#415 Artificial Intelligence in Swimming with Jonty Skinner & Kirk Grand

All right, we are actually recording this now. So, John T. Skinner and Kirk Grant, thanks for joining us here on the podcast today. And this is being led by John T. And Kirk's gonna add a lot of value here as well. So, this will be a great conversation. We're gonna talk about AI and what it's doing right now, where it's at, where we think it's going in terms of human performance, and especially obviously around swimming. So, John T. I'll kind of let you kickstart this. Well, first of all, Kirk, just for everyone who doesn't know you, because most people know John T. He's very famous. But Kirk, where are you and how do people know you right now? Yeah, John T. Mountleville Record Holder. So, that's something I don't have. So, I work for USA Swimming. My title is Specialist National Team High Performance. And so, basically, my job ranges from helping coaches, helping athletes, helping people get faster. I mean, I think that's basically it. Answering questions, pointing people in the right directions to the science of the sport. But most of the questions I get is, how do I get X faster? Yeah, you're the human AI still. So, that's what we got the human side. But John T, why were you thinking about this? Where's this stemming from? Obviously, AI is huge right now, and it's having a big impact. But where do you see it going ultimately? Well, it came up primarily because we were in this position, where we were looking for a new CEO for USA Swimming and a new national team director. And having a conversation with people involved in the search committee, my position was that we really should be hiring someone that understood what the future looked like. And understood how to manage the future and get the best out of what the future could bring to the sport. And I wasn't necessarily for someone that was, I didn't want a good old boy, so to speak. It's just to use that term. That's just a label, if you understand what I'm saying. As a place. - That's the Alabama in you right there. - Shush. So, you know, so I didn't want to place older. I really wanted, hopefully, we could find someone in the system that was forward thinking that could see what the future would bring for us and had a sense of how AI would impact our sport in the future. And in having those conversations, I began to think about really saying, okay, what is it? And what does it mean? And what is it going to bring to us? And even at my 10 to age of 70s, I'm still really intrigued and interested in everything about sport. And technically I retired swimming coach, but I'm not really retired mentally. And so I think about these things and put things together and I've been stopped to Kirk. And so I wanted to take the time today to maybe say, what does it look like? You know, what does it involve? You know, what are the areas that we really need to be concerned about as far as AI involvement first? And then how is each of those components going to be integrated into an AI matrix that we can then help support coaches to improve high performance? So I'm hoping that especially with Kirk, if ever I've had a question, if I ever was looking for a question to a problem or an answer to a problem, I would go to Kirk. I'd say, hey, Kirk, if you run across this and what are your thoughts on this and these probably as well read as anyone I know in the business of swimming, and always has a great opinion and always has a great disposition in terms of how he relates that opinion to you. Which I think is as important an element of anyone as far as his position and the position he fills within USA swimming. So I could be a great group to just to the fat. And you know, we could take this whole concept of your sprint kind of concept that you've been pushing lately. And what does that look like in the future as well? So you should speak to that. So if you could pull up that first. Yeah, I'm going to pull the slide up real quick. I want Kirk to answer just one question. In terms of today, early January 2025, how are coaches using AI just today, you think? Like what impact has it had initially on swim coaching? I think right now people are trying to figure out exactly how to use it. I think from what I've seen at the club level, I think compiling workouts is a big thing that I think that a lot of coaches are exploring. If I can feed workouts to AI and it can help me with my themes or what I'm hitting or not hitting, I think organization one fastest. Yeah, organization, that's one facet. And then what we're trying to dive into here, a USA swimming is sort of an automated race analysis system. I think some other countries are in that already when using that as a high level post race, pre-race, scouting analysis. So I think right now both those are where AI's at. Right, gotcha. Welcome to the sprint revolution school. This is the culmination of my life's work. Everything I've learned coaching some of the world's elite athletes, including Cesar Cielo, Fred Buske, Bruno Frattis, and leading my Auburn team to the NCAA championship in 2009, alongside the legend Richard Quick. Now all of that knowledge is available to you. Our program is structured into easy to follow interactive modules designed to take you from where you are today to becoming the fastest swimmer you've ever been. Check out the link in the description or simply search the sprint revolution on school.com to get started. Let's pull up this presentation here. Johnty to share. All right, this is just the start of the. So we'll go down the second slide here, Johnty. Yeah, you know, I put these AI spokes out here because all these areas are very involved in high performance. I mean, there are probably bits and pieces that we don't show in here, or there are a lot of sub-layers in the spokes that we have here that I feel like all these areas, you know, if we could talk about today, what do they look like in the future? And I think Kirk already alluded to where one of those areas has to be the whole cataloging of what's being done in training environment. Let me just say this, Johnty, as well. There are people listening to this. Not everybody watches it. I love watching it, but a lot of people listen. So if you could just go through the tabs on what's on the screen just so people listening can have an understanding as well. OK, so the areas that I think are the most important that we need to understand are training, biomechanics, coaching, anthropometry, recovery, the physicality, the physiology of the athlete racing or race analysis, athlete mindset. So there are eight components to that spoke. And they can all, you know, as AI is really, really stupid until you fill AI with information, we all know that. And the key to being successful in using AI is really how we go about the process of uploading that information to the system so that it can become very smart and