by Olivier Poirier-Leroy. The following is a sample email from his weekly motivational newsletter for swimmers. You can join for free by clicking here.
Hello my chlorinated homeslice,
Most swimmers are flying utterly blind when it comes to their performance.
Maybe you are one these swimmers, that shows up most of the time, works hard, and when expectations aren’t met at the big meet end up feeling shattered:
- “See, I’m not a good swimmer.”
- “I am obviously not talented enough.”
- “I’ll never be successful.”
There are few things more frustrating than swimming poorly and not having a proper understanding of how we got there.
(What those few things are currently escape me…)
But what if there was a simple way to give us more clarity to how we perform in the water?
A way that we could better predict how we were going to perform?
While also keeping us motivated and focused during the long haul of a swim season?
The Feedback Loop
The hopelessness we experience when we don’t achieve what we want is one thing.
But not fully grasping why we came up short is another.
At least if we knew for sure why we didn’t perform to expectations than at least we could point at something and with a measured level of understanding and admit…
“Okay, well that’s the reason I didn’t swim as fast as I wanted to.”
Without this basic understanding of cause-and-effect what happens?
We experience that powerlessness and frustration that so often results in a swimmer telling themselves…
“I’ll never be the swimmer I want to be.”
Here is how to punch that salty thought straight in the mouth:
1. Start by measuring the things that matter.
Swimming, in it’s infinite complexity provides very clear opportunities to measure performance.
After all, our sport measures itself by the hundredth of the second.
But for most swimmers they wait until the big meet to take stock of their swimming and only measure their training by what the scoreboard says.
Which is fair…
But if you are only measuring your swimming when you hurl yourself at the touchpad you are missing out on a metric butt-ton of better swimming.
Of better workouts…
Of better goals…
And of course, better performances.
Lucky for us swimmers, our sport is pretty darn countable:
The clock doesn’t lie (unless you are perpetually leaving a couple seconds early…), your stroke counts don’t lie, attendance records are black and white, and the scoreboard at the big meet is a cold, hard teller of truth.
There is ample opportunity to measure stuff in our sport.
You just need to decide what it is that matters most to you, and to start measuring it.
From attendance, to results in practice, to effort levels (my favorite), to the amount of yards or meters you are doing at race pace in practice.
Choose one or two.
Next...
2. Compare & evaluate.
Now that you are measuring the thing or thingies that is most important to your swimming you are going to start developing heightened levels of awareness.
True self-awareness is one of those skills that very few of us have—the ability to objectively assess our training.
We naturally suffer from biases that explain away bad swims, that make bad stretches of workouts seem worse than they appear, or that convince us that it was “just one” practice that we missed…
The data and results from measuring your swimming is designed to limit the effect your biases have and give you a more realistic and accurate picture of how you are training.
And yes, I know… All this measuring talk sounds boring, doesn’t it?
Like homework?
But check this out…
Comparing performance from day-to-day and week-to-week quickly ends up turning into a game:
- If you were measuring attendance, for example, most of us will lean towards trying to best our performance from the previous week.
- Or if we give a great effort one day, we will naturally try to match or beat that effort the following day.
- Or if you swim XYZ number of yards at race pace one week you will naturally want to beat that number the following week.
Measuring this stuff creates a positive feedback loop that reinforces itself and encourages better performances over and over again.
Take that one thing your swimming can improve most from, and turn it into something you can compare and evaluate on from week to week.
3. Fine-tune
Okie dokie, so if you have been following along so far we have come up with something(s) that is critical to our swimming.
And figured out a way to measure it so that we can compare it from week to week.
At this point we should be able to see quite plainly what is working, and what needs to change.
Often times seeing how you are actually performing on paper will be enough to spur you into action:
“Oh man, I am only swimming how many meters at race pace? I can totally do more than that.”
Or…
“I’m only sleeping 6 hours per night? Well, that’s gotta change.”
But for the rest, it’s time to get under the hood of your training and start tinkering.
This might mean you have to start getting to bed earlier so that you can make all those morning workouts you’ve been missing. Or actually doing the full extent of the main set properly.
Keep in mind that this isn’t a painless process; you’ll experience some bumps and bruises as you adjust your schedule, your training and your lifestyle in order to get more from your swimming.
But the process works if you are willing to open yourself to it.
So, in sum, this is your mission, if you choose to accept it:
- Start measuring the things that matter most to your swimming.
- Evaluate regularly.
- Adjust and fine tune to get the most of your time and training.
If you are feeling a little lost, or don’t know where to start, I get it.
The easiest way to get started with this 3-step process is to start logging your workouts and those things that matter most to your swimming.
YourSwimBook is designed specifically to help you with putting together weekly goals and targets, and with the evaluation sheet at the end of each week you will be able to review and assess your training (the good and the not-so-good) on a regular basis.
Which means better, more consistent workouts.
More realistic expectations.
And ultimately…
Faster swimming.
Click here now to learn if YourSwimBook is right for you and your goals in the pool.
See you in the water,
Olivier
P.S. Logging your workouts not your cup of tea?
How about big, glossy pictures of swimmers with motivational sayings on them?
We got those as well...
It is inevitable. Like gravity. Or a trip to the bathroom after a night of all-you-can-eat undercooked chicken. 