American swimmer Trenton Julian chatted with Digital Journal’s Markos Papadatos about his career in the sport, motivations, and being an athlete in the digital age. He has a bright and promising future in swimming.
On his daily motivations, he said, “One of my biggest motivators as a swimmer is how much I hate to lose and enjoying the process of seeing how good I can be.”
Regarding his future plans, he said, “My current plans include taking each year of swimming at a time, with the goal of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games and then seeing where swimming takes me after that.”
“Once I finish swimming I would like to look into coaching, I have always enjoyed the sport and many of the aspects around it. I don’t know the exact level of coaching I would like to start at or where I would like to coach, although it is the plan to move forward with those decisions in the future,” he said.
For young and aspiring swimmers, he said, “What was really important to me growing up was enjoying the sport as much as I could and just having fun when I was able to race. Especially for younger swimmers, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to try other sports and find what you enjoy the most.”
“My parents let me find my own way into the sport, which probably took a little longer than they expected, but it was really important that it was my decision to take swimming seriously and find out how good I could be,” he said.
He opened up about his career-defining moments. “There were definitely some key moments in both my career and life that helped define me as both a person and athlete. There have been some key injuries in my career that have changed my relationship with the sport,” he said.
“Outside of the sport, all the hardships that my dad has gone through have helped shape me into someone stronger than I was before, being able to see all that he has gone through is an inspiration and has set a standard for me,” he added.
On being a swimmer in the digital age, he said, “It is definitely a learning experience, I have had to switch from rarely posting and not being very active on social media to it being an important part of trying to become a professional athlete.”
Regarding his use of technology in his daily routine as a swimmer and recovery, he said, “I have started to use technology in recovery through the use of cold tubs and
other recovery provided by the school.”
“Compression technology has become a big recovery tool for me. Other than recovery, being able to measure my sleep scores and record my activity and heart rate throughout the day has been a change that I have been incorporating into my daily routine,” he said.
When asked what his personal favorite stroke is in swimming, he responded, “Personally I don’t think I have a true favorite stroke, although I would have to say
my least favorite is backstroke. I have always enjoyed swimming the individual
medley (IM) races and I find that the stroke that feels best or most enjoyable to me
can switch from day to day or even from one practice to the next.”
On his definition of success, he said, “Success to me means enjoying what I am doing and not doing things that I don’t like. There are a lot of times when enjoying swimming goes hand and hand with accomplishing my goals, but there have been many times where just enjoying the process I had was more important than the result and I still considered success.”
To learn more about American professional swimmer Trenton Julian, follow him on Instagram.
