On this episode of Listen Up, Bailey is joined by #1 U.S. ParaSwimmer Jamal Hill. Tokyo Olympics is just around the corner and Hill talks his daily routine in and out of the pool in preparation for the biggest event of his life. Bailey touches on Jamal’s background in swimming dating back to 2 years-old and learned about the uphill battle to stay at the top of his game. An incredible amount of hard work and dedication got Hill to where he stands today, but many challenges had to be faced. This is a story you don’t want to miss!

Interview Transcript Below

Bailey:

Listen up Stack Sports. We are back. For all of our viewers and listeners of this program here at Stack Sports, we really been appreciating the support for this program and especially recently in our Path to the Draft series, leading up to the NFL draft, all of which can be found on stack.com. But today we are back from a small intermission, break, hiatus, whatever you want to call it. But we’re came back swinging with this guest, Jamal Hill, Los Angeles native, Para Swimmer, author, non-profit founder. Jamal, thank you for coming on the program. Good morning. Is there something you don’t do?

Jamal:

Yeah, I’m not fake. I’m not fake. Thank you so much, man. Happy to be here on the show with you, Bailey. And we’re going to have a great conversation today, man.

Bailey:

Yeah, we appreciate you taking the time and always keeping it real. We know that when we’re talking with you. What you got going on today? You have practice, swimming, nutrition? What’s your daily schedule?

Jamal:

Yeah, for sure. So for me the daily schedule, I live in two blocks of time. So from about 6:30 to noon as all office hours so I’m the executive at a nonprofit as well as the founder. So 6:00 to 12:00 is office hours. If I’m going to do an interview for promotion or reading or inspiration would usually be in that time block. And then from 1:30 to 6:30 at night is all training. So that’s when I hit the pool. That’s when I get my dryland workouts in. That’s when I get my recovery, my sauna, my ice bath. So that’s what it looks. So I’m either actually at the home office in the morning, and then in the afternoon at the pool or at my coach’s house at our training facility.

Bailey:

Now, I want to start with the latest news, as you are now ranked the sixth-best swimmer in the world, Para Swimming rankings for the 50 meter freestyle. You clocked in a 25.62, highest ranked American in the event. Walk us through that time and what it feels like to only have five people faster than you in the world.

Jamal:

Yeah, man, it’s a process. I’ll tell you this, if you had been at the event and you had seen me touch the wall, you would have never known that I just became the sixth-fastest swimmer in the world. I’m somebody and I teach it to younger athletes, I’m a firm believer in when you finish your race, people in the stands, anybody watching you, shouldn’t be able to tell whether you just broke a world record or whether you just swam the worst swim of your life. Nobody should be able to tell that difference.

Jamal:

Ultimately, just because that’s the end of the day we’re professionals. I think there’s a certain level of composure that comes into the work that we do. So for me, I like to come in with no expectations. I think expectations, people, especially elite athletes don’t like to admit it, expectations add a lot of pressure and they pull you out of a state of gratitude for the present moment. So I just make sure to try and keep myself grounded in the present moment, always practice breathing and say a prayer right before I step up on the starting block.

Jamal:

And I know it’s man, I want to something juicy here, but this is the real deal, Holyfield. After that swim, it’s just, listens, at the end of the day, you’re always the same place in life and that’s better than some and worse than others. If it’s not true today, it will be true tomorrow. And so after every swim, I just always remind myself, it’s just one step at a time. Because even after that I went and we’ll have some more great swims, some more best times. But at the end of the day, the next step is always the same. You touch the wall, you get out of the pool and whether you did great or you did terribly, you’re going to warm down. That’s the next step. So that’s where my head was at that time. It’s was just, wow, okay. That was a good swim. Again, better than some, worse than others, this just happened to be a better one. But long story short, I still have to go warm down. I still have a lot more work to do with this competition.

Bailey:

So, why swimming? What gravitated you towards the pool? And when did you first start?

