Tri Swim Coach Podcast · Dominic Latella

Breaking All the Rules: How Ryan Stille Got Faster

·58 min·2 clips

At 40+, he's swimming faster and accomplishing things he thought were impossible decades ago.

Coach Dominic Lutella and Ryan Still discuss Ryan's complete swimming stroke transformation from conventional front quadrant freestyle to opposite quadrant freestyle. After a 5-year COVID gap, Ryan reconnected with Coach Dominic, who had evolved his coaching methodology. Despite initial skepticism—and internet controversy about 'wrong' arm position—Ryan's new technique delivered measurable speed improvements and enabled previously impossible open water swims. The episode explores how coaching knowledge evolves, addresses internet backlash, and proves that replicable results trump conventional wisdom.

As heard by us

A blunt coaching conversation about unlearning a popular stroke pattern and finding what actually works.

Ryan Still's stroke overhaul is the anchor, with his shift from a front-quadrant freestyle to an opposite-quadrant freestyle framed as a change that paid off, especially in open water.

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Why you'd press play

You want faster freestyle without worshipping internet form.

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