intelligent with regard to how it visors back to us with regard to what we're doing. So I think Kirk already alluded to the whole concept that initially cataloging all the work that we're doing with our athletes is one of the first of the most important steps we can do. I mean, we can go way back to the 1980s when we first started to try to catalog energy systems or energy categories and stuff like that. You know, most of it was based off the original East German system or what the Russians used or with the Europeans generally used. And USA Summing has had a cataloging system in place for a long time. Australia has theirs, Europe have different ones. There's a whole variety of them, even John of Banschick, Adyskeller, Coded System, et cetera, et cetera. But we have to define what we want to use in terms of our system. And then we have to really go about the process of getting everyone to catalog it. And when you have products like commit, and I've talked to the CEO, the guy who owns commit, or runs commit, I mean, it would be very easy for commit to get into the process to where you would automate the system. So if I could take, if I could put in every bit of Michael Phelps' workouts, or if I could take Bob Bowman, for instance, and just catalog every workout he's given to, you know, all the great athletes he's given in his time. And because he's one segment of what you can do to develop an athlete, but not every athlete fits Bob Bowman's system. So then we have to go look for all those different varieties of approaches to how you train athletes and develop athletes. And then really catalog and organize it in a way to where anyone can come and look at what it took over a 10 to 12-year span of what it took to develop Michael Phelps, or where Leon is right now in that same continuum, with where he started with Bob and to where he might go in the next four years type of thing. But that has to be done for a variety of different styles, athletes who bring different things to the table, you know, anywhere from a high volume, high intensity, developing system like Bob might introduce to athletes to where he and McAvoy did everything on his own, or Jake Timber. Lisa could do it, everything on his own. So we have to find a cataloging system, get it organized, find an automated way to do it to where a camera can scan a piece of paper and upload it immediately and have it cataloged and organized and integrated into the framework. So all these areas have to be sort of cataloged in the own way by mechanics. The product coming out Australia for the EOS Sumbedip product is probably the best product. I know on the market today that can potentially have an AI filter in there to look at basically instead of you looking at it and you look at all the information that you can get out of the Sumbedip product and it can be really confusing and it can have a lot of information and a lot of things going on. Have an AI product, you have a sit-over the top and say this is exactly what you're looking at and this is where we need to go. That's the thing to simplify the process. We know we have different coaching styles. I mean, there are a lot of different coaches that fit, you know, bring different philosophies, different coaching delivery styles to the table and so we have to understand who they are and what they bring to the table, what their philosophies are, what type of program they like to deliver and catalog them in that way. Anthromobometry is all about limb lengths, limb sizes, hand feed sizes, girth, upper body size to lower body size, torso shape, ecto endo, you know, that whole thing, we have to be able to catalog all of that and be able to measure it into a system to where when we're looking at the combination of mechanics and athletes and promometries should be able to like put it all into a matrix to where people say, right, we should be, you know, I'm going to use the example of say someone like, let's take the best female, something in the world, potentially right now is Christian Walsh. And I mean, and I pick her because of a height, her size, her, you know, Anthromobometry, level lengths and all the things that she brings to the table and she goes, you know, she's some short course and she's just, she just destroys anyone, short course because she's great underwater. If you get the long course, it becomes a little tougher to handle because you don't have as much influence in the underwater element. And my thinking when I watch here as a coach, I think my thinking is she should destroy the world records in the 1,500 meter freestyle, absolutely destroy them, but it's going to take biomechanical adjustments based on all the things I talked about to get it to get there. But I think computers and AI can tell us the path to get there and what to do. But I know it's there and we should have that facility in place. - Kurt, let me ask you that based on that, just to jump in in terms of biomechanically, I'd imagine USH swimming has, you know, years and years and years of quality information that comes to biomechanics. So is there any process that has already begun in terms of organizing that through AI? - Not necessarily organizing, but definitely feeding it to AI to sort of give models up. And there's unlimited potential with this AI with this interface, I think. From training AI to have like a goggles and they can watch the pattern of the stroke over and over to like sort of what John's is saying about coaching, I think the greatest coaches have refined a decision making tree throughout their careers and they get really good at making good decisions. I think what AI does is it just targets that stuff faster. And I think it gives you like leaves you ahead of some of those trial and errors and gives you a very specific indication of what's gonna help this athlete get faster. And then I mean, obviously it's not all, it's part of the answer, it's not the whole answer. And I think it just helps that decision tree get refined at a much faster level than having to coach for 30 years and learn all the wrong ways or learn all the, make all those mistakes whereas like you can feed things to AI and like weak stroke is a great example for me or it's like, well, Michael Phelps worked as weak stroke, what did that look like for that year? And it got better, right? And so how can we ask AI those sorts of questions and get some guidance and like, well, if it's breast stroke weak stroke, this progression seems to work really, really well, right? Or whatever the stroke may be, backstroke butterfly. Obviously it's really easy to have your best stroke and make the best stroke better. I mean, I say that in both ways, like I know it's hard to be an easy step faster. But remember, we're trying to win gold medals. Gold medals are really hard to win, right? So I think asking better questions and having better data through AI, whether it's biomechanic data or