More from Eric DeSanto

I saw an interview with, I believe, Bill Boomer, about training cats and dogs. Some swimmers, even sprinters, do really well on high volume training. Boomer called these athletes "dogs."  Janet Evans was a classic dog in his mind. Other athletes do best on very limited, quality training. These he called cats. Gary Hall, Jr was his example there.

His point is that every body is different. Many USA elite coaches say the  strength of USA swimming is the lack of unity in our approach. If you are a cat, you can find a cat coach. If you are a dog, you can find a dog coach. Most of us are in between as are most coaches.

While instinct would suggest that sprinters are cats and distance swimmers dogs, it’s not that simple. Thirty years ago I began coaching two very promising distance swimmers, both male — from age 10 to 16. From age 13, they began participating in a very heavy week of training over Christmas holidays – 100km in 8 days (something I would no longer do as a coach). We always swam a meet on the final weekend of this period. One would just get stronger and stronger throughout, and would usually swim astonishingly well in that meet. The other would just get more and more tired, and would be flat at that meet. I didn’t grasp it at the time, but the former was clearly a dog and the latter a cat.

You’d think the "dog" would have enjoyed greater success as a distance swimmer, but it was the "cat" who broke a long-standing national age group record for 800m and later earned world rankings in 400 to 1500. This occurred, in part, because — except for Hell Week — I’ve typically been more inclined to "cat coaching." 

Unfortunately his college coach (at Arizona) trained everyone like dogs. This cat swam faster in practice on many sets than George Dicarlo and Jeff Kostoff who preceded him there. Both, being dogs, thrived on that kind of training and broke American records and won NCAA titles while there. The cat had a disappointing college career, though some of his training performances suggest at least the possibility that he could’ve been faster than either, if trained differently.