Head Coach & Founder

Chris Da Sie

I've spent my coaching career obsessing over one question: why do some swimmers with average talent end up on the podium, while others with obvious ability never get there?

The answer isn't harder training. It's better architecture. The right technical system, at the right training phase, building the right kind of pressure tolerance — applied intentionally. That's the Podium Method™.

Between The Laps is where I've taken everything I've learned on the pool deck and made it accessible — not as a course with a certificate, but as a living coaching system built around the swimmers actually using it.

Published in SwimSwam

ASCA Contributor

Author: Pressure to Podium

The Origin

Why Between The Laps Exists

When I started coaching, I noticed something that hasn't changed since. The swimmers with access to elite programs got elite frameworks. Everyone else got generic advice and YouTube videos. They trained hard. They showed up. But they didn't have the system — the real coaching architecture — that separates swimmers who are fast from swimmers who are built to be fast.

Between The Laps exists because swimmers deserve better. Not cheaper coaching. Better coaching. The same periodized frameworks, the same technical precision, the same race-day psychology that gets swimmers to the podium at high-level meets — that shouldn't be gatekept behind the price of an elite program.

This is the Podium Method™. It's what I've built on the pool deck. It's what works in the water. And it's built so that any swimmer, anywhere, with access to a pool and a real framework, can train smarter and race faster.

The Philosophy

Four things I believe about competitive swimming

Technique is specific, not generic

Your swimmer's gaps are unique. We target the limiters that cost real time — not the drill cues that apply to every swimmer, everywhere, at the same time.

Every set earns its place

There's an intentional physiological target behind every yard. No filler. No sets that don't serve the training intent. Volume without purpose produces fitness without results.

Peak when it counts

Periodization that aligns training with the competitive calendar. Your swimmer arrives race-ready — not training-ready — at the meet that matters most.

Racing is trainable

Race identity is a skill, not a personality trait. We develop it the same way we develop aerobic capacity: systematically, deliberately, and with a plan.

Credentials

Built on the pool deck.

The Podium Method™ didn't come from a textbook. It came from years of watching what actually moves the needle for real swimmers at real competitions — then systematizing it.

Beyond the pool deck, I've contributed to the swimming community as a published writer. My articles on race psychology and training design have appeared in SwimSwam and through the American Swimming Coaches Association — two of the most respected platforms in competitive swimming.

SwimSwam Contributor

ASCA Published

Coaching Background

Head coach experience across age group, high school, and post-graduate competitive levels

Methodology

The Podium Method™ — 5-pillar framework built on Urbanchek-style periodization and race-specific conditioning

Specialties

Race psychology, peak performance timing, stroke efficiency, IM development, dry-land integration

Published Author

Pressure to Podium: Transforming the Mental Game of Competitive Swimming

YouTube

9,200+ subscribers — weekly coaching content for swimmers and swim parents

Community

Founder of the Swim Accelerator — active coaching community with 180+ members

My Book

Pressure to Podium

The mental side of swimming gets ignored in almost every coaching conversation. Coaches talk about aerobic base, stroke rate, and turn speed — but skip the part where a swimmer who's trained perfectly gets on the block and swims three seconds slower than they've ever swum in practice.

Pressure to Podium is the framework for closing that gap. Written for competitive swimmers and the parents supporting them — concrete, actionable, built from the pool deck up.

Get It on Amazon → About the Book