racing data, the mindset data, like you can really, really refine and pinpoint some of these topics at a high level. - Yeah, okay, sorry, Junty, I just wanna jump in there. - No, no, anytime. I mean, I'm just going around the spoke here. So, I mean, to me, the recovery, you know, armor of the spoke is probably one of the most important elements of athlete performance. I mean, if you do not manage recovery, all the elements associated with recovery, sleep, mood, all the elements that are in this area, then, you know, we don't know. And I've had some conversations. I'm gonna look at recovery and I'm gonna skip forward a little bit to mindset because they sort of in the same realm. I mean, when I talk to a leading psychologist about a month ago, about where are we in AI and psychology? Where are we in the world of AI and psychology? And his feeling was that we still are a long way away from being able to document and catalog all the different elements that can give us information and provide faster, as Kirk said, and faster decisions, faster decisions in terms of, take, for example, there are coaches who ask the athletes to ask a certain mood state questionnaire every morning, every day. And that gives them a pretty good idea when they look at that. You know, it gives them a pretty instant picture of like, "Okay, you know, Eddie Reese was maybe really good at just looking at someone's face walking on deck and saying, "Hmm, Josh is gonna be a problem today, you know, "I'm gonna have to have a little side conversation with him "to gauge where he's at, to get him ready to go to practice "or make decisions of what I might or might not do in the practice." So coaches have been really good at this intuitively, but not every coach has that intuitive sense. And so if we create an environment where we are kind of cataloging, organizing all this survey and maybe testing, blood testing, all the different even cortisol testing as a live cortisol test can go into make-rics, to give us an indication of where we are in that scale of fatigue, soreness, readiness, mental preparation, ready to go type of thing. I think that would be real important, but I think it's an area that's probably very weak as far as where we are in terms of going forward in the future. And, you know, in terms of athletes, I mean, I think of them as, you know, very, very, very durable, strong, naturally with regard to their genetics. Some have to be helped to understand how to be naturally strong because they're genetics, don't put them in that position. So I put epigenetics into the system because epigenetics does impact everything about us and there are certain cultures in the world that have a much longer way to go in order to overcome some of the things that are intrinsic within their culture. And I use the word culture because if you can just take a look at the United States, if you look at the culture that was pervasive in the African community in the 1970s to 1980s versus maybe where it is today with the real, you know, with the media and the telephone and the, you know, the cell phone and how much it's changed the climate of how we see ourselves as human beings today and the world we live in today is very, very different. So I think we have to sort of really take a grip on where media, cell phones, the environment that kids are growing up in today, the more self-servant, self-serving, self-centered environment that they're growing up in today and put that into this whole mix. So we understand that a lot more in terms of how we prepare athletes to perform. And then we have the last two. One is the physical, the physiology of athletes, which I think is the most interesting. And in my mind is second on my criteria. I ranked mindset physiology and the promoted biomechanics as my tree of order of things that are most important to me if I'm looking at how this all fits together. So the physical aspects, the physiology of the athlete, how naturally they float or balance in the water, they muscle fiber type, type of things that they bring to the table. Because to be honest with you, if I had a choice, I would be looking for a team full of fast-switch aerobic type fiber athletes. I have majority of athletes in that realm because they have great capacity to do anything you want to do. And depends on the durability as to how good they can be type of things. So. And then when the last element that we hadn't talked about is the racing and the racing houses and we have to be to a point where we can put one camera at the top of a pool and be able to bring out from that one camera, everything we ever wanted to know about what was going on in the pool. I mean, they're already doing it on the video at the Olympics where you get velocities and who's ahead and especially when you look at camera views at the Olympics, you can't really always tell who's ahead. You know, you get confused by the angle of the camera. But I mean, all these elements are in place right there in place. We just have to really sit down, I think as a community and really plan the way out forward with regard to how we're going to get this all together and be ready to take full advantage of it five to ten years from now. Instead of getting to five to ten years from now and saying, "Gee, I wish we'd done this or wish we'd done that type of thing." And I know we were talking before we got on the official call. Kirk was talking about Formula One, so I think we should go, I think you should expand on that and just go back to the things Formula One is doing because it's a great environment in racing to talk about that area. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the next slide here is the training content and this is where it gets very specific. And I think this is what you alluded to with the Formula One side of it is that they're looking at every single detail right now in Formula One like every hundredth counts and the way that teams interrelate to get the best out of the vehicle and the driver collectively. And I think this is kind of what AI can do for us in the future in terms of our training. So you just go on touch on that, Kirk. Well, just like the 30,000 foot view is we got to make it fun to watch, right? And I think Formula One is a great example of that. Like they've done the drive to survive. They take you into the driver's lives. The crew's lot, I mean, it just shows you that and then it shows you the other side of it too where it's the science side. It's how the engineers work, how the pit crew works. And I think they've done a great job of bringing insight to the sport and I think they've done a great job of growing the sport, not that it was ever bad, but I think now more people watch Formula One than I've ever ever would have imagined, right? And I think sort of to John T's point, it's like we can't wait. We have to use these assets as best we can to make the sport as exciting as