9 Tips for Smarter Workouts in the Pool

By Olivier Poirier-Leroy of yourswimlog.com

Here is what you need to know:

• Doing more isn’t always better when it comes to training.
• Slow it down in order to see where your technique stacks up.
• Train the way you compete, so that when race-time comes along you can rely on your good swimming habits.
• Form is everything.
• Keep a feedback loop open.
• Pick out goals for each session in the pool.
• Track and measure to leverage the things helping your training.

Swimmers pride themselves on their exceptional work ethic. Training ten times per week, two hours per session, plus dryland, for 11 months of the year would seem like insanity to the participants in other sports.

Swimmers wear this workload like a badge of honor.

Coaches like Mike Bottom (University of Michigan) and Dave Salo (USC Trojans) have been advocating a lower volume, quality-based approach for years, and this line of thinking has become more and more mainstream in recent years.

Simply because we are putting the hours in at the pool doesn’t necessarily correspond to good technique and optimal results.

If you aren’t training tactically, focused on improving your technique, and swimming mindfully, then you are just swimming mindless laps up and down the pool.

This might be okay for general fitness purposes, but if you are wanting to take your swimming to the outer reaches of your abilities, than you gotta start practicing a little smarter.

Here are 9 tips for unleashing a high-IQ practice the next time you head to the pool–

1. Start by visualizing what you want your perfect race to look like.

What does your goal race look like? What are the components and chunks that will make up the swim you want to unleash at the end of the year? Break your perfect race apart piece by piece, and start attacking each segment one at a time in workout.

The surest way to boredom in the pool is to have no purpose, no direction.

Getting specific about the areas you want to improve results in a more engaged workout, as it is difficult to be both specific as well as absent minded.

BONUS: Download this list of workout tips as a lovely little PDF for free. You can use it as a checklist to remind yourself on a daily basis to train smarter and better. Click here to download it now.

2. Slow it down.

Training fast is great, but training great with poor form? Not so much.

A great way to identify spots in your technique where you can make improvements is to slow it down, take your foot off the gas pedal and swim with slow, careful precision.

Feel where the water is slipping from your pull, or where your kick is slowing you down more than speeding you up, or where you are over or under rotating your torso.

Super slow swimming acts as a magnifying glass of sorts, exaggerating the errors in your technique, and gives you the feedback to make adjustments.

Once you correct the errors, speed things back up.

3. Identify leaks.

Strive to train the way you want to compete.

Why is this important?

Because the way that we swim come competition time is simply an echo of what we have been doing in training.

Knowing this, what will your swimming look like when you get ready for the big race? If you are breathing in and out of the turns in practice, you’ll do the same in a race. If you pick your head up at the wall at the end of every repeat, you’ll do the same at the end of a race when every little hundredth counts.

Train like you race, so that when you race when you train your good habits will take over.

4. Be aware of when form starts to falter.

There will always be a point where you will hit diminishing returns. Never heard of the Law of Diminishing Returns?

Here is an example: Your friend tells you a joke. You laugh. One minute later, he tells the joke again. You feign a chuckle. Again, a minute later, he tells the same joke. Crickets. At this point not only has the joke lost its original purpose and punch, but by the third time it has actually induced the opposite intended effect. Instead of laughing, you’re un-amused, annoyed.

At some point the same thing happens with your training.

There is always going to be a point where too much of a good thing become counter-productive. When your focus starts to waver, your technique starts to crumble, then this is your point of diminishing returns, and to continue on does you no good.

5. Start small.

If you are finding yourself being overwhelmed by things to focus on, break it down.Trying to do too much at once, trying to adjust too many areas of your swimming at one time waters down your efforts to the point that you are simply doing a whole bunch of stuff poorly.

Instead, summon some patience and work on your swimming, piece by piece.

Start with the catch, and work on it until your “perfect” catch is second nature. From there move to the pull, exit of the hand, trunk rotation, and so on. Perform each section perfectly until it becomes hard-wired into habit.

6. Make sure you are getting feedback from your coach.

Is your technique getting better? Are you swimming faster? Are you averaging faster times?

Without feedback and results we are flying blind, unsure if what we are doing is helping or hurting. We like to think that we know exactly what our swimming looks like, but often our brains deceive us. What feels like hand entry in front of the shoulder is actually in front of your head, and so on.

Get the feedback necessary so that you can improve and tinker with your technique in order to swim as efficiently as possible.

(Conversely, if you don’t have a coach, and are doing the process solo, consider getting some video analysis done of your stroke.)

7. Have Session-Based Goals.

This is my favorite trick for staying focused over the course of those long sessions in the pool. Before each practice I will choose one thing that I am going to absolutely crush. One day it will be doing perfect turns. Another it will be achieving a specific interval.

By consistently setting (and mostly achieving) little, session-based goals a recurring sense of confidence and pride develops from your training.

Give it a try for a week and see if it doesn’t have you more focused and more confidant in your abilities.

