Off-Season Swimming Training

By G. John Mullen of SwimmingScience.net and CenterofOptimalRestoration.com, Creator of Swimmer's Shoulder System, Swimming World correspondent

SANTA CLARA, California, August 14. OFF-SEASON swimming training is often not discussed in the swimming community. Unfortunately, this is a valuable period where various improvements are possible. Moreover, some people need something to fill the extra 2 - 6 hour void left by not swimming.

Too often overworked swimmers will lounge around, play World of War Craft and eat McGriddles until the break is over, feeling like a blob the next time they hit the pool. I remember during my off-season days, I'd run around the house with the soccer ball as instructed by my parents and older sibling. This chaotic routine distracted me from torturing my dog and family.

Whether you've chowing on McGriddles, playing video games, or injuring family members, the off-season is an opportunity for improvement; luckily there are many avenues for improvement. For a successful off-season, consider theses areas for improvement and you'll find the transition to the pool much easier:

1. Fix your Body: Grueling swim seasons leave many swimmers physically, emotionally, and psychologically scarred. The off-season is the perfect opportunity to improve any of these realms.

Solution: If you have a bum shoulder, find help some help (Swimmer's Shoulder System), don't sit around hoping the problem will solve itself. Ignoring an injury does not fix your body, get some help and prepare your body for the next season!

2. Get your Mind Right: If you are psychologically exhausted, take a break from the sport, people, and community involved in swimming. The mind plays a large role in swimming success, so be mentally prepared for the upcoming season is a prerequisite for a successful season.

Solution: If you are getting scared at the blocks, consider some Mental Toughness Training or seeing a sports psychologist.

3. Maintain Feel: I know what you're thinking, getting back to the pool is the last thing you want to think about. In swimming, the principle of specificity applies making all other forms of training inferior to swimming. This is due to the high neural involvement in the sport as proper training develops motor program during the season. Unfortunately, all this hard work vanishes quickly without a little maintenance work in the pool. This is why everyone feels drastically different in the water after a few days from this chlorination station. Therefore, if you're not busy getting mentally or physically healthy, do some maintenance work in the pool or ocean. Performing maintenance work is important, even if it doesn't feel like you're doing much. Always remember, the best type of training for swimming success is swimming! Don't lose all the hard work you put in during summer.

Solution: Swim for fifteen minutes three times a week for the ideal off-season swimming training.

4. Improve Weak Links: Every swimmer has weak links. Too often swimmers do not have the prerequisite tools of out of the water to properly manipulate their stroke in the water. This makes it essential to find these weak links and set a plan for improvement. Too often swimmers and coaches leave swimming biomechanical errors to incompetence or lack of feel, but often times the swimmer doesn't have the length, strength, or timing of the muscle to do the desired task.

Solution: Find a rehabilitative specialist to improve these weak links. Make sure not to neglect the weak link, as this is likely your breaking point during races!

5. Improve Body Composition: Drag is the biggest inhibitor of swimming speed. The larger the person, the more drag potential you'll have in the water. For this reason elite swimmers are typically lean creatures. The off-season is a great time to start any new food habits to improve your body composition for swimming success. Get your food habits on track during the off-season, the easiest time to make these adjustments, not weeks into treacherous training. This does not suggest under eating as many college programs have reported under nutrition in female swimmers, instead having a balanced diet to fuel your body for swimming is essential for success.

Solution: Find an expert in nutrition and adjust dietary habits to set up a healthy plan for body composition improvements and a successful off-season swimming training period.

6. Improve Athleticism: Biomechanics are tough in swimming. This is why many coaches make a nice side business providing excessive swim lessons. However, barking orders on the pool deck at swimmers who don't know how to coordinate their body is like shoving the block through the circle peg! Therefore, improving athleticism, motor control, and coordination is essential on land to help the swimmer learn how to move their body in the water. If a swimmer knows how to control their body on land, it is likely they can manipulate their strokes in the water, correcting any stroke deviations in the pool and increasing swimming success.

Solution: Don't waste your money on lessons when you don't have the tools for improvement in the water, learn how to use your body out of the water by improving athleticism and make quicker stroke corrections in the water. Find a strength and conditioning specialist to formulate a well-balanced dry-land program, focusing on learning a variety of movements and control through these various motions.

7. Increase Relative Strength: Contrary to other sports, the strongest athlete (absolute strength) doesn't win. However, the strongest athlete for their body size (relative strength) is helpful for success. Being strong on land has not been correlated with swimming success, but being able to maximize force production while minimizing drag is essential for swimming success. For example, throw a World's Strongest Men athlete in the pool and it is likely their sink like a rock. Therefore, improving one's relative strength is important for swimming success.

