ABCs OF MENTAL TRAINING: Q is for Quality Practice

BY DR. AIMEE KIMBALL//MENTAL TRAINING CONSULTANT 

Often when people talk about being mentally prepared, the focus is on competition. However, when you stop to think about it, you spend more time practicing than you do competing. Therefore, it is essential to make sure you aren’t just going through the motions at practice, you have to make each training session a quality one.

Let’s Call it Preparation
I’ve always had issues with calling practice “practice.” To me, the word practice has the connotation of just going over your skills and repeating what you already know. I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with the physical act of practicing. Just the opposite. I think that practice is extremely important, and because of its importance, we need to view it as more than just something swimmers do because it comes with the sport. I would rather people refer to this time in the pool as “preparation.” I believe that if you connect everything you do during your “practice time” to the fact that it is preparing you for your meet that you will take it more seriously, have a better attitude, and have a more intense focus. All of these positive mental changes will then help you to perform better at competition. For example, instead of dreading yet another 6 a.m. practice that your coach is forcing you to attend, if you realize the morning session is an opportunity to prepare your body and your mind for the upcoming meet, you may be more motivated, thus making you more productive.

Additionally, by thinking about your “practice time” as “preparation,” you can enhance your confidence on race day. Before your meets you will be able to look back and remember all of the little things you did to prepare for each event. In knowing you made the most of your time, you can trust that your training has you fully prepared to race your best.

Quality Control
How many times have you gone to practice just hoping you survive the training session? If you feel training is a chore and do just enough to get by, that’s probably not what I would consider to be top quality.\

To assess the quality of your training, first identify what makes a quality practice. You can define this for yourself and may want to include things like: self-talk, attitude, focus, pushing yourself harder when you’re tired, doing each drill as designed, setting the pace for your lane, swimming hard until the completion of each set, etc.

Then, take your last five practices and grade them using the criteria you just created. Use a grading scale like those in school:

• A (4 pts) = Excellent
• B (3 pts) = Good
• C (2 pts) =Average
• D (1 pt) =Fair
• F (0 pts) =Poor

Next, average the number of points for each practice. For example:

• Day 1: A =4
• Day 2: B=3
• Day 3: A=4
• Day 4: C=2
• Day 5:A=4

Total Points: 17

Average Grade: 17 (pts) /5 (days)= 3.4                         

Overall Grade: B+

If you don’t average a 3.5 or better, you probably are not making the most of your practice time. Having a “B” average is enough to keep you at your current performance level. In order to improve, it will take “A” type training.

While you may think an “average” day is acceptable, if you have those kinds of practices too often you are going to develop bad habits. It is especially important to focus on having an “excellent” practice on days when you are tired because that’s the most difficult time to have proper technique. If you can get yourself not to settle for being average and can push to be better than just good, you are ensuring that you will be able to swim well and maintain form and speed at the end of a race.

How to Improve My Practice Quality
In addition to making sure you have proper nutrition habits and warm-up correctly, improving your practice quality is as simple as making sure you are focusing on the correct things. Here is a checklist to make sure your mind is where it needs to be in order for you to get the most from each moment in the pool:

Pre-Practice Mental Checklist:

1. What specifically am I going to improve on today?
2. What will I do to make sure I get better at this?
3. Why is this important for me to improve?
4. My goal by the end of practice is to….
5. How can I have a positive influence on my teammates today?

Note that sometimes it helps swimmers not to just focus on themselves, but to focus on teammates as well. There will be some days when you are exhausted and find it very difficult to be motivated. On these days, it can help to focus on being a positive influence on others.

During Practice Mental Checklist:

1. What am I working on in this set? What is the purpose of this drill?
   a.  How can I use this in my race?
2. Is there anything else I need to do to prepare myself for the upcoming meet?
3. What is my mindset right now?
   a.  Can I improve my attitude? Focus?
4. What do I want others to say about me after this practice?

Carpe Momentum (Seize the Moment)
With each practice you have the opportunity to get better, to stay where you are, or to get worse. When you know that what you do today prepares you for tomorrow it makes practice easier. Remember, if you do all of the hard work in training, meets will be a lot more fun.
Make it Great!

Dr. Aimee

Dr. Aimee C. Kimball is the Director of Mental Training at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Center for Sports Medicine. She received a PhD from the University of Tennessee where she specialized in sport psychology.

She is an Association for the Advancement 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.

As a Mental Training Consultant, Dr. Kimball has worked with professional, collegiate, high school, recreational, and youth athletes in a variety of sports, and assists the Pittsburgh Steelers in analyzing potential draft picks.

