Interview with Mike Bottom

By Phillip Whitten

Swimming Technique January-March 2001 Feature Article

The Bottom Line on Sprinting
The World Sprint 2000 team, an elite sprinting team that was part of the Phoenix Swim Club and coached by Olympian Mike Bottom, enjoyed stellar results this summer, highlighted by the second and third fastest performances ever in the 50 meter free by Gary Hall Jr. and Anthony Ervin, who also tied for Olympic gold.

One of the most successful coaches this year has been Mike Bottom, a member of the ill-fated 1980 U.S. Olympic team. The associate men's coach at the University of California-Berkeley, Mike headed up the "World Sprint 2000" team, an elite sprinting team that was part of the Phoenix Swim Club.

The World Sprint 2000 team consisted of 11 highly-motivated, world-class male swimmers--nine of them freestyle sprinters: Americans Anthony Ervin, Scott Greenwood, Gary Hall Jr., Matt Macedo and Jon Olsen; and foreigners Felipe Delgado, Bart Kizierowski, Gordan Kozulj (a 200 meter backstroker), Francisco Sanchez and Julio Santos. Later, Marcin Kaczmarek (a 100 and 200 meter flyer) also joined the team, though he broke his hand on his first day of practice.

Coach Bottom divided the team into three groups:

- The Veterans: Hall, Kizierowski, Kozulj and Olsen;
- The Three Amigos: Delgado, Sanchez and Santos;
- The Guppies: Ervin, Greenwood, Kaczmarek and Macedo.

Last summer, Coach Bottom and his staff, consisting of assistant coach and team coordinator, Heather Johnston (now an assistant coach at Louisiana State University), and assistant coach Norishi Kobayashi, instituted a highly unusual but extraordinarily demanding training program. The results were nothing short of phenomenal.

- Hall and Ervin both broke Tom Jager's 10-year-old American record in the 50 meter free, with the second (21.76) and third (21.80) fastest times in history;
- Kozulj swam to a European title in the 200 meter backstroke;
- Eight of the 11 swimmers made their country's Olympic teams: Hall and Ervin (USA); Sanchez (VEN); Santos and Delgado (ECU); Kizierowski and Kaczmarek (POL); and Kozulj (CRO).
- All but two of the swimmers swam lifetime personal best times (Olsen and Sanchez).
- At the Olympics, Hall and Ervin tied for first in the 50 free, and Kizierowski placed fifth. Hall finished third in the 100 free with a lifetime best, anchored the world record-setting 400 medley relay (3:33.73) and the American record-setting 400 free relay (3:13.86). Ervin led off the 400 freestyle relay (48.89).

In July--a few weeks before the U.S. Olympic Trials--Swimming Technique sat down with Coach Bottom to ask him what he did to produce such extraordinary results. Here's what we learned:

Swimming Technique: Mike, the swimming community has been impressed with your highly innovative program, but you've always stressed how much you owe to the ideas and techniques of other coaches. Tell us about that.

Coach Mike Bottom: Yes, what we've done here is largely the result of what I've synthesized from four great coaches I've worked with over the course of my career. They are George Haines, David Marsh, Mark Schubert and Nort Thornton.
- George Haines, my coach in high school, was the most influential. He was way ahead of his time, always maintaining a balance of speed and endurance work during the water portion of his program. He never had us do mega-yardage and never overtrained his swimmers. He had a way of taking us to our limit in training, but he never pushed us beyond that point, where we'd be unable to recover.
- Then there's David Marsh, under whom I worked as an assistant coach at Auburn for several years. Dave emphasizes the complete athlete. I learned from Dave that it's not necessarily the fastest guy in the water during workout who will swim best at the end of the year. It's the guy who does the most things right, most consistently.
- From Mark Schubert I learned the importance of aerobic training. Before Mark, I hadn't fully appreciated the importance of having a solid aerobic base. I think that's because when I was at Auburn, by the time my sprinters came to me, they already had a solid aerobic base.
- North Thornton is a technical wizard. We do a tremendous amount of technique work at Cal--I'd say about 50 percent of what we do is technique. This summer, we've been training almost eight hours a day, and it's at least 50 percent technique.

