Those Who Do

swimtelligence.blogspot.com

Here's an excerpt from Dara Torres' book Age is Just a Number.

"When I was training for the 1984 Olympics at Mission Viejo, a sociologist named Daniel Chambliss watched us practice nearly every day. Chambliss then wrote a book called Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers. That book totally captures the details-matter mind-set... swimming is sort of like one of those Impressionist paintings made with millions of dots. Sure, a dot is a dot. What's the big deal? But if you care enough to make each dot the exact right size and the exact right color in the exact right place, something amazing occurs."

She goes on to say:

"The truth is simple: Most swimmers choose every day not to do the little things. They choose, in effect, not to win...In some sense everyone 'could' win the Olympic Games, but 'could' doesn't count. The gold medal is reserved for those who do."

I couldn't have said it better myself... the gold medal is reserved for those who DO.

Not those who dream.
Not those who wish.
Not those who want.
THOSE WHO DO!

A Cluster of Healthy Behaviors

SPEEDO TIP OF THE WEEK

BY KATHLEEN WOOLF//Correspondent

Did you know that behaviors are found in “clusters?”

Engaging in a healthy behavior, such as eating fruits and veggies, increases the likelihood of adopting additional healthy behaviors. On the flip side, trying a cigarette (or another unhealthy substance) increases your risk of taking on multiple risky behaviors, even later in life. This phenomenon is known as “behavior clustering.”

As an athlete, you participate in regular physical activity – a healthy behavior. Cluster this activity with other positive behaviors to promote good health and improve performance. Here are some suggestions:

• Eat breakfast! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and influences performance at school AND practice. A healthy breakfast should include whole grains, fruit, dairy and protein.
• Avoid smoking, drinking and other risky behaviors.
• Get enough sleep. Lack of sleep slows your thinking and makes it tough to focus on a task. Juggling practice, school, work and social events makes it difficult to get to bed on time. However, if you don’t get enough sleep, you are more likely to take more risks.
• Decrease time spent watching television and playing computer games one to two hours per day. Too much television interferes with other healthy behaviors, such as reading, doing homework, spending time with family and friends, and being physically active.
• Increase consumption of fruits and veggies. They are loaded with essential vitamins, minerals and fiber, which may help protect you from chronic disease.
• Decrease consumption of high-fat foods. Saturated fat (full-fat dairy products and fatty meats & poultry) and trans fat (processed cookies, cakes and chips) can be dietary villains.
• Consume a variety of nutrient-rich and tasty snacks throughout the day. Store snacks in your backpack so that you have healthy foods available rather than relying on a vending machine for between-meal snacks.
• Drink plenty of water. As a swimmer, you are at increased risk of dehydration. Consume fluids before, during and after exercise to ensure you are getting enough.

About Kathleen Woolf

Kathleen Woolf, PhD, RD is a registered dietitian and a member of the American Dietetic Association, the Sports, Cardiovascular and Wellness Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group, and the American College of Sports Medicine.

The Virtue of Failure

swimtelligence.blogspot.com

One of the trends of the last several decades often lamented by coaches in many youth sports is that parents and administrators have become consumed with making sure that each and every child NEVER experiences failure. I spoke to one coach recently who told me about his son's little league baseball experience. Apparently, it takes four strikes to strike out. If a child does strike out, he still gets to go stand on first base. That way he FEELS successful. Though this may seem paradoxical, I can think of few things that we as coaches could do that would harm our athletes more than not allowing them to fail. Failure can be a tremendous learning experience. Failure is often the building blocks for future success. If a child never fails, how does he know when he is successful?

The senior swimmers I coach will tell you that they fail in practice frequently. If they didn't, I probably wouldn't be asking enough of them. It is on that border at the edge between CAN and CAN'T that an athlete finds out the stuff of which he is made. This is where he explores his abilities and summons his motivation to push himself to new heights. Being on this edge is how he learns to do what it takes to excel in life.

Check out this video from YouTube about some incredible successes who began as failures:

Failure is vital to an athlete's development of the characteristics that it takes to be successful. Failing helps define success. As the valley is deep, so is the mountain high.

Top 10 Ways to Impress Your Swimming Coach

swimtelligence.blogspot.com

10. Don't miss practice. Want to be the best swimmer you can be? Showing up is a good start. As a coach, our primary chance to help you is at practice. If you are not there, we simply cannot help.

9. If there is a legitimate reason why you will miss practice, contact your coach beforehand, explain the circumstances, and ask how you can make it up. Connecting in advance of your absence suggests you care about the practice and more importantly, about your own training.

8. Show up on time. Don't be that swimmer who is perpetually late to practice. You'll anger most coaches and frankly, even perturb your teammates. If you think your fellow swimmers are forgiving of your tardiness, you're mistaken. Most dislike it or conclude you feel like you deserve special treatment or consideration.

