Embrace the Training

by Glenn Mills

These days, most swimmers train 11 months out of the year, anywhere from 2-5 hours a day, depending on what level they're at.  Some swimmers train 5 days a week, some 7.  The yardage varies from a few thousand meters a day, to nearly 10 miles a day.  This is all done to swim possibly 20 competitions a year, with the REAL focused competitions happening 3-4 times a year.  Swimmers train to compete, and that can be a good thing because competition is a vital part of the total swimming picture.  The lessons of competition can be dramatic.  In competition, the focus is sharper, more intense.  People take the sport seriously during meets.

But if we look at the big picture of the life of a swimmer, maybe there's reason to find a new balance between the value we place on competition versus the value we place on training.  When you think about it, the amount of time spent competing absolutely PALES in comparison to the time spent training.   So maybe we should look a little closer at what actually happens during all that training.  What can we do to embrace it as something more than a place to hone a great start or a killer dolphin kick.  

When you're at a competition, in the actual race, you're all alone.  It's you against a random collection of people who happen to have an entry time similar to yours.  For just a couple minutes, you have a shared experience with people you may not even know.  

In training, however, you're surrounded by friends, and typically friends who also have about the same performance level as you.  When you're training, you are building the memories of the sport that you'll hang on to forever.  If you look at the sport as a training activity, rather than an activity that prepares you for the occasional competition... trust me, those competitions will become MUCH more fun.

We've got it all turned around as athletes.  The sport IS about training.  It's where we spend our time.  It's where we make our friends.  It's where we do things we didn't know we could.  It's where, on a daily basis, we get to share experiences with our best friends, struggling together in what is, in actuality, a glorious process of pain and achievement.  

If the sport was solely about our accomplishments during competition, it would take way too long to get any payback emotionally.  You KNOW when you've had a great workout.  You feel a sense of accomplishment that you've just done something great.  Maybe you worked through an injury, or made an interval for the first time.  Maybe you REALLY worked a kick set and maybe... you made it through that kick set without pulling on the lane line.

The GREAT thing about swimming is that it's an individual sport, plus a team sport.  It's the team, the friendships, the bonds that are built on a daily basis that help prepare you for those infrequent races.  Without the support of the team, your friends, it's the loneliest sport in the world.  The black line on the bottom does not give anything back.

I was personally SO fortunate to be surrounded in my training by people who, many years later, are among my closest friends.  We shared so much more than swim meets.  We struggled through pain and agony on a daily basis.  We supported each other, and we tried to beat each other every day.  We challenged each other to train better, and it wasn't always friendly.  It was part of what made us who we are, and I highly encourage all young swimmers to understand this.  

The sport of swimming is about training.

Embrace the training and competitions become... well... fun.

Embrace the training and competitions become less stressful.

The next time you go to workout, look at it as THE event.  Look at it as the REASON the sport exists.  Look at it as an OPPORTUNITY to spend time with friends, doing something healthy and challenging.  Change your perspective of the sport, and you will absolutely become more successful as a swimmer. 

Taken from goswim.tv

MIND OF A CHAMPION: BUILDING YOUR OWN MENTAL TOUGHNESS TOOLBOX

4/9/2013

BY ALAN GOLDBERG//SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR

Why do you need to train your mind as well as your body?
Want to go as far as possible in this sport and turn those big swimming dreams of yours into an exciting reality? Then you need to get serious about developing and strengthening your mental muscles on a regular basis. Far too many swimmers only work on the physical side of their sport. They do what they need to in the pool and during dry-land, but then go to their big meets and hope they'll swim fast!
Unfortunately, when you leave the mental side of your racing to chance, you'll struggle with the following:

• Do you go faster in your off events than your best ones?
• Do you get too nervous and tight before you compete?
• Does your mind race out of control and rob you of your self-confidence?
• Do you regularly outwork and beat other swimmers in practice and then lose to them in meets?
• Can you swim really fast times at the end of a grueling practice and not even come close to those when you race?

While hard work and physical training is a critical MUST DO for you to become a champion, once you get to that all important meet, swimming to your potential depends almost entirely upon what's going on between your ears, what I call your “mental technique.” 

• Do you have the ability to focus on what's important and let go of everything else?
• Are you able to handle the last-minute negative thinking and self-doubts so common to big races?
• Can you stay calm and composed under pressure and are you able to avoid getting intimidated?
• Do you know how to quickly rebound from bad races and disappointments?

