Leading Swiss coach Massimo Meloni offered an in-depth assessment of his overall approach when he held an elite swimming clinic at the European Aquatics Championships Paris 2026.
Meloni, head coach at the Swiss Aquatics Training Base group – which includes Olympic medallist and multiple short course world record holder Noe Ponti – was conducting the last of a series of coach clinics in different disciplines within the framework of the European Aquatics Academy.
His presentation entitled “Beyond the Stopwatch: My Training Philosophy for Elite Swimming” covered three main areas – Meloni’s training philosophy in elite swimming, how he builds performance and his view of the athlete/team relationship.
After detailing his training philosophy – “based primarily on two words: consistency and trust” – Meloni went on to address the perennial topics of technique and recovery.
“I don’t believe there’s a perfect swimming technique that works for everyone,” he said.
“Instead, I believe that each athlete must find their own technique, one that allows them to minimise energy loss and the resistance their body encounters in the water, while maintaining maximum efficiency.
“Technique must therefore be individual and functional for the athlete. And above all, technique cannot be separated from performance.
“Swimming well slowly is relatively easy. The real challenge is maintaining technical quality when speed increases, when fatigue sets in, and when the body is pushed close to its limit.
“It’s then that we understand if the technique we’ve developed is truly effective. This is why I believe technique and training must continually coexist.
“The situation is different for starts and turns. In these areas, I believe it’s essential to seek extremely precise technique, because every detail can have a significant impact on the final performance.
“Training the body, but above all, building the athlete. For me, training isn’t just about the body.
“Training also means building discipline, resilience, patience and self-confidence.
“It means learning not to give up when there’s no motivation, when you’re tired, when a workout doesn’t go as well as you’d like, or when results are slow to arrive.
“It’s precisely on those days, in my opinion, that an important part of the athlete is built. Because when everything goes well, it’s easy to be motivated.
“True growth comes when you have to keep working even when motivation isn’t at its peak.”
Turning to the subject of recovery, Meloni added: “After the Covid period I began to understand even more how fundamental recovery is to training.
“We can’t just focus on how much to train an athlete. We must also ask ourselves how much the athlete can absorb what we offer them.
“Recovery isn’t the time when you don’t train. Recovery is training. It’s during recovery that the body assimilates the work done and that we can prepare for the next load.
“That’s why today I consider recovery an integral part of training, just like the volume, intensity, technique, and quality of the work.”
He went on to sum up his training philosophy:
“My philosophy can be summed up in a few concepts:
“Train with a goal.
“Progress with patience.
“Work with quality.
“Listen to your body.
“Trust in the journey.
“And build results that can last over time.
“Because in elite swimming, I don’t believe our job should simply be to achieve a result.
“I believe our job is to build an athlete capable of achieving that result and, above all, capable of continuing to improve over time.
Look out on the EA site for the two final areas of analysis offered by Meloni in Paris – regarding how he builds performance and his view of the athlete/team relationship.
Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics
