From Idea to Poolside: Building a Pre-Pool Warm-Up Habit

Spencer Turner
1 day ago
4 min read

Updated: 2 hours ago

The Swimmer’s Warm Up Deck began with a recurring problem I kept seeing.

A swimmer may have spent a couple of years in early development squads arriving at the pool, getting changed and getting straight into the water. Then, as they progress further into competitive swimming, we start asking them to arrive earlier and complete a pre-pool warm-up before the session begins.

That can be quite a change.

At ten, eleven or twelve, simply telling a swimmer they now need to spend time doing exercises before they swim does not automatically create understanding or buy-in.

How do we introduce pre-pool preparation in a way that young swimmers can engage with, understand and gradually take ownership of?

It needed some structure, but not a rigid routine. Something simple enough to use when a young swimmer is first introduced to pre-pool preparation and flexible enough to develop with them.

My background before working full-time in swimming was in design and visual communication and that naturally influenced the way I looked at the problem.

Rather than another sheet of exercises, one fixed routine or a collection of online clips that may not always be easy to access on poolside, I kept coming back to cards.

One movement on each card.

Something swimmers could physically pick up, move around and arrange into a warm-up.

An entry-level squad might begin with just three or four cards, keeping the warm-up short and easy to follow while helping create that first pre-pool habit. As swimmers progress through the pathway, another card or two can be added and the warm-up can gradually become more varied and more swimmer-led.

The cards gave coaches a simple way to introduce the process and young swimmers something visual they could follow, helping pre-pool preparation become one of the first stages before they get in the water.

Building some structure

The Deck developed around the familiar warm-up sequence of Raise, Mobilise, Activate and Prime, with an optional Explode stage.

Each stage was numbered and colour coded so swimmers could quickly recognise the sequence and follow the warm-up in the right order.

That gave the Deck a clear structure without turning the warm-up into one prescribed routine.

For a younger swimmer, that might mean following a simple sequence selected by a coach. As their confidence and understanding develop, they can begin making more of those choices themselves.

Making it visual

The visual side probably took more work than I first expected.

Every card had to communicate quickly.

The illustration needed to make the movement recognisable. The wording had to stay short. The Perform target had to be easy to find and the stage of the warm-up needed to be obvious.

The cards also needed to be bright and engaging.

I was designing them for young age-group swimmers. They are there because they love swimming. They want to get in the water, race, improve and spend time with their teammates.

Jumping around on poolside doing what can sometimes feel like a set of boring exercises is not necessarily the part they are most excited about.

So the Deck needed to catch their attention and give them something they could interact with.

The colours, illustrations and layout were there to make the warm-up feel more approachable and easier to follow.

I also wanted to keep the cards themselves simple. That is where the Exercise Companion Guide came in. It gives coaches and parents a greater understanding of each movement, what it is trying to achieve, how it should be performed and where appropriate how it relates to swimming.

They can then use that understanding to support the swimmer, answer questions and help build knowledge over time.

Testing it on poolside

A lot of the development came from simply using the cards with swimmers.

That is where you quickly find out whether something makes sense.

Movements that look straightforward on paper can be interpreted differently when a young swimmer tries them. Instructions can be too long. An illustration can need changing.

Once the cards were in front of them, the warm-up became something they could interact with, follow and gradually take more ownership of.

They could follow the sequence, choose movements, arrange them in order and start asking why one movement might be used instead of another.

That does not remove the coach from the process.

For younger swimmers, the coach may still decide most of the warm-up. The cards simply give the swimmer a clearer way to follow the structure and begin understanding what comes next.

From prototype to finished Deck

Like most things I have designed, the finished version looks much simpler than the process that produced it.

There were changes to exercises, illustrations, wording, card layouts, stage structure, instructions and packaging along the way.

The Deck also grew beyond the cards, with the introductory booklet and Exercise Companion Guide adding more support without cluttering the cards themselves.

But the original idea stayed the same.

Create a clear, visual tool that coaches could use to introduce pre-pool preparation to young swimmers.

Something simple enough to start with, structured enough to make sense and flexible enough to develop as swimmers move through the pathway.

That is how The Swimmer’s Warm Up Deck went from an idea to something being used on poolside.

Prepare. Move. Perform.

Spencer Turner

Creator, The Swimmer’s Warm Up Deck

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