To kick off season 2 of Orreco’s ‘Optimized’ podcast, our host Marc Cleary is joined by USA Swimming Director of Sports Medicine and Science, Keenan Robinson.
Keenan has a wealth of experience supporting swimmers health, wellbeing and performance, to reach the pinnacle of sporting success. The two discuss what differentiates great athletes from the good athletes, and the decisions they make, or more accurately, the lack of irrational decisions that divert focus from the goal. They continue to outline how the necessity of Menstrual cycle tracking came to the attention of USA Swimming and onto Keenan’s desk. In order to maximise the US talent, they intended to maximize sport science.
Keenan touches on the importance of connecting with athletes on all levels, and how the success stories for athletes are broadening outside of podiums and gold medals. He believes that tools such as Orreco’s FitrWoman App enable the definition of success to expand to ‘doing something different that supports 50% of the population”, which was previously not done. This will change the way female athletes are assisted at all levels of competition and development.
The conversation moves to the characteristics of the champions that Keenan has observed and how they differ from the rest. Keenan highlights the analogy of having Jaws in their pool, ‘the most dangerous thing to touch water’ in Michael Phelps and what he, as an athlete, was able to pick up from his teammates and competition surrounding him. The need to embrace competition, to keep what is important, important, and to direct all your efforts to a singular goal.
Enjoy the episode.
