Keenan Robinson is the Director of Sports Medicine and Science at USA Swimming. He is responsible for evaluating injury, identifying risk factors, and streamlining medical care for Team USA swim team members. Prior to serving with Team USA, he was the head of high-performance services for aquatic sports at Arizona State University.
Coach Robinson is a 2002 graduate of Adrian College in Michigan and a 2005 graduate of the Arizona School of Health Sciences. He is both a certified athletic trainer (NATABOC) and a certified strength and conditioning specialist (NSCA). Robinson served as Head Athletic Trainer with both the 2012 and 2016 USA Swimming teams.
Here, Keenan discusses his process of bringing together the worlds of strength and conditioning and sports medicine to maximize swim performance. He explains his process of learning what makes aquatic athletes fast from a functional, dryland perspective.
In this podcast, Coach Robinson discusses with Joel:
- Dry land strength and performance, and how he uses it with swimmers.
- Any key performance indicators in the weight room that can project success in an aquatic athlete’s performance in the water.
- His take on swim-specific movements in the weight room.
- Injury prevention and shoulder stability in swimmers.
- Desirable strength levels for swimmers in various events.
- How much stretching he believes aquatic athletes need.
Podcast total run time is 41:10.
Keywords: aquatic athlete, swim, aquatic sports performance