possible, right? And I think if we don't have fans in the stands and we don't have people engaged in what we're doing, then that's a big loss. So I do think that AI can help in many facets. I think qualitatively, like a lot of this training contents, quantitative stuff. And I think most swim coaches are the good ones that I've been around quantitatively. They're able to track training and the numbers are a thing they're really, really good at. The opposite side is the qualitative stuff. So it's like maybe where your neck of the woods is bred or it's like, okay, when this athlete was at peak and they went as fast as they've ever swam, what did that feel like, look like, like how did they go about that from a emotional space or cognitive space? And how do we track that over time? I think the longitudinal aspect of AI and just like athlete profile, athlete, I won't say biography, but just like an athlete from young to teenager to professional, like that transformation to those facets of their career. This could be a huge help in that. And then transitioning from the national junior team to the national team is a big transition. And then from national team to professionals, a big transition. And how are we stepping in to help those steps or help those transitions and smooth those out? As you're changing coaches in a lot of ways and you see what the transfer portal now and college swimming, people are going to lots of different places, lots of different coaches. So what are we keeping constant to help them swim fast consistently? And I think AI is a huge component in helping those gaps. Have you and your team consciously decided, like, outwardly, verbally amongst yourselves to say, all right, we're in the midst of this now, like it's begun, like we have to get ahead of this or we have to jump on board with this. And this is how we're going to do it. Have you done anything collectively to kind of start the process of doing some of this stuff? Yes, we've been working pretty heavily with the USOPC on a project to get the race analysis side of this up and running. And then obviously we're in a limbo right now. We don't know what she's going to drop, but we're going to be ready to hand this person whoever gets the job. Here's what we've got. Here's what we think we can go. Let's go. And so that's sort of the plan, but we're just kind of in a waiting game right now. Yeah. I want to put you on the spot now. She wants what's the update on the limbo then, but the update is there is no update on the part. Great. Yeah, we're all waiting. That's good. That's good. Unless you're working while you're waiting, which is good, right? This work being done. So that's part. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think. I think that you know, it's, it's the real key is, is creating, you know, sitting down and saying, okay, what is it going to look like? You know, what do we really have to do today to start the process of getting things organized? And so I think really in my mind, we have to get a group of real smart people in a room, because it all starts with smart people. And then say, okay, how are we going to catalog this? What are we going to catalog here? What's going to catalog here? How are we going to organize it? How's it going to be put in and uploaded into the system? Who's going to maintain the framework that uploads the system? And so if we don't get that organized like really soon, even getting it started before we even haven't a new leader type of thing, which is the reason I'm saying is we need to find someone that is comfortable in working in this realm. Is that, you know, the long we take, the longer it's going to take. It's just, you know, performance is generational. You know, changing your level of performance as a country in many ways can be generational. Maybe not so much the USA because we have a greater number of swimmers to choose from, but some countries it becomes generational. You know, heroes, the cat heroes. I mean, we're seeing the, you know, some of the Australians we see obviously from thought and hack it in those years and so on and so forth, right? So I really think that by just maybe having this discussion and putting it out there, maybe some people will get together and say, listen, we need to, we need to really organize and see what this looks like and see if we can get our head around it and then get it start putting out what is what's going to cost because it's going to cost money to put it all together in process because, you know, the end result, the end result is what is it look like is if you take biomechanics, athlete physiology and athlete, and it's promometry and you kind of mix those together and look at how they're all working in tandem with the car to the output in terms of racing and output in terms of performance. We should be able to be putting in enough information for race analysis and all this stuff to be saying, are we hitting the mark? Are we not hitting the mark? I mean, we've got this athlete that is 190 centimeters hand size, you know, base of the hand, some tip of the finger, 35 centimeters, you know, we got all this information that says we should be producing a 50.5 but we're only getting a 51 9. What's going wrong? Where are we going wrong? You know, you know, type of thing. And so I just feel like it's there. We just, you know, I've always been the kind of person that said, just get it going and get it kick started and put the stuff in place and get it going as opposed to the person that was willing to hang around waiting until it came into my realm and said, okay, I'll use it when it gets you type of thing. So that's really what it's about because, you know, when you take, if you just keep going through all these, just keep going, keep going, keep going, all the way through to, so this is the, this is the, go back on, go back on. So this, what are, what are the most important elements of how we're going to, what do I see as, you know, Kirk might have a different opinion from me, but to me, you know, the athlete mindset is the peak of the pyramid. You know, understanding the athlete mindset, understanding how to take an athlete with not a great mindset and help them become an athlete that has a Michael Phillips wife. So I'll lean on my set or the person that's a step some of the block and never think they're ever going to lose, you know, type of thing. So how do we get there? How do we get to that? I mean, the physiology side is fairly, it's not simple. I mean, we can't go and take, you know, we can do muscle biopsies and stuff like that. It has to be, you know, I can spend quite a bit of time training athletes who look looking at athlete training or looking at the results of athlete training in terms of performance, set performance, recoveries and all that. And start again, a pretty good idea that this athlete is a very high level of FTA fiber and that athlete has a