8. Adjust to the fact that more is not better.

The idea that doing less meters or yards produces better results seems mind-blastingly counter-intuitive. After all, our common reaction to when something is faltering – speed, technique – is to more, more, more. Stop looking at the overall number of yards you are doing, and instead track the overall number of quality yards you are doing.

9. Track your workouts.

The benefits of measuring your workouts and tracking your progress are plenty; improved motivation, increased consistency, and of course, a valuable feedback tool to explain habits and help build new ones. Logging your swim workouts can especially show you when you have plateaued and need to take a much needed deload.

Ready to unleash awesome all over your workouts? Download this list as a handy PDF that you can use as a daily reminder to make the most of your workouts.

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How To Have a Better Attitude at the Pool

By Olivier Poirier-Leroy of swimswam.com

It’s crazy how much of an impact our attitude has when it comes to the way we perform in the pool.

On days when we are riding high, with life seemingly bending to our will, even the toughest of workouts is met with an optimistic and determined front. And yet, when we feel bummed out, or pessimistic, the tough stuff in the pool becomes even tougher.

“Excellence is not a skill. It’s an attitude.” – Ralph Marston

Being positive-minded when you are going through those heavy bouts of training, where exams and assignments are piling up, can help make the challenging stuff easier to handle. When we are optimistic we are able to better brace ourselves for the difficult chapters in our swimming career, and perhaps most importantly for the team, you contribute to developing an environment where everyone – and especially you – are primed for success.

1. Get better at failing. If you look at the way you take and handle setbacks as a skill, something you can actively work on, than you are light years ahead of those swimmers that take every failure – large and small – as an indictment on their abilities. Look, setbacks are gonna happen. From the age grouper to the multi-Olympic, multi-gold medal winning athlete.What separates those from who allow failure to define why they quit and those who choose to make failure a re-direction in their journey is the outlook they have. Decide to work on improving the way you handle failing.

2. Journal some gratitude. By now there is no doubt that at least one of your friends on Facebook (perhaps even yourself) has taken some form of the gratitude challenge. (For the uninitiated, you write out 3-5 things you are grateful for on Facebook each day for a few weeks.) Research has shown that this actually works, and that redirecting your thoughts to the good stuff in your life that you have in your life increases happiness and decreases stress. You certainly don’t need to post it online for the world to see, spending a few minutes at home logging it into a notebook or log book works just as well.

3. Celebrate the victories. Especially the small ones. If you are like me, you tend to undervalue the impact of your small wins. Because they aren’t the big, life-altering victories that cause massive change, we gloss them over, ignore them and bypass them. Which is too bad. Although having three really good practices in a row, or doing bilateral breathing for the full workout, or doing every meter with awesome technique isn’t a world record or gold medal, it’s still worth recognizing and celebrating.

4. Be solutions oriented. It’s easy to point out the faults and shortcomings of not only ourselves, but of those around us. When things aren’t going our way the quickest route is to latch on to the problem and dwell on it. Rather than piling on to yourself (or others) seek a solution, a path forward and offer constructive criticism. When we seek solutions we are moving forward, making progress. Making excuses and offering criticism without guidance keeps us stuck in place.

5. Remember that attitude is a choice. We make a metric ton of choices on a daily basis. What we are going to eat for breakfast. Whether or not we are going to pay attention in class. Whether or not to unfollow or fully unfriend the chronic meme-poster friend on Facebook. The mental approach we take on, the attitude we carry around with us, is dictated by us as well. Simply thinking about having a better attitude can often be just the thing to have it improve. Being conscious of the fact that our chosen attitude is our prerogative is better than allowing our attitude to be influenced by others and left up to chance.

6. Don’t let the negativity of others infect you. This one is a little more sneaky. We don’t often notice how the people around us influence us until much later. Hang out with a complainer for the course of a day and you can’t help but latch on to some of that negative energy, catching yourself complaining by the end of the day. Hang out with positive-minded people, however, and you will find their optimism to be infectious. If, according the law of averages, we are the average of the five people we spend the majority of our time with, what does that make you?

7. In the words of Ghandi, be the change. When you are positive with others around you, supporting their goals, making for a more positively charged training environment, caring about your teammates, you cannot help be become more positive with yourself. Seeing the positive within yourself comes with seeing the positive in others. The effects of this may seem simple, but they are profound. When you choose to be the catalyst for creating a positive environment in training, and when you and your teammates encourage one another and foster an environment that pushes everyone to succeed, everybody wins.

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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.

How to Create a Devastating Plan for Your Swimming Goals

By Olivier Poirier-Leroy of yourswimlog.com

We’ve talked about the importance of setting goals for your swimming (here and here), while also underscoring the need to create a flexible, yet durable plan for success. Hopefully by now you have had some experience with setting your own goals for your swimming, but maybe you aren’t seeing the results you want.

Setting the goal is the easy and fun part; it’s daydreaming, wishful thinking. Getting down to brass tacks and figuring out how to pull that dream out of the clouds into reality is a little more difficult, and often where people get stuck.

