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The experts said Gary Hall Jr., didn’t train hard enough, then he went to Atlanta and won four medals, including two gold. Doctors said he couldn’t compete with diabetes; they were wrong. Hall went to Sydney, grabbed four more medals, including the 50-meter freestyle gold medal over Russian rival Alexander Popov, becoming an outstanding role model to children stricken with diabetes worldwide. Now Hall is at it again. He started his own swim team in the Florida Keys. Swimmers generally don’t do that. He’s training to compete in Athens and if he qualifies, he and his father, Gary, Sr., will become the first father-son combo to both compete in three Olympic Games. Plus, Hall is within striking distance of tying or surpassing Matt Biondi and Mark Spitz for the most career swimming medals.
Taking the road less traveled, Hall’s team, The Race Club, in Islamorada, Fla., continues to employ innovative training techniques. What follows is a combination of journal entries and quotes from an exclusive usolympicteam.com interview … it’s 100 percent Gary Hall Jr.
Gary Hall’s tips on spear fishing, boxing in the Florida Keys
An Afternoon of Spear Fishing
“It was a beautiful day,” Hall writes in his online journal at garyhalljr.com. “Besides getting sunburn we got a large number of good eating fish, a harvest. Coach Jon Olsen took plenty of hog snapper. Coach Andy Diechart took one himself and swam half way to Cuba following a grouper. And I now have the breathe control to lance two fish on the same spear with one breathe of air. That means I dive, creep on the fish, spear it, retrieve my spear with the fish, reload my spear into the sling, hunt another fish, spear that fish with the first wriggling fish still on the end of my spear, retrieve my spear again with the two fish on it, then surface.
“At the end of the day we had a cooler full of fish. Spear fishing is great adventure. And a great workout. And more sportsman like too. The only fish killed are ones that we select, seek out and try to swim after. None are too small or inedible. And no matter how fast we are in the water, fish are faster.
“The first time I went down to the Bahamas I was three months old. I learned to swim down there, before I could walk. Anytime that I wasn’t in school, I was down at my grandparents’ place in the Bahamas – between Miami and the Bahamas. To this day, I still say that the best swimmers that I’ve ever met in my entire life are the free divers from Spanish Wells on the outer banks of the Bahamas. What they are able to do in the water rivals anything I’ve ever seen in a swimming pool.
“So I grew up spearing fish and lobster in the Bahamas, then when my grandparents sold their place in the late ‘80s, I’ve always wanted to get back down there, which is why I moved to Miami after the last Olympics. It’s nice to be back in the water.
“There are a couple different methods. There’s the spear gun, which I refuse to use, and then there’s the more sportsman-like way of using the old Hawaiian sling, which is basically a slingshot with a spear. You see the fish you want, you swim after it and then spear it.
“I’d say that the groupers are more difficult then you move your way up to the bigger game fish. I go for anything that’s edible. The grouper is a very skittish fish, if you see it out in the open, the only chance that you have of getting it is to corner it. Swim after it, chase it under a rock and hope that it stays there long enough for you dive down and try to get it.
“I’ve been as deep as 45 to 50 feet. On average, where we end up going – three miles off of the Keys – it can be anywhere between 15 and 40 feet. Some of the divers I was mentioning at Spanish Wells, it’s not uncommon for them to be pulling up fish from over a 100 feet deep.”
Boxing and Swimming 101
”I like to tell people that my second 50 split in the 100 meter freestyle at the 2000 Olympics was second only to Peter van den Hoogenband. Peter is best at the 200 freestyle, while my best is the 50. I was faster coming home than all "100" meter swimmers. This says an awful lot about the aerobic conditioning that I do. I maintain that the training that I do out of the pool is as instrumental in my success as the work done in the pool. I'm not one to make bold statements about my performances, but I have the best dry land training routine in the world of swimming.
“A true competitor will want every advantage over their opponent that they can have. Boxing is my advantage. Boxing exercises teach swimmers to rely less on the strength of their arms and start using the strength of their core or trunk. This is where the power is generated. It's the same core movement for swimmers when swimming freestyle, or a boxer throwing hooks, or a golfer swinging a club.
“So we’ll do a lot of tempo work. We’ll take stroke rates and convert it and be doing it on land with the focus mitts. You do a three-minute round of hitting focus mitts … you are extremely winded. Dive in the water, swim a 25 underwater, pop up and try to blast the 25 and I guarantee it’s the same pain that you feel at the end of a 100-meter freestyle.
“It's not bad for emotional well being either.”