very high level FDB fiber and this athlete has a lot of maybe slow twitch fiber, whatever it is. You know, right now it tends to be somewhat anecdotal in terms of some of the physiology that we have to assume is in place. Some of it we can measure in terms of aquatic signature and stuff like that. But the idea is that, you know, if you have the mindset and the physiology, that's half the bat, you know, then anthropometry have their size and the shape and the biomechanics come along that recovery comes after that. Pouching is pretty far down the list. Training is almost at the bottom of my list and race analysis is at the bottom of the list. The ranking is how I might rank them now. Could my rank and different than I'd love to hear if you would rank them differently. But I definitely think mindset's the first. I mean, I think we would have all agree. I want I want people that hate to lose. That's it. Like I want to build a team around that and I think like in my world, how do we help coaches create an environment where more people on the team hate to lose, right? And they come to practice and they they give everything in the pool and then they're able to go race. And I mean, obviously, again, we've talked about this. It's a human animal. So it's never going to be like as programmable as we want. We can't like put, boop boop boop boop. Okay, go. You're ready. I think I think that's why we all love what we do because it's a challenge. But I do think that gathering information and having it sorted through some sort of AI can really help coaches and maybe not elite coaches. So I think some of the elite coaches already are really good at creating these environments. But if we can get back to the grassroots of the sport and help maybe not the big name coaches be really better at creating this environment, a competitive environment where you know, kids are going after it every day and but it's supportive and all those things we always talk about. I think if you get the bigger pool of no pun intended, the bigger pool of swimmers swimming at a higher level, that just pushes the cream of the crop further and faster, right? Completely agree. Completely agree. Yeah, one of the as I look through all of this stuff, which is which is really valuable. And I think it's interesting because it seems like we're going in a way and it seems it's it's seem like this for a little while. It's like we're going into a very kind of individual performance type criteria where we're trying to get the best out of one person. And and I still think that especially in America when you're talking about teams of groups of people, teams of people, you know, how to get the best out of an individual in relation to a team of people at the same time, right? And I think that's what USA is swimming is ultimately trying to do too, is when they compete against other nations is bring teams of people together. And I've seen what they've done, you know, over the past four or five Olympics where it's becoming more small group centered, you know, it used to just be one big team. It'll be like a men's team or a women's team and we're not just be the whole team. And then then it became like these little segmented groups. And then it just became even more individualized in in that. And it seems that's where we're going in terms of like top end performance is like trying to figure out what's the best mindset and physiology and biomechanics and training for this one individual. So now I think we've got a also add in there how does this relate to to a team of people, right? Because we've all been in a situation where we may have had incredible athletes and they don't necessarily work well together, you know, or even willing to work well together because they might be competitive. So that's got to be part of the AI kind of evolution is figuring out how to create a great team as well, right? I agree, but I feel like our athletes are becoming our athletes. We have to teach our athletes to understand everything about the sport. You know, for years and years, coaches, kids are coming to the pool and they just get in there and train. I'll get in there and do that work and I'll shut up and go, you know. Now we really need to get into environment where it's a two-way street and there's a lot of communication going on because, be honest, in this future world, I feel like the athlete has as much a managerial control over what's going on as the coach at the elite level. I'm not talking about the development age group level. I'm talking about that elite level and I'll take the Jason Lisek example, the Cam Macaboy example of athletes that actually went on their own and we're very, very successful doing everything they did on the own. So I feel like with AI, we can have a team of great athletes. You can have a protein that might have hand to 12 really good athletes in there. Some of them might be even competitive in the same races, but the platform that you're interacting with them on is an AI-based platform. You know, they might all come to practice and you might get them in and going and they, you know, they might be doing similar things but in different ways. But the idea is that it can be all managed very easily if the athlete has a lot more say and understanding and control over the environment that they're in. And when you get that in place, then I think that you've really got the best of all worlds as opposed to coaches. It's still like to be, it's my way or the highway. I don't see a coach like that coaching in 2030. I don't think see them being successful at the elite end in 2030. So what's up? This is Nate from Swimner. Just letting you guys know about Swimner timing. We now offer the most affordable, the easiest to use timing system in the world. We got it all. Garders, harnesses, buttons, touch pads, scoreboards, your one stop shop for all your timing needs. Check us out at SwimPriest.com. So these are supporting coaches beyond 2030, but that could be supporting Swimmer's ant coaches beyond 2030. I mean, those things, those are things that, you know, I as a coach might have 10 Swimmers. So I would say, Jim, listen, make sure that you're going through all the AI information and checking all the read outs with regard to where we are performance wise. And we're all reheating our markers because I want you to come into our meeting tomorrow. And I want you to have the responsibility to sit down with me and say, hey, listen, we're missing it here and here. So I might be coaching 10 athletes. And they're the ones doing the work to really see, to understand where we are and how we are doing. And then I'm sort of overseeing it, managing it and, you know, helping and adding little bits and pieces to the puzzle. Thanks to my best experience as a coach with regard to, and then getting the training the next day and the next day and the next day. So to me, a coach doesn't necessarily have to