FutureDreams Swimming
We are a small team of coaches with a wealth of experience and knowledge about pool swimming, open water swimming and triathlon. We are passionate about bringing about positive change in not only people's technique and fitness but also general well-being through swimming.
Currently our team comprises of...
Haydn Woolley
Haydn has been operating FutureDreams since 1999. He is responsible for all marketing, program construction and administration, does approximately 15 private lessons a week and most of the squad sessions. Formerly an elite swimmer, he held both the New Zealand 400 Individual Medley title and also the 3000m NZ Record in 1993. As an ITU triathlete, he was one of the top 2 fastest triathlon swimmers in the world exiting the water first at the 1995 World Champs in Cancun Mexico. He is also known for setting the Fastest Ironman swim leg split of 43min30 (up to that time) at the 1997 Auckland Ironman.
Orinoco Prince
Ori is an ex Olympian having represented NZ in Beijing in 2008. He set a NZ Record for 50m Freestyle in a time of 22.37 which stood for approximately 8 years and won numerous gold medals and NZ Titles making him one of the most successful sprinters in our country's history. His main strokes are freestyle and butterfly. Ori was also our Head Coach for 3 years between 2018 to 2021 and now provides support coaching on Thursday and Friday mornings.
Daniel Gregory Campbell
Dan is an ex-elite sprinter who excelled at the 50m and 100m freestyle (sub 50sec). Dan provides assistance coaching for us at times on Wed / Fri lunchtimes and/or Wed Nights
Rupert Stobo
Rupert has been one of our swimmers in our squad for multiple years and often places highly in the 1500m or 2000m at the Kohi Summer Swim Series each year. He is our fill-in coach for Mon and Wednesday nights
Our Philosophy
YOUR TECHNIQUE SETS A LIMIT TO WHERE YOUR FITNESS WILL TAKE YOU
Swimming is Technical
We all know that getting fit is one of major objectives of training, and that alone will often bring improvement. But there always comes a time when you start to plateau out, where no amount of volume or intensity seems to help you break through. This is when a movement-based improvement must be accepted as the only solution forward. The best place to start that process is a technical assessment because we need to know where you are currently in order to create a pathway.
Habits & Correct Strength
The unconscious manner in which we can successfully do many things in life is merely a product of something we learned years ago. These actions are classified as habits and some of them have become so ingrained that they become extremely difficult to change. But if we are at least mentally open to change, then this can be a good start when you have an aim of re-wiring your physical/neural conditioning towards improvement.
During this process, our muscles must be used differently and this can be difficult to trust because the new feelings are generally not easy to coordinate nor familiar. But as change in our training techniques become more correct more constantly ,then our muscles will actually begin to develop a more specific type of strength, something we term "Correct Strength". Many adults have experienced that confusion when a youngster flies by them in the water with obviously very little strength. But to recognise this and be frustrated can be a good thing - it shows quite clearly that you do not need to be physically big or strong to be a good swimmer.
So our approach is simple - assess the fundamental swimming inefficiencies of where we you now, and then go about re-writing your old habits with more efficient ones. Then correct strength starts to result when a better way of moving is combined with any distance and/or speed you throw into your program and this will effectively push your potential speed ceiling upwards. But remember that even when gains are actually realised, the trick is to treat each new plateau as just a stepping stone - never accept the status quo as your final point.
The Importance of the Swim Leg in Triathlon
Triathletes who have been in the game long enough know only too well just how important it is to come out of the water at the front if you want to win - your relative placing after the swim has a definite mental effect on the rest of your race because it determines the calibre of athletes you are pulled through the race with. The old adage "out of site, out of mind" has all too often allowed a lesser athlete stay away and beat someone more gifted who merely had a bad swim. Also with the advent of drafting races in triathlon, if you have a bad swim then your chances of success are seriously affected. You simply must be there at the start of the bike in a draft-legal race or your whole race can be over before you begin.