Replacing laps with mixed martial arts, tennis and surfing, Isaac Cooper believes the secret to swimming faster is swimming less.
And the unconventional training appears to be working for the 19-year-old, who stormed to victory in the men's 100m backstroke at the world championship trials in Melbourne.
Cooper said he needed to find a way to train that made him happy but admitted it was a massive risk.
While supported by his coach Ash Delaney, it was against the advice of most professionals.
"I made a very drastic change to my program where I chose to ignore what a lot of professionals were telling me to do," the young Queenslander said.
"I had to sort of think if I want to continue doing this sport, what can I do to be happy but I still get faster?
"So through working with my coach Ash and my own years of experience, I was able to make these really big changes to the program."
Tokyo Olympian Cooper said he'd cut his kilometres in the pool to just 14 kilometres a week - down from a high of 48km.
"The secret to swimming faster is swimming less, so I've maybe done 14 kilometres for the last three months," he said.
"I started doing MMA, I've been doing tennis, I've been surfing three to four times a week and I've been using those as training sessions, as opposed to coming in and doing the same sessions that I've been doing since I was seven years old.
"I'm not fighting MMA although I'd love to but it's so good for general fitness."
Cooper admitted it had been stressful leading up to the trials as he wasn't sure how the training would stack up in competition.
He clocked 53.46 - just outside his previous best of 53.43 set at the Tokyo Games - eclipsing his time at the nationals in April and also last year's world championships.
"I haven't been able to perform that in a race environment so I was nearly in tears before that race just because I was so overwhelmed and had no idea what was going to happen.
"When I touched the wall I was almost in tears again because what I've done has worked, so all the people who said 'don't do this', they're all wrong and my instinct was right."
In a short but turbulent career Cooper was banished from last year's Commonwealth Games team for misusing prescription medication, with mental health challenges contributing to the decision to send him home.
He hasn't really ever publicly addressed what happened but said intended a reveal through his own social media.
"My mental health has been really bad but the last month I've really come out of it and I'm going to elaborate more," he said.
"I have a plan for what I'm going to say on my Instagram soon, I'm gonna really come out about what's happened, what I've done to change and how I look for change in the future."
