Three Things I Learned From Henry Anstine About Racing, Recruiting, and Trusting Weird Advice

Henry Anstine is a senior at Malvern Prep and a University of Michigan commit, and he's someone I've known for a few years now, ever since we crossed paths at Mid-Atlantic Junior Olympics in Lancaster. We kept running into each other at meets like Easterns, and every time we talked I walked away thinking he'd make a great guest. He's talkative, he's got stories, and it turns out he's also got a few genuinely spicy hot takes. This episode delivered on all three.

Don't Be Afraid to Cross-Train in Weird Ways

The first thing that caught me off guard was when Henry told me part of his dryland routine is MMA training, actual kickboxing and shadowboxing with weights, three minutes at a time. My gut reaction was that this has nothing to do with swimming. But the way he explained it actually made sense. He talked about throwing weighted punches to build shoulder strength and endurance, and about how working on kicks he's weak at, like a left-side roundhouse, forces him to train symmetry the same way swimming demands it. He also pointed out the rotational element and the rhythm work from the speed bag as carryover skills. Even he admitted he's not totally sure how much of it directly translates, but as he put it, if he believes it helps, it's at least a placebo that makes him stronger and that can't be a bad thing. I've never once considered MMA as swim training. I might actually try it.

Set Deadlines Earlier Than the Real Ones

We got into a conversation about school and how he manages homework on top of a brutal practice schedule that sometimes has him getting home from Swarthmore at 10 p.m. His honest answer was that he's not naturally great at time management, and he still gets distracted by his phone constantly. But the trick he uses is giving himself fake, earlier deadlines. If an essay is due in two weeks, he'll tell himself the first paragraph needs to be done in two days, then keep breaking it into pieces instead of waiting until the last minute. It's not a revolutionary idea, but hearing him admit he doesn't always follow it perfectly made it land more. He's not pretending to have this figured out. He's just trying to build a system that fights his own procrastination, one deadline at a time.

The Decommitment Isn't the Scary Part, the Not Knowing Is

The most interesting part of the conversation for me was hearing Henry walk through decommitting from Minnesota and eventually landing at Michigan. He was honest that committing the first time felt underwhelming, not the emotional mountain top people post about on social media. Once he got to Minnesota and had a strong midseason without recruiting distractions, he started dropping serious time, and that success actually made him start questioning whether he could do everything he wanted there. He reached out to coaches, was upfront with Minnesota about exploring options, and decommitted knowing there was real risk that some schools wouldn't have room or money for him. His line that stuck with me was something like, you have to take risks in life if you want to succeed and have fun. It would have been easy to stay comfortable. Instead he trusted that being honest about what he wanted would work out, and it did.

What ties all three of these together, for me, is that Henry isn't following a script anywhere in his swimming or his life. He's willing to try something unconventional in the gym, build his own messy but functional system for school, and take a real risk on his college decision because staying safe didn't feel true to what he wanted. That's a pretty good blueprint for anyone stuck between doing what's expected and doing what actually fits.

— Anton