My Story

My name is Alex Muni. I am a USA Swimming Coach, a former College Club Swimmer, a current U.S. Masters Swimmer, and a huge swim fan!

The Beginning:

My swimming journey started quite late, at 16 years old. As a sophomore in high school, I decided one day at lunch that I would approach the head swim coach in the cafeteria at school and ask to join the swim team. With my only experience in swimming having ever been water safety, the coach was hesitant, but allowed me to join. 

In the next year, I joined a USA Swimming team to supplement my training and stopped participating in all my other sports (Soccer, Karate, and Track). With only two years of high school swimming left, I wanted to give it everything I had and fully commit; I was in love with every aspect of the sport. 

The decision was the right one as I worked diligently and eventually competed at our district championships. I was offered opportunities to swim in college at the Division II/III level, but my dream school was a mid-major Division I school to which I didn't make the cut. This is where I found College Club Swimming and Masters Swimming. 

I knew I wanted to continue swimming because I loved it, but also because I knew I hadn't reached my full potential in the two and a half years I swam in high school. 

College: 

Combining College Club Swimming and Masters Swimming gave me the opportunity to compete as much as I wanted, but there was an essential piece missing, the right coach. 

With my growing knowledge and experience, I began experimenting with my own training and pushing myself to be my best. I would wake up at 5 am most mornings so that I could swim in one of the rec lap lanes while the college team was in the pool, I would be in the gym on a specific program to fit my particular physical needs for the water, and I would study and research the sport and many coaches intensively to learn about different training philosophies and methodologies. 

In school, my major was Sports Leadership and Management with my concentration being in coaching. Later, I decided to pursue my graduate degree in Sport Leadership and also received a Graduate Certificate in sport psychology.

Coaching: 

In some capacity, has always been my career goal. I didn't know it would be in swimming, but whether in fitness, soccer, or karate, I knew I coaching was my calling. 

Though I had been coaching my local summer league team since my senior year of high school, it wasn't until 2017 that I learned my university ran a USA Swimming club team. I immediately applied and my USAS coaching career began. 

I got the opportunity to run my own training groups and had the creative freedom to try new things and develop my own coaching philosophy. In my last seven years as a USA Swimming coach, I have had multiple swimmers ranked in the top-100 in their age-group and have even had a select few ranked in the top-ten. In addition to coaching the team, I also coach individuals in one-on-one sessions and am a certified TRX fitness instructor. 

Swimming:

All these years later, swimming is still a significant passion of mine. I train six days a week in the pool and five days a week in the gym. I swim in as many meets as my schedule can allow and I'm always hungry to improve my best times. I have met hundreds of masters swimmers since I began and am happy to say that I have worked with many to become better as well. 

A side passion of mine is helping SwimNerd produce content for swimming's number one podcast, "Inside with Brett Hawke". 

Along with being in the know in the world of swimming, working on the podcast allows me to listen and learn from the world's best coaches and athletes.