The Science of the Swim: Konrad Antoniuk’s Journey from Athlete to Innovator

Interview by Whitney Randall | December 4, 2025

Thirty minutes late, in the rain, surrounded by strangers, Konrad Antoniuk dove back into the life he thought he’d left behind. After years of swimming competitions and running laps, former California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) swimmer Antoniuk shifted his focus by rethinking how athletes measure and understand performance. 

Antoniuk started swimming when he was seven and competed in hundreds of meets growing up. At eight, he joined a local swim club. He started with just three practices a week that he didn’t want to go to. After a few years of practice, he went to his mom begging to quit the team. She supported him but encouraged him to speak directly to his coach: “Oh, you want to quit? Okay, you go tell the coach.” Like any young athlete, he feared telling his coach he wanted to quit, so he never did. Antoniuk just kept swimming, and it turned out it was worth it. 

During a championship meet when he was 12, he developed a fear of water. On the last turn of a 100-yard freestyle, he inhaled water on his final breath. He tried to fight through it and push off, but he took in water again. 15 yards from the wall, he stalled, coughing and choking on water. Somehow, he managed to finish the race. The next few weeks in the water were difficult. 

He would have recurring episodes where he’d seize up and not be able to breathe. Time and practice helped Antoniuk to work through this fear. Not only did it teach him resilience, but it proved that one bad moment doesn’t define you. Overcoming his fear of water helped shape the rest of his career.

The first time that he realized that swimming wasn’t just a childhood hobby was when he was 14, competing in the 2006 Pacific Swimming Far Western Championships, when he was. This meet changed everything for him. In this meet, he broke two minutes in the 200-yard backstroke and the team record, dropping in all but one event, only three weeks after another championship meet. This was when he started believing in himself. It allowed him to realize not only that he was good but good enough to compete at a higher level. Far Westerns helped to set his mindset. 

Later that year, Antoniuk started competing at the high school level. Even though he was working hard to improve, his times plateaued while his peers thrived. Antoniuk never gave up; he held onto hope and blind faith. He trusted his coaches, continuing to practice and compete.

In 2010, Antoniuk graduated and had to make the hard decision about which college to continue competing at. Being an analytical mind, he created a weighted system to decide which school he should go to. He wasn’t just choosing a school, but how he wanted to experience life. His system helped, and he committed to Cal Poly, where he started studying engineering in the fall of 2010. 

While at Cal Poly, he got a foot infection during his sophomore year, which led to a big game of catch-up. In addition, he lost some of his motivation to swim because of the team culture. They had lost most of the returning seniors, and the team dynamic changed completely. With the new team being a mix of commitment levels, swimming started to feel optional. It was the first time Antoniuk saw how the environment can change motivation and performance.

In 2012, he qualified for the Olympic Trials, making it the crowning achievement of his career. At the Trials, he experienced competition in a whole new way, making the meet itself monumental. Even though he knew he wasn’t competing for a spot on the Olympic team, it was an achievement nonetheless. 

Around junior year, the differing commitment levels created a culture shift in the team. Antoniuk didn’t feel prepared for the 2013 Pac-12 championship meet at all. He swam alright, but lost his breath mid-race because he wasn’t taking care of himself. His business major roommates had all quit the team, and swimming just didn’t seem that important anymore.

Moving into his senior year in fall 2013, the motivation for swimming fell away completely, and Antoniuk retired from competition. This wasn’t an emotional decision for him but an analytical one. He needed to direct his energy and effort somewhere that it could make a difference.

That effort found a new home in his senior project, the “real-time swim instructor.” It was inspired by a dance detection sensor with stage effect activation. Antoniuk used this idea and tweaked it for the pool. Using himself as a test subject, he studied the motion tracking technology for swimming, and although the prototype wasn’t pool-ready, it provided a foundation. 

Using the “real-time swim instructor” as a foundation, Antoniuk started developing Morphwear. Similar to how Fitbit counts steps, Morphwear takes it a bit further. It analyzes how each step is taken and applies it to swimming with stroke counts; it captures how an athlete holds water across every stroke count.

One of the first athletes he was able to test the technology on was Olympic medalist Abbey Weitzeil. When he first began gathering data, it didn’t teach him much, but the raw data was chaotic and impossible to read without a deeper analysis. This chaos launched his research journey, going beyond surface data to decode movement patterns in three dimensions.  

By looking at the data in 3D, the technology eliminates problems caused by limited perspective. Antoniuk explained that Morphwear utilizes “two motion sensors on the forearms that measure the timing, intensity, and direction of arm movements in 3D. This allows us to segment and shape the dynamic details of pro swimmers, which can be used to identify missing differences for developing swimmers. As a polished product, I intend for athletes to have a real-time feedback experience. The user experience is designed for them to intuitively figure out what action to take based on the results and quickly try again. For coaches, Morphwear enables them to gain more perspective on how their athlete performs, and similarly, pros gain an edge with new details to fine-tune.” To better understand his technology, he had to see it for himself.

After years out of the water, Antoniuk decided it was time for him to get back into the pool. Nothing was going to stop him from swimming, not the rain, not the traffic, and definitely not the accident on the freeway. So, 30 minutes late, he showed up on deck for his first practice back; he was out of shape and out of his element in a practice full of high schoolers. But when his coach said to hop in, so he did.

He started training in January 2019 with the intention of making the 2020 Olympic Trials cuts. Being back in the water felt foreign; it always does when you’re getting back into your element. His second swim career was more innovative and invigorating. He started to train differently with each practice, trying to hit a wall, practicing until his body hit its physical and mental limit. He was able to be in control of his results and experience. He monitored every aspect: practices, sleep, post-workout stress recovery, all to figure out how to better utilize his technology. Within his first six months of practice, he achieved a time of 56.9 seconds in the 100-yard butterfly. He was 2.8 seconds off the Olympic Trials cut time. After COVID-19 postponed his progress, he never got close to the trial time again. 

After his second retirement, Antoniuk took over his sister’s position as a coach at Paseo Aquatics Swim Team. This became the perfect opportunity to understand firsthand how his technology worked in a practice setting, learning firsthand how his research insights could benefit athletes at the beginning of their careers.

At first, his coaching focused on progression and technique. When his athletes would falter, he would take it personally. Over time, Antoniuk's coaching philosophy evolved to prioritize quality with enough volume to sustain performance. While he may not see himself as a coach long term, he cares about his athletes and wants them to be the first to succeed with his research. Antoniuk credits his success to his mentors, Wilma Wong and Chris Dahowski. Through Wong’s guidance, he has found new ideas, research, and unconventional methods to further his technology. Without Dahowski, Antoniuk never would’ve gotten back into the pool again. He made him a better athlete and coach.

Looking back through his swimming career, there are two distinct lives: The first life built on discipline and motivation, while the second is fueled by curiosity, data, and self-discovery. Together, his swimming careers make him a better coach and innovator. 

Antoniuk said that he finally understood what it meant when he heard that “the most frustrated athlete becomes the best coach.” His struggles in the water pushed him to figure out what would help his athletes succeed where he once struggled. 

One message throughout his life has been that persistence won’t always look like a forward motion. There is power in stepping away, learning differently, and coming back stronger.

His advice to young athletes is: “Be a student of your sport. Take notes, write down goals, and reflect on your progress. Then apply that same curiosity to the rest of your life. Don’t wait for a coach or mentor to hand you every answer. When you’re young, you have the chance to explore everything. Go find out what the best in the world are doing: watch interviews, study techniques, and experiment within your own limits.”

This piece is in collaboration with Swimming World