You can't just train physically and hope you'll swim fast when it counts the most!
In high-pressured situations, hope just won't cut it. Instead, you have to have the confidence and composure to KNOW that you'll do your best. The only way to gain this confidence is by having a complete mental toughness toolbox. You have to know how to handle all of the mental challenges that await you both in practice and at meets. Having mastery over the mental side of your sport is always what separates the best swimmers from all the rest. 

STAYING CALM & COMPOSED UNDER PRESSURE THE FIRST MENTAL TOOL EVERY SERIOUS SWIMMER NEEDS IN THEIR TOOL BOX

The secret to swimming fast when it really counts is having the ability to calm yourself down the night before and day of your BIG meet whenever you get too nervous. If you get over-amped as a swimmer – either too excited or too nervous – then your muscles will tighten and your breathing will get faster and shallower. Tight muscles and faster, shallower breathing will shorten your stroke, kill your endurance and ensure you swim poorly.

What You Can Do to Stay Calm Pre-Race:

Slow & Deepen Your Breathing

• The first place nervousness hits you is in your breath, so deliberately focus on inhaling to a slow count of four, holding your breath in to that same count of four, then exhaling to a four count and then pausing to that count before you begin the process over again. Practice this breathing technique every night before bed. It's important that as you practice this, your breathing should stay relaxed and effortless.

Switch Your Concentration from Thinking to What You're Doing

• Your pre-race focus should be in your body on what you're DOING, and not in your head on what you are THINKING. Go through your pre-race ritual, and while you do, concentrate on the feeling of it, one step at a time. As you stretch behind the blocks, be sure to feel the stretch in your body. If you get distracted by thoughts, quickly return your focus to the feeling of the stretch.

Allow Your Negative Thoughts to Come and Go

• Many swimmers under pressure are flooded by negative thoughts and try to combat this onslaught with “positive thinking” or telling themselves to “STOP” thinking. This strategy rarely works and tends to make you feel even more nervous. Understand that negative thinking is normal and won't affect the outcome of your race as long as you immediately let it go. Negative thinking is like quicksand. The more you listen to, fight with and/or follow it, the more you get sucked under. Practice letting your negative thoughts come and go by noticing them without judgment and then refocusing your attention on the music you may be listening to, your stretching or whatever else you're doing behind the blocks.

Stay In Your Own Lane

• Focusing on other swimmers will kill your confidence and make you uptight. Don't compare yourself. Don't allow yourself to focus on the size, speed or strength of your opponents. Stay away from “studying” the heat sheet. Your concentration needs to remain totally on YOU. Whenever you do notice that your focus drifts to others, quickly return it to YOU, as often as you need to. Keep in mind that this happens to all swimmers and what's important here is to immediately bring yourself back without getting frustrated with yourself.

Leave Your Goal Times at Home

• Your goals are a motivational tool for PRACTICE ONLY. Bringing them into races will only get you too uptight to swim fast. While it is normal to want a fast time, thinking about this pre-race represents a BIG mental mistake. To stay calm, you need to keep your concentration in the NOW, on what you are doing. This means that the instant you mentally jump ahead to the future and start to think, “I need to break 2:00 minutes” or “qualify for Nationals” you want to quickly return your attention to what you are physically doing in the moment.

Have FUN

• In order to stay calm pre-race, you have to let yourself enjoy the challenge of the moment, the butterflies, excitement and even the doubts. If you get too serious about the importance of this race, your nervousness will crowd out your enjoyment. If you've forgotten what it feels like to have fun at a meet, then you need to remember WHY YOU are swimming. Too many swimmers wait until they swim fast before they'll allow themselves to have fun. This is backwards! You have to have FUN first before you can then swim fast!

Handling pressure like a champion is NOT a chance thing! You need to work on it to get good at it. Use these tips to help yourself stay calm and composed when the heat of competition is turned up high! 

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.

Taken from www.usaswimming.org

Brave or Just Stupid?

Posted by Glenn Mills on Jan 18, 2008 10:02AM (5,182 views)

How do YOU swim your races? Have you zeroed in on your ultimate race strategy, or are you experimenting? Have you ever just gone for it, with no regard to the second half of a race, or are you too scared of the pain that will ultimately greet you?