7. Be prepared for practice. When the coach is planning your training, he is expecting that you will have the necessary items to perform as instructed. Not having your mesh bag, swimming equipment, water bottle, shoes for dryland, etc. is just plain sloppy and makes him wonder whether you really intend to improve or if you are just showing up hoping to get better.

6. Give your best effort consistently at practice. We are not asking nor expecting every swimmer to be a world-beater every day. We merely expect you to perform at your capability and be willing to push that boundary every once in a while. Your effort will determine your results. Even the best coach does not bring magic swim-fast fairy dust to practice.

5. Listen and ask good questions at practice. Coaches like swimmers who are attentive and focused. If your coach constantly has to repeat himself, it wastes your time and his. If you have a question, find the right time to ask it--not 2 seconds before you are supposed to push off the wall, but during the explanation of the set or after practice.

4. Understand that every day is an opportunity to improve and once it is over the opportunity has passed. Be sure to get the maximum benefit each day. Be willing to make changes and seek the coach's insight on how you can do this. Don't just keep doing what you're doing and hope that your hard work will overcome your other mistakes. We know that many of you dream of achieving at the highest levels of the sport, so we have to work together to get you there.

3. Set awesome goals. Make them reasonable yet challenging, clear but flexible. Not only are they important to help you focus your energies, but goals can also help inspire your coach. A good coach is motivated by a swimmer with high goals and the drive to achieve those goals.

2. Let your coach know if he's doing a good job. If the practice engaged and challenged you, tell him. If you enjoyed the new exercise you tried for the first time, let him know. If you're a better swimmer or person at the end of the season, send him a handwritten thank-you note. The flip side to this, of course, is helping him improve. Is he unclear in his instructions on a set? Did he misunderstand your question or put you on an easier interval than you are capable of? Is there something that you are missing in your training? A good coach is responsive to your feedback and will look to improve.

1. Be a leader and make your personalized contribution to the team. The best compliment a coach can give any swimmer is that "you made everyone around you better than they would have been without you." If you hear your coach say that, know this: we were indeed impressed. Be THAT swimmer.

This post was adapted from 10 Ways to Impress Your College Professor

ABCs of Mental Training: N is for Negative Self Talk

“You are awful!”

“Quit now!”

“You’ll never win!”

Have you ever caught yourself saying these things to yourself? How do you feel when you think like this? Do you let yourself get away with it or do you put a stop to these thoughts and try to be more positive? In this article I will address something almost everyone has been guilty of at some point in their lives—allowing that voice in their head to be excessively mean.

Be Your Own Best Friend

Take a moment to write down some of the negative things you have said to yourself over the past year. Now look over that list and imagine your best friend saying those things to you. Do you find it hard to imagine someone who cares about you being so nasty? When it comes to negative self-talk, I find it even harder to imagine that the one person (you) who has to be nice to you is being so mean. If we know our good friend – someone who always has our back – would never be negative, why is it difficult for us to be kind to ourselves? The answer is simple: because we forget we’re supposed to be unconditionally supportive of ourselves. My first piece of advice to combating negative self-talk is to be your own best friend and say the things to yourself that you would say to someone you cared about who was struggling.

Choose the “Good” Voice

In cartoons, whenever a person is struggling with a decision they would have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. In real life, these “voices” are in our head. We have this devilish little thing in one part of our brain telling us all of the reasons we will fail. In the other part of our brain we have a cheerleader (AKA “Positive Patty”) telling us how awesome we are and why we will succeed. Even in the most optimistic and confident people both of these voices exist to some extent. The difference between the optimists and the pessimists is that the optimists rarely hear the little devil because they are too busy listening to the cheerleader, while the pessimists are turning the megaphone over to the negative voice. If your “inner devil” is loud and obnoxious, you don’t have to fight him and try to make him go away, tell him he’s going to have to be content just hanging out because you’re putting him on mute and are going to CHOOSE to listen to the positive voice that’s keeping you optimally focused.

It’s Not All Bad

I myself am a pretty positive person and am good at taking a “glass half full” perspective. However, I recognize that not everyone is wired like this and some people tend to see all that could go wrong or has gone wrong and let that bog down their minds. So I in no way think that “being positive” is easy for people. In fact, I think that most people do see the downside of situations, but this isn’t necessarily bad. For many swimmers, in order to do well, they have to know potential pitfalls and plan for them. They have to recognize mistakes they’ve made in the past and work to make sure they don’t happen again. This is when having a “glass half empty” mindset is helpful, when it makes you work hard so that you can fill up the glass. It’s only harmful if you’re thinking “the glass is half empty and I don’t have a pitcher to fill it up.” On the flipside, someone who always sees the positive may become content and not feel that their glass needs to be full. That contentment doesn’t necessarily help swimmers to reach their peak because they are too optimistic and maybe don’t put in enough work. So again, being wired to see the downside isn’t all bad, as long as it’s a motivator rather than a hindrance to performance.