ST: Almost eight hours a day? Give us a rundown of your training schedule.

Bottom: We train from 8:15 to 11:45 a.m., Monday through Saturday, and from 4:15 to 8 p.m. every week day but Thursday. There's no workout on Thursday afternoon, though the guys usually do something on their own in the water, and we have Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday off. What does that come to? About 36 hours a week, I think.

I remember when I was training Gary (Hall) for the '96 Games and there was a lot of criticism that he wasn't training hard enough. He said to me, "Coach, I'm training hard enough that my heart rate is over 100 for six or seven hours a day. How much aerobic work do you want me to do?" He was right.

ST: Right. Let's talk a bit about the dryland training you do, which probably would strike most coaches as the most unusual aspect of your program.

Bottom: There actually are several basic elements to our dryland program, the specifics of which are fluid and literally changing all the time.

First off, we do weights three times a week for 75-90 minutes per session. Two of the sessions focus on upper body strength and one on lower body. We also do stretching every day for 15 minutes. Then, once a week, we do full body stretches for 60 minutes.

ST: And what about your dryland circuit?

Bottom: Actually, we have two--an outdoor and an indoor circuit, during which the swimmers' heart rate remains between 140 and 180 for at least 45 to 50 minutes. These circuits are designed to increase aerobic capacity and improve strength. We do each dryland circuit twice a week. The focus is on core body strength, shoulder strength and stability, balance, aerobic capacity and technique (for which we use a mirror).

Tuesday and Fridays are the days we do the outdoor circuit, usually combined with some hard, fast kicking. For example, the guys will run two laps (half a mile) of the outdoor track, then do several minutes each of obstacle course running, basketball lay-ups, jump pull-ups, then some pliometrics. Then they'll get in the pool and do some fast kicking--all-out 100s and 50s, then a longer, easy swim. We'll run through this three to four times.

ST: What about the indoor circuit?

Bottom: We do this twice a week as well. Each element in the indoor circuit takes 60 seconds, with about 10 to 15 seconds between stations. We have focus mitts, kicks, speed bags, dodging and popping. The guys really love all this boxing and martial arts stuff. Then we do a lot of work with the medicine ball because it helps strengthen the core. There are several exercises in which we throw it; then some core exercises. For example, the swimmer lies on the floor, holds his feet up, and twists left and right.

Some of the exercises are created by the swimmers themselves, which is something I like to encourage. It keeps them thinking about why they do what they do, and how to do it more effectively. If someone comes up with an idea, I'll ask them what they're doing and why. Not all of their ideas are good ones, but some are very good. If the team adopts one of these new exercises, we name it after the guy who invented it. It becomes known as the Matt Macedo Twist, or the Anthony Ervin Core Exercise.

ST: What about training in the water? How much yardage do you do?

Bottom: I actually don't know how much yardage we do. I vary sets depending on how the guys are doing. On Wednesday afternoon and Saturday morning, we have a lactate set. A typical set might be 5 x 100 plus a 300 swim-down. Some of the 100s are done with fins, some with fins and paddles. All of this is done fast, and these guys have done some pretty impressive times.

In mid-July, for example, I gave them this set: 3 x {3 x 100 meters (sc)} with an easy 50 between each 100. They gradually descended from 56 to 57 seconds with no equipment to 49 seconds with equipment.

Everyone trains primarily for the 100. Gary (Hall), Anthony (Ervin), Julio (Santos) and Scott (Greenwood) will go down from the 100 to the 50--their primary event--but still swim very good 100s. I wouldn't be surprised to see Gary break the 50 record, but I also think he's capable of going 48 in the 100--maybe a 48-low by Sydney. Gordan (Kozulj) will go up from the 100 to the 200 (back), but he still should be able to swim a strong 100.