She has been a featured speaker at conferences across the nation and has appeared in Men’s Health Magazine, Runner’s World, Athletic Management Magazine, various local and national newspapers, and has appeared on ESPN, NPR, and news broadcasts across the country.

She is a Clinical Faculty member in the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Orthopaedics and an adjunct faulty member in the Sports Marketing Department at Duquesne University. Currently, Dr. Kimball works with athletes and other performers to assist them in achieving success in sport and life. For more information contact: 412-432-3777; kimballac@upmc.edu

Swim Team Goals, Roles, and Attitude

December 3, 2010, Feature by Tonya Nascimento, Swimming World intern

TALLAHASSEE, Florida, December 3. HAVE you ever thought about how your actions affect the team? Swimming is categorized as an individual sport, and you do get awarded for individual performance, but do not be deceived into thinking you are on your own or that your actions affect only you.

Think back to your greatest race. Could you have done it without your teammates in your lane and lanes next to you during practice? Without your coach giving you challenging sets and seeing you through? Without your parents driving you to practice or supporting you in other ways? It likely spurred you on during the race to have your teammates cheering.

No one succeeds without the help of others.

No swimmer made it to the top of the podium entirely on his own. As a senior age-group swimmer, I still remember a 200 freestyle race where I was on best-time pace, spurred along by my crazy teammate who was bear-crawling down and back along the deck, screaming as loud as he could. I remember the "secret" tangled finger good-luck send-offs and the inside jokes that kept the high-pressure meets fun. I remember the sacrifices of early morning practices, constant chlorine hair, and unshaved legs until the championships – that didn't seem like sacrifices, but more like membership to a special club, because we did it as a team.

To make the most of your swimming career, and to swim the best you can, become a valuable team member.

Commit to team goals.
As an individual, you have an idea of what you want out of swimming. Hopefully, you even have well-defined goals that motivate you (see Goals that Motivate and Using Progress Goal Times to Improve). Do you know the team's mission and goals? What are you working toward as a team? If this is unclear, you might want to bring this up with your coach and suggest a team meeting.

Once your coach and teammates have a clear vision, your job is to commit to it. This means the team goal needs to be as important to you as your individual goals. What do you need to do to help the team succeed? Make sure you put in enough effort to fulfill your role. If the goal is very important to you, it might require putting in extra time and energy.

Know your role.
What is your role? What do you contribute to the team? Do you attack each set, challenging your teammates to beat you? Do you lead the lane? Do you demonstrate a positive attitude?

There are several roles on a team, such as wallflowers, team leaders, good followers, counselors, social directors, motivators, team clowns. You might cleanly fit in one role or have parts of several.

• Wallflowers are those swimmers who hang on the wall and find ways to skip out of sets. They are not committed to team or individual goals and tend to drain team energy. If this is your role, it is important for you to evaluate your participation and either decide to commit to swimming or to try another sport. Wallflowers are not good teammates.
• Team leaders are the first in the water and the last out. They work hard, listen, and have a positive attitude. Qualities of leadership might be found in many swimmers, but the team leader tends to be one that others turn to and follow for direction. Keep in mind that leadership can be learned. If you would like to be a team leader, talk with your coach about the behaviors you need to demonstrate to best help your team.
• Good followers are just as important as team leaders. Good followers pick up on and immediately follow the example, attitude, and decisions of the team leaders that help the team toward its goals. Team leaders do no good without followers.
• Counselors help struggling team members, are the first ones there when swimmers are disappointed in their races, and help resolve conflict between team members.
• Social directors plan ways for the team to get together and get to know each other better outside of practice and meet time.
• Motivators have a lot of energy. They consistently encourage others, are incessantly optimistic, lead cheers, and show enthusiasm for swimming.
• Team clowns make others laugh. Their sense of humor lightens the mood at practices and meets and makes it fun.
  When you become aware of your role (or roles), you can evaluate how you contribute to or detract from the team. When you know how you contribute, the resulting sense of importance and belonging can help your performance.

Take one for the team.
Only four can swim on a relay. Have you ever missed the cut? If so, did you grumble and wish you had a weaker team? Or did you cheer on the four who made it and then vow to work a bit harder to beat them each practice so that next time it would be you?

A strong team is sometimes tough because you are not always on top, but it is a strong team that gets you to the top eventually. The competition within the team gives you daily race practice so that you swim faster at meets. Creating conflict and in-fighting due to dissatisfaction with your coach's decisions on who gets what spot only ends up hurting you. When you have an attitude for the team, you end up making the entire team, including you, better.

Respect your teammates.
You do not have to like your teammates. You do not have to be best friends. In order to have a successful team, you do need to respect them. Respect means offering encouragement during practice sets and at meets, cheering them on, and otherwise helping them achieve their goals. It means focusing on the ways they are helping the team, and it means addressing the behavior (not the person) when changes need to happen. It means putting forth your best effort at all times and displaying a positive attitude, even when on a relay with teammates you don't like.