Jamal:

Yeah, for sure. Great question brother. Swimming was the first sport I ever participated in. Came in swimming at 10 months old, mommy and me, went into swim lessons and it was in swim lessons that I could see the swim team on the other side of the local YMCA, really swimming. And that’s when I’m like, oh man, I want to join the swim team.

Jamal:

And my mom was like, “Well shoot, if you want to join that swim team, you got to get your act together.” I’m a little boy, in swim lessons, not listening, playing games, in my own world. So that made me tighten up my act and make that swim team. And from there it was pretty much a love affair. I swam and it was really my first love. First sport just felt really connected to it. And I had to stop swimming competitively when we both have Charcot-Marie-Tooth. So as a complication of that, I had to stop swimming for about six years, from 10 to 16. And when I had an opportunity to rejoin a high school swim team, I took it. And it’s just kind of been building a baby step at a time since then.

Bailey:

At what point did you start to gain a little bit more traction though? Was it in high school when you started getting more competitive with swimming and the thought popped into your mind that you could swim at a pretty high level?

Jamal:

I always say now, I wouldn’t say that, I would say the traction really started to come when I was a junior in college, actually. So from a sophomore year in high school, that’s when I first got back onto a swim team since I was 10 years old. I was only swimming three months out of the year. So imagine if you were only doing reporting or journalism three months out of the year. You probably wouldn’t be that good. You probably wouldn’t have that much momentum, too much traction. So in high school I was a seasonal swimmer. I think the most I eventually on my senior year was about six months. But it was as a junior in college. I had gone to championships in Northeast Ohio, that’s where I went to college at. And that’s a story in itself, but that’s where I’d gone to college at where I had championships. My parents had flown out and … the performance left a lot to be desired.

Jamal:

I felt really embarrassed, heartbroken even. And so kind of in the wake of that performance and how I felt, that it had really impacted me emotionally, that’s when I realized, I think I really, really like swimming. Maybe I should just try and make this a career. So as a junior, I’m like, you know what? I’m not coming back to college. This is 2016, right before the Rio Olympics. If I want to have any chance at making a team for Tokyo, this is the time. So that’s, I think, when the momentum really started to pick up, right around spring of 2016.

Bailey:

You’ve mentioned the hardships you face between 10 and 16, the condition that we have, Charcot-Marie-Tooth, the challenges that, that brought. I’m curious on what motivated you to, not only get back in the pool, but to continue to see how far you can get with swimming. Where does that personal motivation, that internal motivation, come from?

Jamal:

Yeah, that’s a really great question. I think internally we all got to make choices. So I 100% take responsibility and applaud myself for my choices. At the same pace, it would behoove me not to highlight how strong of a support system I had in my parents. My mom and dad, from day one when I was first diagnosed, when I was in the hospital, couldn’t move anything beneath my neck, paralyzed from the neck down. When some of my nerve capacity had regained and it felt like I was walking on my knees. I had to relearn how to walk. I had to relearn how to hold things and pick things up.

Jamal:

They were so sick but, I don’t want to say, they weren’t like, “There’s nothing wrong with you.” But that you can still do anything that you want to do, in anything that you put your mind to. Anything that you practice, however good or bad you are at it right now, if you continue to practice, guaranteed, you’re going to improve.

Jamal:

And it was just messages like this that were reinforced before I had my bought with Charcot-Marie-Tooth, but especially once I had it, I continued to be reinforced and really became seared into my mind and my spirit. And so they served me a lot of ways, which there’s two sides to every coin. So there were definitely some negative consequences with this, I don’t want to say warrior mindset, but it definitely was a warrior mindset with an air of dissociative. So there was some dissociative disorder going on in there, too. Some cognitive dissonance going on in there, too. But I think that’s really where it came from. I made the choice to just follow the path that had really been laid out in front of me.

