Dear Dan,

Thank you for being an excellent personal trainer. I really wanted to make an impact on North Carolina Swimming before leaving for college, and thanks to you, I was able to do that. I found significant improvements while in personal training, including overall strength, speed, vertical leap and core body strength.

When we first started personal training, I was a relatively uncoordinated person, and my core body strength was virtualy nonexistent. All my strength I had was from simply swimming laps day after day. Through personal training, I learned that there are many ways to swim faster. Within weeks, my body fat percentage was cut in half. I found my coordination had improved greatly, and I was swimming through the water faster than ever before and with relative ease. Also, the endurance I had for kicking had nearly doubled. I was hitting personal best times on kicking sets nearly every day in practice. Kicking used to be my biggest weakness in swimming. I have no doubt that the slideboard used in personal training contributed to significant improvements in my kick.

It would have been one thing to have simply gotten stronger, but the most important aspect of training was how fast I was able to swim in the pool. I had a highly successful final season, and I have no doubt that the perosnal training played a large part in this. I started off the season with a new state record and personal best time in the 200 meter Individual Medley, and a personal best time in the 50 meter and 400 meter freestyles. I also had unshaved best times in the 100 meter backstroke and the 200 meter freestyle. The highlight of my summer season, however, came at the 2004 US Olympic Swimming Trials. There, I cut a full second off my best time in the 200 meter backstroke. Going into the meet, I was seeded 23rd place. My time allowed me to swim again in the semifinals at tenth place.

Perhaps the most important part of all this is the fact that I may not have even had a summer season had it not been for Dan Ross. Towards the beginning of the season, I suffered an elbow injury that I do not believe would have improved to the point that it did, had I not participated in personal training. My elbow was able to heal enough for me to swim at maximum effort, and now, it is at nearly 100%. I do not believe this would be the case if I did not have personal training.

Dan, thank you for the success you helped me achieve during the 2004 summer swimming season, and thank you for helping me learn a lot more about training in general. Not only did I have a successful Summer Season, but I have also set myself up for a great collegiate career at the University of Texas. Thanks again for everything.

Sincerely,

Matt McGinnis