Change the Negatives

If your negative self-talk does start to get in the way, stop the negative thoughts, reframe them and refocus them by following three easy steps:

1) Become aware of your thinking habits. Know situations in which you have a tendency to be negative and what your specific mental obstacles are.

When I’m in a tough workout, I convince myself I’m tired and can’t go anymore. I catch myself saying, “You’ve worked hard enough, no need to push it any further.”

2) Reframe the negative thought into something more realistic or more positive.

“I have worked hard today, but I’m still afloat so I can keep pushing even harder.”

or

“I know when I exhaust myself I have more confidence on race day—that’s why I’m going to keep pushing.”

3) Refocus your thoughts on what is important now and what can help you to swim well.

“Keep my strokes smooth and long, just like I want them to be in the last leg of my race. I know I’ll be tired then so I have to develop good habits now.”

As you can see, none of these thoughts are super-duper positive, though you can certainly make them be if you’re up for the challenge. Most sport psychology books will tell you to focus on only the positive and throw all negative thoughts away. This is the ideal way of thinking and is what you want to be working towards. However, it’s hard for someone who is always negative to say to themselves, “I can do it! I feel great!” so if you don’t currently fit into the category of someone who can flip the switch from negative to positive, try to at least find a middle ground where you go from destructive to constructive. If you are negative, start by just getting yourself to be realistic, process-focused or slightly more positive. When that becomes easy, then you should be able to bring out your inner cheerleader and maintain a positive mindset.

It’s the Little Things

Some people need a physical release from their negative mentality. Wash your face off and say to yourself “wash away that race,” do some jumping jacks, brush the “devil” off your shoulder, listen to music, go over your race plan, have routine…find something that triggers a mental/emotional release from whatever negatives you’re experiencing. Explore what works for you outside of swimming when you’re having a bad day, see if that can help you at meets and practices. Becoming a more positive person is something that will benefit you not only in sport but in life in general. By learning how to control your thinking you’ll experience greater enjoyment as well as enhanced performance.

Make it Great!

Dr. Aimee

About Aimee C. Kimball, PhD:

Dr. Kimball is the Director of Mental Training for the UPMC Center for Sports Medicine. She is an Association of Applied Sport Psychology Certified Consultant, and is a member of the American Psychological Association, the United States Olympic Committee’s Sport Psychology Registry, the USA Swimming Sports Medicine Network, and the NCAA Speakers Bureau. She works with athletes, coaches, and parents to help them achieve success in sport and life.

For more information contact: kimballac@upmc.edu, 412-432-3777, http://sportsmedicine.upmc.com/MentalTrainingProgram.htm

Don't Let Fear Affect Your Swimming

BY STAN POPOVICH

Sometimes, fear and anxiety can get the best of us in swimming. The key is to know how to manage that fear and anxiety. As a result, here is a brief list of techniques that a swimmer can use to help manage their fears and every day anxieties.

Occasionally, you may become stressed when you have to swim in an important event. When this happens, visualize yourself doing the task in your mind. For instance, you have to swim in front of a large group of people in the next few days. Before the big day comes, imagine yourself swimming and doing your thing. Self-Visualization is a great way to reduce the fear and stress of a coming situation.

Sometimes we get stressed out when everything happens all at once. When this happens, a person should take a deep breath and try to find something to do for a few minutes to get their mind off of the problem. A person could read the newspaper, listen to some music or do an activity that will give them a fresh perspective on things.

Another technique that is very helpful is to have a small notebook of positive statements that you can carry around with you. Whenever you come across an affirmation that makes you feel good, write it down in a small notebook that you can carry around with you. Whenever you feel stressed, open up your small notebook and read those statements. This will help to manage your negative thinking.

In every anxiety-related situation you experience, begin to learn what works, what doesn’t work, and what you need to improve on in managing your fears and anxieties. For instance, you have a lot of anxiety and you decide to take a small walk before your event to help you feel better. The next time you feel anxious you can remind yourself that you got through it the last time by taking a walk. This will give you the confidence to manage your anxiety the next time around.

Take advantage of the help that is available around you. If possible, talk to a professional who can help you manage your fears and anxieties. They will be able to provide you with additional advice and insights on how to deal with your current problem. By talking to a professional, a person will be helping themselves in the long run because they will become better able to deal with their problems in the future. Remember that it never hurts to ask for help.

Remember that patience, persistence, and education will go a long way in preventing fear from becoming a factor in sport of swimming.

Stan Popovich is the author of “A Layman’s Guide to Managing Fear Using Psychology, Christianity and Non Resistant Methods” – an easy-to-read book that presents a general overview of techniques that are effective in managing persistent fears and anxieties.