When you look at your races during and entire season, how many different strategies have you tried in each of one? If you swim a race regularly, it's very easy to fall into a system, a plan, a way of swimming that can get you into a rut or "safe zone." If you're successful with a race strategy, you're going to be less apt to try something new, and if you're worried about winning a race, you'll also be less apt to put yourself into a situation in which you'll risk losing in order to try something new. In other words: Are you willing to lose a race mid-season in order to discover if you're supposed to swim your race a different way?

The faster you want to swim, the more likely you're going to have to reach a new level of pain acceptance. This is NOT an easy place to go to, and most swimmers try to avoid it at all costs. It's always so much nicer to feel great at the end of a race... accelerating into the final wall... and looking at the clock to see a nice time. But... if you have lofty goals, and you need to drop considerable time in order to achieve those goals, you're going to have to try some new things -- things that may cause you to fail or, at the least, cause you considerably more pain DURING your races than you're used to.

Mid-season races are the perfect time to throw caution to the wind, attack the first part of your race, and see what happens. Let's take an example. If your best time in the 100 breaststroke is 1:07, and you have to go a 1:04 at the end of the season, there will be a minimum time you need to hit at the 50 in order to have a chance at the 1:04. When you went 1:07, chances are good that your first 50 split was around :32. The trouble with that is simple math. Unless you are capable of going :32 on the first AND second 50, you haven't given yourself a chance to go 1:04. You're going to run out of time. You've got a turn to deal with. You've got the piano that's going to fall on the last 25 (or 12.5) You've got the chance that you may not be able to feel your hands on the final 5 to 10 meters. But you KNOW, from doing some simple math, that by the end of the season you need to know what it feels like to go out faster than :32. You need to be USED to that feeling -- and know how it makes you feel on the second 50.

The real question is, are you brave enough to try it at mid season? Are you brave enough to look down that pool, and do whatever you can, for as long as you can, to give yourself a chance to reach your goal? If someone unaware of your plan were to watch you race like this, they'd probably think you were not brave, but stupid. They'd see you take it out like gangbusters and think you didn't have any idea what you were doing, or that you simply overswam your race. It takes a special person not to worry about what others think, or about how you might lose a race you could easily have won if you'd stayed within your comfort zone. It takes bravery to risk so much, for the sheer chance that something special could happened.
These are choices that swimmers must sort out, even at the highest levels. Take the Olympic Games. Is it more important to go a fast time, or to win? It's more important to WIN obviously. If you won the Olympics with a slow time (it's all relative), would anyone really remember? NO. All that matters is that you won. Finals of the Olympic Games, National Championships, State Championships, or even Summer League Championships is NOT the place to experiment with race strategy. It's the place to implement the strategy that you've mastered by trying MANY strategies. Finals of championship meets is the place to do one thing: win. Times no longer matter. But with that said, it USUALLY takes fast times to win ANY meet, which is why you need to be able to understand how to do that. You need to know what it takes for YOU to accomplish the time it's going to take to win.

Once you've targeted a race in which you're going to go as fast as you can for the first part, you have to approach it with a "what if" attitude. There is a strong chance you'll be very tired -- and slow -- on the second half of that race. But "what if" you don't get tired? What if you're the type of person who CAN hold a fast pace even when your stroke is falling apart, and you're losing connection with the water? What if you instinctively start to grab water with a part of your body you've not used enough, and shifted responsibility for propulsion from your quickly failing arms, to your kick... or your rotation?

You won't know until you try.

It takes a very brave person to attempt to go out as fast as they can in a race, JUST to see what happens. It takes an even braver person to do it twice... and to keep doing it, inching the line at which they fall apart closer and closer to the finish until one day they ultimately REACH the goal.

Do the simple math. Study your past races and calculate how many seconds you normally fall off in the second half of your race. Then look at your goal time, and calculate the slowest time at the half-way point that will let you achieve that time. If you have four months to achieve your goal time, what are you waiting for? Try it out now, and see where you are. If you do that, there's a chance you'll experience more pain than you're used to, and there's a chance that your overall time won't be your fastest. But you MAY have been on goal pace for 65 meters. After another month of training with your goal in mind, you MAY be on pace for 75 meters. In two months you MAY be on pace for 85 meters. And in four months, you'll KNOW what it's supposed to feel like to be on pace for the ENTIRE race... and you won't be surprised at how the water feels streaming past your body AT that pace. And you MAY be the only one NOT surprised with the result when you REACH your goal, because you were brave enough to test the waters early enough in the season.

Reposted from GoSwim.tv