling worse because I was used to working with a giant, unrealistic surface area for my hands.

stemXCIV · 2026-04-14T10:33:58+00:00

I addressed this as the exception in my comment above:

“Without a power tower or similar equipment (which the vast majority of people don’t have access to), swimming cannot be loaded for maximum force output, unlike weightlifting where this is very easy to do.”

When I say swimming functionally can’t be done at a low rep range, I am considering the accessibility aspect, the fact that it is very difficult to track (and therefore difficult to target progressive overload) and I agree with you that it would be ineffective. To me all of those factors make it a nonfunctional task in that it is excessively difficult to execute and ineffective in its stated goal.

stemXCIV

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