Keys to Success: Whitney Sprague

Five Keys to Success with 2009 World University Games medalist Whitney Sprague

1. Determination. When you come up against an obstacle, you just have to keep on going, otherwise, you won’t end up achieving anything. I had so many obstacles the past year. It was obvious I would not succeed if I did not push through them.

2. Set really good short-term goals. My entire 2009 was short-term goals, just one foot in front of the other. I had knee surgery in November and had to take a month and a half off from swimming in the middle of the season. But I worked hard each day to get back.

3. Find a good support system. I could not have done it without my trainers, friends and parents, and all the coaches and teammates I have had. They can always help bring you up and help you realize that the goal is only a little bit further in front of you. It’s nice to have that kind word when you are not feeling that hot.

4. Take good care of your body. I did not do this very well for a while, but in the end, I started listening to my coaches, trainers and doctors. You need their help so you can focus on what you need to do. You have to train properly, eat right and take care of your body outside of the pool. You also have to do your physical therapy if you are coming back from an injury. I learned that one the hard way.

5 Have fun. I have to have fun while I am swimming, or I just can’t do it. I always try to keep a good attitude and have a smile on my face while I am training. If you are not happy, it’s just not going to be fun. The people around you get down, too, and it’s a chain reaction. So I learned, through being on a team, the importance of staying positive.

What Causes Muscle Soreness?

Gabe Mirkin, M.D.

Your muscles should feel sore on some days after you exercise. If you go out and jog the same two miles at the same pace, day after day, you will never become faster, stronger or have greater endurance. If you stop lifting weights when your muscles start to burn, you won't feel sore on the next day and you will not become stronger. All improvement in any muscle function comes from stressing and recovering. On one day, you go out and exercise hard enough to make your muscles burn during exercise. The burning is a sign that you are damaging your muscles. On the next day, your muscles feel sore because they are damaged and need time to recover. Scientist call this DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness.

It takes at least eight hours to feel this type of soreness. You finish a workout and feel great; then you get up the next morning and your exercised muscles feel sore. We used to think that next-day muscle soreness is caused by a buildup of lactic acid in muscles, but now we know that lactic acid has nothing to do it. Next-day muscle soreness is caused by damage to the muscle fibers themselves. Muscle biopsies taken on the day after hard exercise show bleeding and disruption of the z-band filaments that hold muscle fibers together as they slide over each other during a contraction.

Scientists can tell how much muscle damage has occurred by measuring blood levels of a muscle enzyme called CPK. CPK is normally found in muscles and is released into the bloodstream when muscles are damaged. Those exercisers who have the highest post-exercise blood levels of CPK often have the most muscle soreness. Using blood CPK levels as a measure of muscle damage, researchers have shown that people who continue to exercise when their muscles feel sore are the ones most likely to feel sore on the next day.

Many people think that cooling down by exercising at a very slow pace after exercising more vigorously, helps to prevent muscle soreness. It doesn't. Cooling down speeds up the removal of lactic acid from muscles, but a buildup of lactic acid does not cause muscle soreness, so cooling down will not help to prevent muscle soreness. Stretching does not prevent soreness either, since post-exercise soreness is not due to contracted muscle fibers.

Next-day muscle soreness should be used as a guide to training, whatever your sport. On one day, go out and exercise right up to the burn, back off when your muscles really start to burn, then pick up the pace again and exercise to the burn. Do this exercise-to-the-burn and recover until your muscles start to feel stiff, and then stop the workout. Depending on how sore your muscles feel, take the next day off or go at a very slow pace. Do not attempt to train for muscle burning again until the soreness has gone away completely. Most athletes take a very hard workout on one day, go easy for one to seven days afterward, and then take a hard workout again. World-class marathon runners run very fast only twice a week. The best weightlifters lift very heavy only once every two weeks. High jumpers jump for height only once a week. Shot putters throw for distance only once a week. Exercise training is done by stressing and recovering.

Keys to Success: Margaret Hoelzer

Keys to Success, with 2008 Olympic medalist Margaret Hoelzer

1. Have fun. I think people start doing a sport because they love it. Keeping it fun and keeping that love alive is extremely important because otherwise, you will ultimately hate it and you will quit. There’s a mistaken idea out there that if you are successful at something you will enjoy it. I think it’s the other way around – if you enjoy it, you will be successful.

2. Keep perspective. Swimming is not who we are. Rather, it is what we do. It’s a part of us, but it doesn’t define us completely. Fear and pressure – all of that is derived from perspective being lost or things getting blown out of proportion. There are a lot of worse things in life than not winning a race or not making the Olympic Team. Get rid of these external negative things that eat away at your confidence.

3. Be open to change. This means knowing yourself and being able to accept that life is about change. You have to know your priorities and what is best for you. That constitutes knowing when you need to make a change and when something is not working. You can’t be afraid to try something different, like when your coach suggests trying something a new way. It might also mean keeping something the same regardless of what people around you are telling you – not making a change when a change isn’t warranted.

4. Take ownership. Life is a continuous learning process. You never completely know everything, not even about yourself. But as you get older, you should be getting more in tune with yourself. You are a work in progress. You have to take ownership of what you do know. Swimmers get lost out there sometimes. They’ll say things like, “I don’t know that much.” If you know how to swim at all, you know something. Take ownership of the things you know, but also take ownership of the fact that you don’t know everything, and keep learning from informed sources.

5. Be open to evolving. The sport is continuing to evolve, and we have to, as people and as swimmers, evolve. Some of that is technique changes. Even Michael Phelps is changing his stroke. If you want to get better, sometimes you have to evolve and develop new strengths or new techniques. Michael Phelps can get better, and not just in freestyle. If he wants to beat his best times in his other events, he’ll have to get better in those events, too. In my event, some of the best backstrokers in the world had a shallow catch, then they all had a deep catch. You have to keep an open mind toward change. Even the best in the world are constantly trying to get better.