Become a favorite.
Many people think it is bad for coaches to have their favorites. The truth is that every coach does; it is human nature. It is not bad for the team as long as every swimmer has a chance to become a favorite. Those swimmers who are favorites tend to be coachable; they buy into the team vision and team philosophy set forth by the coach, and they trust the coach's instructions and decisions. They work hard, put the team before themselves, show integrity, and are honest with themselves and others. Do have these qualities? These are all qualities that help your team, encourage sportsmanship, and ultimately lead to success and enjoyment in swimming.

Evaluate your attitude.
It's a good idea to evaluate your attitude as a team member. Think about the legacy you want to leave behind. At some point you will graduate, move, or otherwise leave your team. How do you want to be remembered? What will your teammates say about you?

Think about whether or not they will likely remark about how you were always a hard worker, always positive and upbeat, an inspiration, someone whose impact is missed. Or if they might talk about how you were a wallflower, a slacker, a wimp, and only concerned with yourself.

If you were the fastest swimmer but a poor teammate, mention of your speed will likely be followed by mention of your negativity. Your greatest legacy is one based on how you helped your teammates. Are the team goals a priority? Do you show respect to your teammates? Do you have the qualities that could make you a coach's favorite? Work now to develop a positive team attitude and leave behind a desirable legacy.

You might be one whose actions get your teammate to make a cut, and you might be one whose go-to attitude gets you to make a cut. Whatever the outcome, make sure your actions are what is best for the team, and you will end up better for it.

Thunder & Lighting – What do you WANT?

Posted Sept. 29, 2010, by John Leonard at http://www.swimfastteam.com/

Yesterday we had some thunder and lightening at practice. We had to get out.

As children will do, a few cheered and acted very happy that they got to get out of the water.

This drives me crazy, so i asked them all to come around, sit down and here is what i told them.....I ask you as parents to consider this, and support the message and reinforce it with your own children.

1. You don't have to swim. You chose to swim. If you don't want to swim, don't. Childhood and teenage-hood is the only time in your life that you'll have enough free time to chose to train very much...so chose carefully.
2. If you chose to swim, you should LIKE swimming and LIKE practice.
3. If you LIKE practice and swimming, then you should want to STAY IN PRACTICE and not be "happy" and cheering when the weather forces us to get out.
4. Being Happy to get out of practice is entirely the wrong mindset for success in our sport. It's 180 degrees from what is needed. You need to want to do MORE of something if you are ever going to feel successful about doing that activity.
5. Moaning about how tired you are does not help your neighbor feel energetic and aggressive in training, NOR does it help you do better, NOR does it make you FEEL Better.....it's just a way of "bragging" about how hard you THINK you are working....and you know what, you don't fool anyone. All your teammates know entirely how hard you work in practice. You can't fool 'em. Nor can you fool the coaches.  Moaning about "woe is me" does not help ANYONE...therefore, it has no place in our practice pool. We are in the pool to IMPROVE...and anything that does not help IMPROVEMENT is off target and unacceptable. Improvement requires energy, effort, and persistence, ESPECIALLY when you are tired and fatigued.  All great races have a fatigue point in them....you either learn to push through it, or you fail to improve.  It's all about creating a great training and racing environment...and EVERYONE...Coaches, athletes and parents...have  to be responsible for it and accountable to make it happen.
6. Mindset, and contributing a GOOD ONE to practice, is everyone's responsibility. It's what our tee-shirt saying #2 - "HONOR YOUR TEAMMATES WITH YOUR EFFORT" is all about. (it also means "EXPECT THEM TO HONOR YOU WITH THEIR EFFORT AS WELL!" Hold them accountable.

Cheering for thunder is just a minor, childish thing...i can understand it...but it has profound implications for the mindsets of our athletes...and all those things do matter, a great deal.

We WANT to be at practice when we come...otherwise, stay home and find something you can put your whole heart and mind into.....without putting the whole heart and mind into things, you'll never be much good at it and never derive the satisfaction you seek, from any activity.

     All the Best, John Leonard

What Do You Do Instinctively?

Posted by Glenn Mills on Feb 22, 2008 06:26AM (8,752 views)

One of the toughest things to find out is what do you do instinctively when you swim. It's not until you see a video tape of yourself, or hear a coach tell you, or catch yourself doing something you didn't know you did... that you begin to realize just what you do without thinking.