be a jackable trades or a master, what if type of thing, that they have to be really good at allowing the people that they work with, whether it's assistant coaches or scientists or people that are just in support of their system to really be able to communicate to them and give them all the information they need to then go out and really make good smart informed decisions that are in many ways managed and driven by their athletes anyway. Have you seen this career? I think Colorado Springs, I mean, you get you get the best of the best up then. You see the best athletes, you see the best coaches. How has this been reflected? Yeah, it's been awesome. And I do want to speak to the challenge that is we are a decentralized nation in terms of our programs. So we have a lot of pockets of elite athletes everywhere and there's a lot of diverse training going on. And so it is a very big challenge as an Olympic head coach to basically, you know, you're the conductor of a symphony, but you've never really worked with the group that you're about to go to the concert with. So where I can help with that is just good information. And the better data that coach has, the more he can get out of each section of the orchestra. And then you can have those conversations, the tough conversations, but if you have better data and accurate stuff, those conversations are less hearsay. It's less, less rumor, it's just more brevity to the conversation then. Well, I think this or the art this or so it just gives you some ammunition to have really productive conversations. But I do think that there is an aspect of, okay, you have to have the individual really good, but then the overall concert and the overall orchestra has to play really well together. And that's a big balance. And I do think that the best programs to echo what Johnty said, athlete ownership and savvy athletes are the future. I think that with information out there right now, like a kid can get on and learn more about training physiology and coaching and leadership than they've ever been able to before. So it's on us on the coaches and these support staff to be up on all that, to be able to match what they bring. And I think that the best athletes in coaches I've ever been around and the best of the best. It's a collaboration and they're making each other better along the way. You used to score a little bit of that last night right where you had a team of guys kind of being led by the guys. The the the program the the workout was being led by the team, is that right? Yep, it was an athlete driven workouts where they separate to groups whether that's two free group, two fly group, two back group, distance group. The group designs the workout together and they all have iterations they add and take away the workout. And these aren't like you know it wasn't like a fluff right your own workout types the stuff it was like 40, 50s. It was it was it was it was go stuff. It was hard work right but but they designed it they let it they did it and they were on each other the whole time. And so the group made each other better and to me that's just masterful on a lot of levels right. Head coach didn't even need to be there for for this culture to run itself which was which was really neat. So I would say that's a great example of what the elite coaches and athletes are doing right now. What's the next what else we oh that's the that's the end of the slide there sir. Yeah there's one there's one more just supporting beyond 230. I just think you know these I don't need their little small on the screen. I don't know if you want to read it out for people that are just listening in on this but yeah you know I would say I'll just read I say I should be able to analyze the relationship between training performance data to strengthen you know strength weakness analysis strategies to coach stress opportunities future faster performance goals should have training specific parameters and in training testing should show the steady training in the right direction or recovery holistic parameters should be monitored daily things like work both additional stuff that surveys that we might get and kinetic to to training implement implementation. So you know I really feel like it's an area that you know when we can put it together in the way we're talking about and we make it accessible to everyone then I think every day just creates a far more positive environment in terms of day-to-day training. I really do. It's just you know if you take that along with the physicality with the bond with the combination of bond mechanics and for monitoring physical physiology type of thing and you put that in race analysis and you put this all together I feel like if we work harder at it right now 10 years from now just like Kirk said you know we're at the Olympic Games have done through the prelims you know we get a printout of the race analysis relative to where we are and you know we can sit down with athletes and say listen we're on track where where we are you know you know get this get your meal in when you get to the pool tonight let's just work on this little facet of approaching a turn or how we come off a wall you know it's a given just look one or two things and boom you know it's it's all ready to go I just feel like we need to do more and especially with the NIL landscape and where it's going you know I keep hoping and praying that someone's going to come along and say we need to put a cap on NIL you know we need to put a cap on how much we can pay our football team how much we can pay a basketball team because if we don't get a cap real soon the Olympics sports are gone I mean there we're going to have maybe Texas I don't know I don't know how many schools out there are going to be able to survive with regard to the NIL environment and be fully fully funded but if we don't get a cap on it real soon you know we're probably going to have about 10 to 12 teams in this country that are fully funded that are essentially going to become training centers but there can be a lot of athletes that are looking for support systems so we need additional training centers and we've got to think in advance of where that's going to be and how the money's going to be appropriate where we're going to find the money because money's become seriously scarce out there with the way things are going as far as the athlete community's concerned so I just you know like again I just said a lot of this came out of discussions with who we're going to hire to be our national team director and what kind of vision and foresight they're going to have with regards to what that playing field is going to look like whether it's monetarily with its performance science you know the whole the whole ball of wax going forward yeah changing landscape for sure I saw something on social media yesterday where a billionaire was former owner of an MBA team I believe