Here is a 7-step guide for creating your own bulletproof plan to crush your swimming goals:

1. HAVE A RESOLUTE, CLEAR IDEA OF WHAT YOU WANT.

Keep your main goal as clear and as defined as possible. Don’t leave any room or space for doubt or ambiguity.

Goals such as “I want to swim fast” are well-intentioned, but they set you up for failure. Why? Because it’s a subjective goal. “Fast” will mean something completely different for you six months from now.

Instead, zero in on a very specific, concrete number: “I want to swim 2:26.43 for the 200m breaststroke at Olympic Trials in 2016.”

Boom, now that is a goal! You have a very specific time, as well as a deadline to help push you into action.

2. WORK BACKWARDS.

If the path to our goals is a journey, so far we have only two points: the end (what we want to achieve), and the beginning (where we stand at this very moment).

It’s time to fill in the dots between.

Do the research and figure out which competitions you will be attending between now and your goal. Make a list of ‘em, and beside the name of each competition, write down the time you will have to swim that will mean you are progressing towards the end result.

(Keep in mind that not all of the meets will shave and tapered, so keep in mind that you will almost always be slower at in-season meets.)

With this list of meets and goal times we have the roadposts that will signify progress, and give us the shorter term goals to draw aim at.

3. TAKE STOCK OF WHERE YOU STAND RIGHT NOW.

It’s time to get honest with yourself, and to do a little more homework. (Sorry I’m not sorry!) Grab a piece of paper and pen, and on it write down the areas where you need to get better. Try to avoid generalities and make the things you want to improve as specific and measurable as possible.

For example, if you know that your kick has to improve, set a goal to drop time on your 200m breast kick time. Don’t write open-ended things such as “improve kick” without having a measuring stick beside it.

Aim to have 4-5 high impact components to improve, and no more. Once you get started on a list you’ll need to resist the urge to write out an endless laundry list of things to fix.

The fewer the better. Having a massive list will be daunting to the point of not knowing where to start, and more importantly, because your time is limited and your efforts are spread so thin the list will prove discouraging when you only see minor improvements among a couple of items, instead of profound improvements in a few.

(Besides, often times when you change one facet of your swimming, it radiates outwards. Improving your kick for example doesn’t just help your propulsion and balance in the water, it will also improve starts and turns as well.)

4. WRITE OUT WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO TO DOMINATE THOSE AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT.

Now that we have our hit list of the things we are going to strengthen, it’s time to write out a list of actionable items for each.

Here is an example:

Area of Improvement: Improve breast kick

The measuring stick: Kick 200m breaststroke in under 2:55

Actionable Items:

• Spend 10 minutes per day working on knee and ankle flexibility.
• Doing 10 minutes of vertical breaststroke kick 5x per week.
• Get video analysis of kick to check for any spots where propulsion is lost.

The list doesn’t have to be massive here either; generally 1-3 things is sufficient. What matters most here – and what will provide the most exceptional of results – is to execute this list consistently.

5. CREATE LAYERS OF ACCOUNTABILITY & ASSESSMENT

Swimming goals at their best are exceptionally clear cut. Fortunately for swimmers we have a coach and an endless number of variables to measure our progress. Use these so that you can develop a better sense of how quickly you improve (which will also help you set more intelligent goals moving forwards).

• Track your workouts and test sets. Doing so will give you feedback inside of training of whether you are progressing, and at what rate. Having this intel will allow you to see whether you are on track or not, and whether you need to heighten or temper expectations.
• Share your goals with your coach/parents. Having your coach and support system on board with your ambitions is paramount. Don’t feel that you need to chase your dreams down alone. We all like to think we can do everything and anything on our own, but admittedly, there will be days when you need a push. Letting your coach & family know what your goals are will ensure that they remind you when your motivation and efforts slacken.
• Regularly assess. Don’t wait until your next meet to see if you are progressing. Training offers a variety of indices to measure; from flexibility, to kick speed, stroke rate, stroke count, breath count, pull speed, get up swims, and so on.

6. BE FLEXIBLE, BUT DON’T BREAK.

There will be trying times. This I can promise you. There will be moments where you don’t think you are making fast enough progress, where your confidence falls through the floor after a bad couple workouts, or a sudden injury has you sidelined and on the outside looking in.

These moments are where you go back to your plan and make the necessary adjustments. The plan for your swimming goals isn’t made of concrete, it’s flexible as long as you are being flexible with the manner with which you continue to chase your goals.

Don’t misunderstand flexibility for wiggle room; being malleable with the way you achieve your goals is different from giving up on parts of your plan. It’s about finding a new direction when the old one isn’t working.

7. FIRST STEP ON THE PLAN IS SOMETHING YOU DO TODAY. NOW.

I cannot stress this point enough.

Don’t fall into the loop of putting things off until tomorrow, or next week, or when you feel you will be better suited to start down your path. There is no better time than this very moment, so make sure that the first thing on your goal plan is something you can begin immediately.

Acting now will get you in the habit of continually moving forward, of seizing the moment regardless of circumstance, and get you into the habit of being habitually active.