You may never realize what you do in the water until someone asks you HOW you do something. Take breathing, for instance. Do you breathe out through your nose, or through your mouth? Do you breathe out slowly, allowing air to trickle out, or do you hold on to your breath till the last possible second, blowing it all out in one purge to get your lungs ready for the infusion of fresh air? Do you wait SO long to release your air that you're giving a quick out-in burst while your head is turned (which could explain why you get out of breath so quickly when you swim)? Remember, this is just the natural and necessary action of breathing.

If you look at how you GET to air, there's even more to consider. Do you lift your head slightly to begin the trip your mouth has to take to make that exchange? Do you look forward, then turn, or do you simply swivel your head? Does your head turn with the body, or does the head move independently? How far do you turn your head? Are both eyes out or the water, or just one? When does the head go back in -- is it BEFORE the recovering arm enters the water, or at the same time? What do you see when you inhale... and when you exhale?

Speaking of seeing... what do you look at when you swim? When you push off the wall, what do you look at? Is it the bottom, the side, the swimmers next to you? When you begin your swim on each length, what are you looking at? Are you checking for the feet of the swimmer in front of you, making sure they're going to move far enough to the left prior to their turn so you don't bang heads? Do you see the flags as you approach the wall... or the change in the lane-line color indicating the wall is coming? Do you look for the "T" on the bottom prior to your turn, or maybe a ledge where people can stand? Do you look at the end, do you see the cross? What do your eyes do DURING the turn? Do you keep them open during a flip, watching the world spin uncontrollably around, or do you quickly close your eyes to block out the confusion? Do you open them during the exit of the flip to make sure there's no one coming at you? Do you keep them closed until your feet hit the wall, or do you actually WATCH your feet plant prior to pushing off? Then the cycle begins again... lap after lap, set after set, hour after hour, day after day, year after year.

Why think about this stuff if, in reality, we don't think about this stuff? It really came to light with me a few weeks ago during a set using the Finis Swimmer's Snorkel. I've taken abuse from swimmers for quite some time for the need to use a nose-plug when I use the snorkel. For some reason, I could never use the snorkel without water going up my nose, and I really never knew why... I just couldn't. During a set, I reached to adjust my nose-plug, and it cracked in half. It was rendered totally useless unless I decided to shove the two halves up each nostril. I remember looking at it, and being disappointed because I was really getting into the set. I decided it was my day to tackle how to use the snorkel without my training wheels. I mean, I'm a decent swimmer, how come so many people can use this thing without it, and I can't? It took me about 1/2 lap to realize I wasn't going to make it to the end. Each time I exhaled, water RUSHED up my nose and I began to choke.

Now, I can't say it's too impressive to see a past Olympian in the lane, crying because water is going up his nose, but I tried my best to look tough while I choked, coughed, and struggled to purge the stinging invader from my nose. I just couldn't figure out what was going on until I started to study what it was that I do instinctively. When I breathe out in the water, I breathe out through my mouth. I never knew it, honestly. As it turns out, when I breathe out through my mouth, water rushes up my nose, and the quick fix with the snorkel was to breathe out through my nose, and BOOM.... I WAS AN AQUATIC ANIMAL AGAIN! I could swim length after length without trouble, and without my nose-plug. I HAD IT LICKED, by finally figuring out what it was that I did naturally. (Just as quickly as my chest pumped with pride, however, I did a flip and realized that I breathe out through my nose during the flip, leaving me with too little air to purge the snorkel after the push... water up the nose again... I'll keep trying.)

I have since started to try to catch myself doing instinctive things, and I've found things that I never knew I did. When I'm going fast breaststroke, and approach the wall, just before my hands touch the wall, I close my eyes. Don't ask me why, and don't ask me to explain the benefits, cause I really don't know. Logic tells me that I should be looking to make sure I hit it just right, but competitive instinct tells me NOT to associate with the wall, and get off it as quickly as possible. It must be instinct that tells me if I can't get through the turn during the blink, or if I can't FEEL what's happening, it's just taking too long. In fact, I realized that I swim a LOT with my eyes closed, and when I do look, I see mostly shadows or blurred images of swimmers around me. Mostly because everything is in my peripheral vision, and almost nothing of substance, other than the lines on the bottom, or the bottom of the lane next to me, is clear. I've also realized that I'm not sure I've ever seen the cross at the end. I mean, I've seen it, just never when I'm swimming. I've realized why I love Swedish goggles so much as well. With no gaskets, rubber, or additional opaque edges, they allow my peripheral vision to work. They allow me to see those blurred images through the top of the goggles without actually focusing, or even thinking about them. They're just there.

We've covered only two topics in this article... air and eyes. Can you IMAGINE how much more there is to discover about yourself?

The next person who says swim practice is boring, is going to get in BIG trouble. If you can't find something to discover, you're just not paying attention. Now find out what YOU do instinctively.