either MBA or NFL and he was talking about buying a 51% stake in universities so like billionaires would come in and buy the university and own it like wow that that's a whole different concept in that certainly a business but I do think there are creative solutions like whether it's a wearable technology and it's like everybody on the national team or the junior national team and even gets awareable and then you have competitive like across the country you can do a test set or you can have like sort of like Strava where it's like oh this person did this and it's just like the you can see the cream of the crop rise and you get engagement I think there's ways to make it exciting I just think we have to look at it differently yeah I'm using wearables with my pros right now and you know the information is really interesting especially on the sleep recovery side you know where the buzz the big buzz word in the in the world of you know health these days is longevity right and I think that's really important for athletes too longevity for athletes and how we can get them to you know perform and train and live longer in the sport right I watch this documentary don't die the other day oh there's a book this sorry was that book so breaking the age code oh there we go there we go that's really important for you and I right now John T. Hey I'm gonna be 30 I'm gonna be 37 I don't know yeah but yeah I watch the documentary don't die have you got to see that yet I've heard of it it's really interesting yeah really fascinating he's he's talking about like extending his life and I think a lot of it relates to athletics is like extending your your life in athletics and I think we're seeing that you know the the athletes are staying in the sport longer for a variety of reasons that John T. is already already listed there like the information that we're gathering the knowledge that we gathered in this the specificity is keeping us in the sport and helping us go faster at a later age and I think AI is going to be part of that process undoubtedly as well right oh no doubt I mean I think LeBron James is a great example of that I mean I know that they have he he's publicly put out there how much he spends on recovery his process and what that all entails and I mean to be in the NBA for over 20 years is amazing yeah and playing at the level we're so rare so so I would definitely I would definitely and that's just a Kate one case study but I know there's others out there that are using probably using AI to do this honestly like whether it's a recovery modality where like some machines monitoring their range of motion and they can say like well yesterday you were here today you're here and it just beeps with if the range of motion isn't there and so like it's sort of guides their stretching recovery so I definitely think that this is a an arena for for AI to shine I used to see in coaches yet make decisions based on wearable technology let's say let's say the recovery score isn't where it needs to be on some where it's really really low or something like that you seeing coaches make individual decisions yet on on saying hey we're gonna back off instead of push forward yeah I think and this is pretty analog but John T's point at the very beginning of just that five question question error like yeah like coaches are definitely making decisions on how to approach athletes how they're coming in with mood or like didn't get much restful sleep and so yeah like how I'm going to approach an athlete that didn't sleep well or is stressed about an exam is definitely going to be different than somebody that's been sleeping really well is in a generally good mood and is ready to be sort of coached and pushed hard right that's one example I say any good coach it's a metric it's one variable and so you sort of collect variables and then decide but I think what this tool will will be able to do is compile those variables in a way that's easy to digest and again like make really accurate decisions over and over and over and if you make small decisions that are really good generally that that adds up to behavior change and getting faster leaner stronger whatever it is well you mentioned this earlier John T in terms of like information at the at the top level and and I'm I'm coaching club right now so that's a new experience for me and and coaching younger kids and and I'm seeing an element of of parents within the Southern California region you know making a lot of decisions based on this this new information that they have at hand right like they have this AI at the same time as what we have at their at the fingers. tips and that can be good and bad, right? They can be really taking in quality information, they can be taking in too much information and using it in a way that is not appropriate yet for the age that their kids are in. There is still a process. And with all of this, we're still talking about the fact that you've still got to go out and do the work. You still got to work out, right? You can gather all the information you want. But yeah, I'm definitely seeing a little scary in terms of the quality of information and then just the amount of information the parents are taking in and then applying it to their children as well. Are you seeing that in soccer because you deal with that in soccer? No, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, it might be out there that I don't see it as much in soccer. It's pretty because I deal with, I just started coaching the boys this year. So I've been coaching girls up to them and girls don't watch soccer. They don't really don't take any interest in soccer outside of coming to the field to play soccer. So don't have much of a problem. The boys are different though. They're all, they come to the play, they come to the game with impressions of things they've watched on TV or watched on YouTube and stuff like that. They want to institute them and get them involved. And you see them try to do something in a game that doesn't work in a game type of thing. But I mean, we're always going to have that element with the world, the media, the way they access to media, the way it is today that elements been there for a while. It's going to be there going forward and it's going to be a pain in the butt as long as it's there. But it'll only be a pain in the butt if you don't have the wherewithal within your system to counteract that to say, well, listen, this is the best system. This is how it should work. This is how it should all be coordinated. And this is how we're doing it. And if you want to be a part of the system, the way it's being done, the way we're doing it, then you're welcome to join us. If you don't, then maybe you need to join someone else. And I think we're, it's always going to come down to that. And I agree, you know, to touch, to touch down something earlier that I think is probably the most