Bailey:

Let’s transition to in the pool. I think the personal motivation, the internal motivation you just described is not only inspiring for other athletes, but it reminds us that you’re more than an athlete. You have other personal motivations that gets you to the heights that you want to get to. But I want to talk about the pool because I think swimming is so interesting in terms of how you train, the way you eat, your diet. Run us through a week of training for you. I know you mentioned you have two blocks of your schedule, but are you constantly in the pool when you train, do you do things out of the pool? How do you eat? Because I know you can’t have a bigger body for swimming. You got to have that nicer-

Jamal:

Yeah. You definitely want to have the tapered waist, that’s for sure. Great questions, brother. So as far as swimming goes, we said, really at this point in time, my training block is the afternoons. So as a sprinter and working with my coach Wilma Wong, who is a big innovator and really just maverick in the training space. And then the way we think about swim training, especially sprint swim training, I actually only spend about 40 minutes in the pool everyday out of about what I would call a five-hour training block. So I only spend about 40 minutes in the pool and every week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, there’s a specific workout that we do every single day, every single week. So every Monday for the past 15, 25 weeks has been the exact same workout.

Jamal:

Every Tuesday has been the exact same workout. Every Wednesday. So a lot of repetition, a good formula in terms of baseline markers. We always know when we’re improving. We always know when something’s not right that day because it’s not just kind of, do whatever you want. Excuse me. It’s not just do whatever you want to do. So that’s really important for me. And then outside of the pool, I don’t do any weights. I only use elastic and resistance bands. So I have a full body resistance band system called X3 that keeps my general strength up. And then I use really some rotational power building equipment it’s called Power Core 360. Again, it’s just a set of bands and harnesses that allow me to really work on manipulating my hips and my torso separately, as well as together, to just build the connection through my body.

Jamal:

And then obviously any workout is only as great as the recovery. So almost on a daily basis, I take a sauna and ice bath to allow my body to recover, to flush out lactic acid to allow the healing process to begin. And then as far as diet man, again, as you can tell, we like to keep it simple. Keep it simple, stupid. We like to keep it simple. I usually, a breakfast, if I’m coming from home, I’ll eat sausage eggs, I’ll eat a sausage and egg sandwich before practice.

Jamal:

If I’m coming from the Pasadena office, I’ll probably stop by Chipotle or something and just grab some lunch before practice. And then after that swim session, I eat again before I go into my resistance band workouts for the evening. Yeah. I would say for the most part, I consume white meat during training periods. But when I go into competition periods, I consume a lot of red meat. And the reason for that is it makes me feel like a real predator to have steaks for dinner every night. It makes me feel like I’m going to tear something up. So I like to save that feeling and that energy for a competition time.

Bailey:

I think that’s interesting that you just pound some stakes that week before a competition-

Jamal:

Not a week before. Literally only in competition.

Bailey:

Oh, only in competition?

Jamal:

Only in competition. So the night before, the night of, it’s usually three days of competition. So for lunch and dinner, I’m usually eat in some form of steak for three to four days throughout that actual competition week or weekend.

Bailey:

Does that help your mindset think that it’s about to come to a big competition or a real deal? Because you know you’re eating steak?

Jamal:

Yeah, I think so. I mean the body knows. I’ve trained it at this point, so I definitely think it does. But in terms of expanse for me, it’s just that feeling, that meat sits on you a little bit more. And then also just being in a competition, it’s the same, but it’s also a lot different than practicing that there’s so much energy being taken from you. And just even in the space, there’s so much energy, there’s so much anxiety, there’s so much excitement. Even being prepared, you just need, I need more on me. I feel like I need more fuel. I feel like I need something that’s going to be processed in my body a little bit slower so that it’s not just all burnt out with energy. Because of swimming, we’d flown bath and practice.

Jamal:

But when you go to a race, after one race at a big event, you’re pooped. And you can train for 40 minutes every day, but after one 30 second race, after one 50 second race, it’s all taken out of you, literally all of it’s taken out of you. And so, just during the racing times, at racing events, I think that red meat just, again, it sits on me differently. It sits on me differently and I think provides me a little bit of a reservoir in addition to what would be my regular diet.

