Every swimming coach does some form of skills practice in their training sessions every day.

For the most part, coaches focus on learning and practicing skills — but rarely test whether those skills are actually race-ready.

The challenge is that there’s a big gap between doing a skill well in training and executing it under race conditions.

Here are four steps to bridge that gap:

1. Learn the skill — Understand the movement. Get the basics right.

2. Practice the skill — Repeat it. Refine it. Build consistency.

3. Test the skill — Add speed. Add fatigue. Add pressure. Can they still do it?

4. Race the skill — Execute it in competition conditions - both simulated racing in training and actual races in Meets. That’s the real test.