Having Fun With Planning Your Swimming Goals

By Olivier Poirier-Leroy

Oh, hello...

If you are like me, you are amazing at planning. In fact, if unchecked, I can easily lose half of my day planning stuff I want to do tomorrow, next week, or next year. Planning allows us to dream freely, to look ahead at what life will be like when things are "just perfect."

And truthfully, planning is fun.

Action, on the other hand...

A little bit of planning is good, and quite necessary. But when you resort to planning (like I caught myself doing this afternoon - again) instead of action, you begin to sacrifice results.

The Symptoms of Planning Too Much

Tell me if this sounds feel familiar...

There is something you want to do, nay, have to do to achieve your swimming goals, but the whole process of starting has got you so overwhelmed, so intimidated, that you continually put off truly committing to it until either:

1. It's too late and you don't do it all or
2. You rush to get it done at the last minute, doing a half-ass job

If you've been a student at any point in your life you know this experience well. I can still feel that knot in my stomach, sitting at my laptop in the library staring at a blank monitor, the cursor blinking judgingly at me in the empty word processing document, putting up a continuous train of excuses...

So why do we do this to ourselves?

The illusion of perfect action is one of the biggest obstacles to your success in the pool.

That what you have to do has to be done flawlessly.

That you are not allowed to fail on the first go.

That it has to be done right... Or not at all.

We want to start doing something, but we feel like our initial efforts won't be good enough, so we look around for more information, take a break, or generally postpone what we wanna do for as long as humanely possible.

"Oh, I'll start really training when I feel better."

"I'll start doing extra stretching after practice tomorrow."

"I'll start breathing bi-laterally once I get that super rad new bathing suit."

And so on.

Of course you know nothing is really perfect, so how can we continually chase "perfect" conditions? 

The only perfect condition you need is this moment right now.

Not next month.

Not when you "feel like it."

And definitely not tomorrow.

It's now.

Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer based out of Victoria, BC. In feeding his passion for swimming, he has developed YourSwimBook, a powerful log book and goal setting guide made specifically for swimmers. Sign up for the YourSwimBook newsletter (free) and get weekly motivational tips by clicking here.

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