Bailey:

Speaking of competition, you have a pretty big one coming up. And then next few months there are the Paralympic trials in under seven weeks. Obviously the goal is to make it to Tokyo and to compete for a medal. I just find this very interesting because, in most other sports, there’s a championship or an end goal every single year. But for the Olympics, it’s a special feeling once every four years. This is not something you can catch a vibe on for a few months. This is something you work for, for an extended period of time. Where’s your head at now with such a big event on the horizon? Do you know what you’ll have to swim to qualify, do you know what it’s going to take? Or is it a lot of anticipation?

Jamal:

Yeah, I would say that, I do know what I have to swim, so I don’t really think about that at all. Obviously, we all have goals, but as I said before, I’m not a goal setter, in that sense, when it comes to competition. I think it does add pressure. I like to just be in the present moment. But again, I do have something that I want to swim. And then as far as qualifying there and going to the trial and things like that, on the Paralympic side, it’s not as cut and dry as the Olympics. It is, at the Olympics, you go to trials, the fastest person wins, that person goes to Tokyo. Well, the Paralympics is not that cut and dry, it’s a lot more complicated, to be quite frank. Not only do you have to hit a minimum qualifying standard, but you also have to be seen by a board of doctors from around the world to be reclassified and re-certified as a Paralympic athlete every year.

Jamal:

So you have to have experienced that in order to attend the Tokyo games, which I have not, actually. I haven’t been allotted an opportunity to do that. That’s kind of at the mercy of other people. And then also with the Paralympics, it’s tough because, in some ways, Paralympic trials aren’t like the Olympic trials. There are people who get invited to Paralympic trials who are ineligible to even make the team, which, in my humble opinion, is a little disrespectful to the athletes and to the families that have to spend that time and money. Again, I’m not saying slow, I’m saying actually ineligible to make the team, yet they’re invited to the trials to make the team.

Jamal:

So, I don’t want to bash the system too much here, but definitely, there’s a lot that’s confusing to people in the system and it’s almost unfathomable to people outside of that system. So we’re just taking it a day at a time. We’re following the money, as they say, and planning strategic political moves because that’s what it comes down to. But yeah, I’ve got a team to support with that. And we’re just kind of taking it a day at a time. But I’ll tell you this man, I’m the number one ranked Paralympian in the United States, number six in the world. I’m a positive thinker, 100% a positive thinker, but I’m also a realist. And so if we aren’t able to open up certain doors or change certain hearts or open up certain opportunities, I could very well find myself protesting the Paralympic trials this year.

Bailey:

If I would have asked two, three-year-old Jamal Hill, in mommy and me, swimming around, looking at the swim team, not knowing what the future would hold. If I would’ve asked him, what would you would’ve told me if I told you that you were having an opportunity to compete at the Paralympics? We’re talking about not only the best athletes in America, that’s athletes in the world. What would you have said?

Jamal:

Well, the Paralympics would have thrown me off. I wouldn’t have known what that was. But I would have said, I would have probably been like, “Yeah, for sure.” Because I think kids know, I think kids are very intuitive. I knew I loved swimming at that time, it was my favorite thing to do. Would have been like, “Yeah, great, dream come true. Good job older me.” It’s the later years that we start to be influenced by these other things and we lose that sense of what brings us so much joy. So yeah. I’ll tell you that. I don’t know about two or three years old, but you know what I’m saying? In between that time of two to six, I would say that I would not have been surprised. I would have been very elated, very proud, but it probably would have been in line with this vision that I saw for myself then.

Bailey:

Now I want to end with the Swim Uphill Initiative. Jamal, I think this is just such a wonderful motive, wonderful foundation, that you created. Teaching one million people how to swim. Jamal, where did this come from?

Jamal:

Yeah, absolutely. So I made my first Paralympic US team in 2018 and I knew from jump that I wanted to offer more to my family, to my community, to the world at large than just this pretty smile and faced with the medals around my neck. There needed to be more substance to the brand. And we talked about this more than an athlete, and again, more than an athlete and being a brand. So there’s this guy right behind me, one of my favorite athletic figures throughout history. And he’s stood for something that was more than boxing. Obviously he was one of the greatest boxes of all the time, but there have been plenty of great boxers throughout all the time that have been forgotten by the masses.