Solution: Find a strength and conditioning specialist who understands the difference between absolute and relative strength and work on improving strength per size.

Summary
Once again, being fresh for the upcoming season is the primary goal of any off-season. However, if you're mentally and physically ready for the next season, try tips 2-7 for a successful off-season.

G. John Mullen is the owner of of the Center of Optimal Restoration and creator of Swimming Science. He received his doctorate in Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California. G. John has been featured in Swimming World Magazine, Swimmer Magazine, and the International Society of Swim Coaches Journal.

That's One

by Glenn Mills

Always at the end of a season, you'll have athletes who are completely satisfied with what they've done, and others who wish things had gone a little differently.

That's the great thing about this sport. There's not as much to it as you'd think.  After 10 years of posting drills, and doing our part to create material that can be used to help swimmers visualize what they can, and sometimes should, be doing, the sport itself remains pretty easy.  I had a great opportunity to hang out with Gregg Troy last week while at the Indy Grand Prix swim meet.  As we talked about philosophy of training, technique, and communications with athletes, we both agreed... sometimes it's an over-thought process.

Work, and you win.  Don't work, don't worry... you won't win.  Work, and you'll succeed.  Don't work, don't worry... you won't succeed.  While coaches can make changes to technique, it's much more difficult to make changes to cultures.  If people are used to, and allowed to, show up late or pull on lane lines or do one-handed turns... then it's never a surprise when little things go wrong during competition.

There's one athlete in particular that I'm thinking about right now.  The swimmer is talented, hard working, and wants to be faster... but there are chinks in the armor.  There is a habit of being late, not doing the entire warm-up, slacking off a bit in kick sets, and focusing only on sets that excite the swimmer... but not enough on the things that don't.

While this particular swimmer had a few life-time best times at the meet, the swimmer left the meet fully unsatisfied with the experience.  Coaches and mentors can use these situations as either a time to yell... or an opportunity to teach.  If the swimmer really wants to be better, then it's a great time to teach.  I was fortunate that while at the meet, I saw the swimmer's unhappiness, and happened to have a good friend walking by.  I asked this friend if he'd take a minute to talk to the swimmer.  Through the course of the conversation, the question was asked... what would you change?  The first response was, "I'd show up on time."  My friend was amazed.  "You don't show up on time?"  I won't go into detail about the talk, it's between these two, but my friend was Nelson Diebel... Olympic Champion in the 100 Breaststroke.

Whatever the course of the conversation, when I went to the pool this morning (typically, my wife and I walk in alone and wait for the swimmers), this particular swimmer was on deck, stretching, getting ready.  Neither of us said anything.

The swimmer did a great job during practice and, I felt, continued to seek approval... looking to see if we noticed. 

After practice we were talking, and I was asked... "did I do good?"  I said that it was all I could do to stop myself from coming over and high-fiving this swimmer when I got there... but that I had to maintain composure.  You see, it's not a question of whether the swimmer can be reformed on a single day.  The ultimate question is whether the swimmer can do this for the next 100 practices.  My response was, "That's one." 

There's an old story about John Naber's preparation/quest to set a world record in the 100 Backstroke. To fuel his training, John gave himself credit for 1/100th of a second toward that WR time every time he did something great at practice.    Over the course of the final year leading up to the Olympics, John had accumulated just enough 100ths of a second to break the World Record... which he did in Montreal.

Greatness, or reaching your goal, never comes from one practice.  It comes from the result of hundreds of practices.  Sometimes thousands.

With that said, every journey starts with one small step, and you have to take it to get there.  So even though it was "just one"... it was the most important one.  Don't be afraid to take it... just take it.

I encouraged the swimmer to start a visual calendar, or journal, where they could mark each day that they did something great... in which NOTHING is allowed be great unless the first step is taken... showing up on time.

I'll end this with my standard saying, "You know how to eat an elephant don't you?  One bite at a time."