important thing we talked about that today and said, is that as we learn all this information at the top end, we have to really then make sure that it gets filtered and translated down to what it looks like at the bottom end so that we are starting to put kids at a 7, 8, 9, and 10 into the right top of environments to grow them, to prepare them to be able to facilitate, we want them to facilitate at the elite end. And when we can really get the groundswell doing the right things at 8, 7, 8, 9, and 10. And then through the age group level, you know, those formative years, then, you know, we're going to be much, much better. I've been reading a great book recently by a guy named Doug Lennoth, probably the most interesting guy I've read in a long time, who talks about really how the, you know, how we approach learning and adaptation and stuff like this, specifically the game of soccer. But he says, if kids haven't learned to see the field the right way by age 10, 11 or 12, they're never going to see it. They'll never see it. And I think that's the same thing in the sport as some of you, even though it's a very linear sport. And we're dealing with the dynamics of just biomechanics and mindset and stuff like that. I feel like if we put our kids in positions where they grow in a biomechanical patterns or they understand biomechanical patterns a specific way, they can put themselves in a compromised position by age 12, 13 or 14, and you'll never be able to counteract. You'll never be able to go back and say we can retrace the steps and get you to 100% of your organic potential. You know, even though you took a wrong turn at age 10, 11 and 12, you know, we can get you back on track to that 100%. I think that 100% of organic potential is lost at that point in time. So, you know, relaying everything we learn and understand back to the age group level, I think this is an important component for this new national team directors anything. I don't think they can come in and sit over the top and see the top as they be all an end all of what they're doing. I think they really have to be able to interact with and translate all of this down to the age group level, the junior national team level, and below that in order to filter it up the right way. I mean, that's essentially the formula one example, right? It's like why does Ferrari and Mercedes and these why do they invest so much in racing? Well, the technology they learn in racing goes down to the bottom, the production, like so it's a really unique filter. I think you can be harness in that way. I think a lot of coaches struggle with developing athleticism, swim coaches, I should say. And so if we can help that and guide that not only developing athleticism, but keeping athletes, just raw athletes in the sport, right? I think sometimes, sometimes they just get trained out of the sport and I don't think that that's going to help swimming in the United States or swimming globally to get athletes, like the best athletes not swimming. Does that make sense? Amen. Amen. You know, how we how Gritianwars didn't end up in volleyball, I don't know. We are so lucky. We're so lucky she's in the sport of swimming because at least she's going to be a standard bear for someone that's that height and that that that physicality as she brings it to the sport. And it's hard to see that and see you really see that in the sport of swimming because you don't really get a good impression of it. You know, you don't really know how big judges until he stands, stands next to a short stop. He's not saying, holy cow. Yeah. That guy's huge. Right? So, well, we're also predominantly a white sport. We need we need to change that landscape too. You know, we're losing a lot of athletes to football and basketball and other other sports in this country as well. And I think quality quality swimmers. And I think this what this can give you is just a different metric like, you know, to your parent comment. I have I teach lessons at a swim labs and all I get from parents is like, oh, they did they go faster. And so I do think that with with a with a program where it's like measuring more of the process goals for athletes and in parents in general, like where they can see progress differently than did they drop time. Not that dropping time is like a bad thing. I just think, you know, some going faster is hard. And most of the lead athletes haven't gone the best time in a long time. I don't think many parents of the troopers grasp that, you know. Yeah. And it's so short lived. For me, it's like a bubble gum. Put in put a bubble gum in your mouth. You get a best time like immediately. You want to go another best time. You know, never ends. So, put it. What's next? Okay. Yes. Yeah. The other thing I was going to say to, I'm not exactly sure. Oh, what I was going to say is how I'm using AI. I'm taking I'm taking AI and I'm I'm taking the 400 plus podcasts that I've done. And trying to pull out the best pieces of information from all that, you know, and somehow get that in the hands of all the coaches instead of having to listen to hours and hours of podcasts, is you take John T and you say, he is a nugget. He's a nugget. He's a nugget. And we just get the best nugget. So that's what I'm attempting to do in the future with the podcast. Yeah. I appreciate you guys being here today and doing this. This is this is good. Is there any other any AI programs other than chat GPT that you know of that that people are using or a really useful right now? Chat GPT, like I think, Claude, there's there's a number of similar models. I know there's a lot of coding models that people are using to write code to develop code to teach. Yeah, there's just different different versions and stuff like that. But yeah, I really like what people are doing on social media wise. Look, I love the fact that that, you know, there are people out there, there are swimmers out there, maybe even some coaches out there that are documenting this stuff and just sharing, you know, little clips of things. I think that's so valuable too. Like when you see it too, you know, you see somebody in Australia doing something and within minutes, you can see it and you can mimic it and you can do it. Like that to me is so valuable. So please, I encourage coaches, you know, continue to put information out there through your cameras and through social media. There's some really good people doing really good things and I think that the more the more people doing that, the better it is for us as well, you know. Absolutely. And everybody's got a camera these days. I don't know if it was like that in the 70s. It was like hiding things. You couldn't you weren't allowed to tell anybody anything. Look at me. John, I appreciate this. Thanks for doing this and we'll stay in contact and then maybe a year from now we'll come back and and look at where we're at. Yeah. Okay. Cheers guys. Thanks.