Jamal:

It’s those people that really speak up for those people who are being ignored, that speak up for the marginalized, that act on behalf of what they truly believe in and move to be the change that they wish to see in the world, that I think have the greatest impact and really push us forward as a society. I love Michael Phelps but 26 gold medals, I don’t know what that ever did for someone who was experiencing injustice. I don’t know what that ever did for someone who was hungry. I don’t know what that ever did for someone who didn’t know how to swim. And that’s no shade to MP, absolutely love him. He has the Michael Phelps Foundation, he does great things. I’m just, anybody, I don’t know what an NBA championship ever did for someone other than, man, I’m glad I’m from this city. Or, man, that’s my favorite player.

Jamal:

So I want it to be more connected, in my view, to humanity. With my platform and to really grow that platform and to inspire and to empower others and just kind of my destiny all pointed to, well, I think that the best way we can make an impact is through teaching swimming. And come to find out around the world every year, a quarter of a million to a million people drown, primarily in low to middle-income countries and communities, both nationally and internationally. So that’s where that comes from. And that’s what inspired that.

Bailey:

And how can people find this? Where can you go to support? What kind of outreach are you hoping to gain by this initiative, Swim Uphill?

Jamal:

Yeah, absolutely. You can definitely find more information as SwimUphill.org, SwimUpill.org. You can definitely follow us on Instagram, SwimUphill, spell out D O T O R G. So there’s no period in our at handles. It’s just SwimUphill.org, Instagram, Twitter. I think that there’s a bunch of ways to support our mission. This summer we’ll be teaching the 500 students, just here in the greater Los Angeles county based in through ourselves and our curriculum providers. Next year, we’ll be teaching 2000 and then the year after that, we’ll be teaching 8,000. And we have this strong strategy and community of partners to continue to grow by a factor four a year. So that come 2028, we will have reached our million mark, we’ll have surpassed it, actually.

Jamal:

So you can support that and you can be a part of that work, number one, by going and donating. Going to SwimUphill.org. You can become one of our monthly donors, we’re working out an incentives package for that. So you can get keychains and special updates and invites to special events. But even if you just donate $50 a month, $25 a month, the price Netflix, $10 a month. That goes a really long way. And that’s just automatically taken out every month. You can write that off at the end of the year, we are a 501c3.

Jamal:

If money is tight right now, and that’s not the best way for you to support, 100% follow us on social media. Share our posts, like our posts, comment on our posts. When you see something inspiring, talk to the people in your family, who here don’t know how to swim? Because I know about this organization that can teach you that no matter where you are. We have provided in Atlanta, we have providers in Houston, we have providers in DC, in Chicago and in Utah.

Jamal:

So wherever you are in the nation, or again, our goal is obviously to expand internationally, we will reach. We will be able to serve you. And the beautiful part of it is, most of the things that you learn on this route to learning how to swim, you won’t even need a pool for. So not only is it cost-effective, but it also resources effectively. You won’t need a pool for most of it. Actually a pool, that’s the very last step in our five-hour program. It’s only about one hour of content that you actually would want to be in a pool for. So it’s a great opportunity for anyone, whether you’re afraid of water, you nearly drown, you know someone else who has drowned. That’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to make a difference and to be a source of change, a source of hope and empowerment.

Bailey:

Swim Uphill. Jamal, your story is great. Your motivation is great. Your organization, your foundation, your heart is great. And I think that’s what speaks volume to our viewers. And I hope our viewers, we can add a few more numbers to the one million goal. Jamal, we appreciate you taking the time today. I know you have a busy schedule leading up to the Paralympic trials. We’re excited to follow that journey. We hope to stay in touch and thank you for stopping by.

Jamal:

Absolutely. Thank you, Bailey, man. Have a good one, everybody.