Taken from GoSwim

HANDLING LAST-MINUTE NEGATIVE THINKING AND SELF-DOUBTS

7/9/2013

BY ALAN GOLDBERG, PHD//COMPETITIVEDGE.COM

The problem...
You're behind the blocks feeling pretty good about your BIG meet. Your best race starts in just a few minutes and everything has gone OK for you leading up to this meet. Your practices have been good and your taper felt right. But when you get behind the blocks, the “noise upstairs” starts. “Oh my gosh! What if I false start?” “This is my last chance to qualify, and if I don't, my entire season has been a waste!” “What if I die on the last 75 again?” “I don't think I got enough sleep last night!” “Maybe I ate too much… or not enough…” As you listen to this stream of negativity, it seems to build in intensity. Soon, your confidence and all those good feelings rapidly do a disappearing act! You try to “be positive,” but it's as if that negative part of you isn't listening...

Did you know that you can still swim your best under pressure even if you are flooded with last minute negative thoughts and self-doubts?
That's right! You can still have the race of your life even if all of those old familiar negatives are loudly playing in the back of your mind. The trick here is learning how to effectively manage them, and the very first step in doing this is to understand some of the myths that swimmers believe about these last minute negatives and doubts.

Key myths about last-minute negative thinking and your racing:

• You have to “be positive” in order to swim fast
• Negative thinking always lead to poor swims
• You can control your negative thinking so that you stay positive
• When last minute negatives pop up, you must immediately push them away
• Negative thinking and doubts are very bad and mean you're not ready

What's really true here?
First off, you need to understand that all of this last-minute negative stuff is absolutely and totally NORMAL! Even the very best swimmers in the world entertain last-minute negative thoughts because it's simply part of being human. Just because you may be flooded with last minutes doubts, doesn't mean that you're not ready or you'll swim poorly. These unexpected negatives are simply a reflection of your nervous system amping up and getting you ready for the upcoming race.

The problem here is not the negative thinking or doubts by themselves. The REAL problem is how YOU respond to them!

That which you resist, persists!
When you get freaked out behind the blocks because your mind has suddenly turned negative, and then you try to push the negatives away with things like, “I have to stay positive!” and “Don't think that,” what ends up happening is that your negative thoughts and doubts get even stronger and louder. Why is this? Because you can't really control your thinking! Don't worry! NO ONE CAN! And the good news here is that you don't need to! What you need to do is train yourself to have a calmer, more accepting stance whenever the negatives start clamoring for your attention.

How do you calmly handle the negatives?

• Avoid fighting with your negatives and trying to turn them into positives
• Remind yourself that last minute negative thoughts and doubts ARE NORMAL
• Reassure yourself that you can still swim YOUR VERY BEST with them
• Understand that your response to the negatives is what's important here
• Immediately refocus your concentration on your pre-race ritual behind the blocks

Focus on DOING and FEEL, not on THINKING
Swimming fast when it counts the most is all about keeping your concentration on what you're DOING both before and during the race. This means that both your pre-race and during-race focus should be on FEEL! So rather than engaging the negative thoughts with more thinking by trying to “be positive” or pushing them away when you're behind the blocks, switch your focus to the feel of your stretching, taking slow, relaxed breaths or whatever else you typically do in your pre-race ritual. If the negatives pop up while you're racing, let them be and immediately refocus your concentration on staying long and smooth, on how much water you're pulling, your breathing pattern or what you need to be doing in order to swim fast.

Keep in mind that I have worked with Olympic medalists who have taught me this very important lesson. Last minutes doubts and negativity DO NOT predict the kind of race you're about to have unless you engage them by fighting with or trying to change them. When your thoughts turn negative, relax, let them be and refocus your concentration on the task at hand.

As a sports psychology consultant, Dr. Alan Goldberg works with swimmers at every level. A presenter at the Olympic Training Center, swim coaches clinics and clubs around the country, Dr. G specializes in helping swimmers struggling with performance problems, get unstuck and swim fast when it counts the most. He works over Skype, providing one-on-one consultation with swimmers and other athletes around the world. Dr. G has written over 35 mental toughness training programs and books. In addition, he is a regular contributor to Splash Magazine.
For more FREE mental toughness tips and swim articles, go to Dr. Goldberg's website, www.competitivedge.com and click on “choose your sport” and then “swimming.” You can also visit him on Facebook, follow him on Twitter and sign up for his free, monthly mental toughness newsletter.
Want to get a head start on your mental toughness training? Dr. Goldberg's BRAND NEW 7 CD Swim Program with track-by-track Training Guide now available! All products in his store at a 10% discount for USASwimming.org. readers. Coupon Code at check-out: USASwimming. FREE SHIPPING NOW AVAILABLE.
Questions? I hope you'll feel free to contact Dr. Goldberg at Goldberg@competitivedge.com or call directly (413) 549-1085.

Taken from usaswimming.org