The very first step in this process you actually learned from your parents at a very young age and that is honesty. Make no mistake about it everything begins with truth and that includes your swimming. When you are ready to be honest with yourself it will require one very critical thing that swimmers often overlook, and that is “What do ?I really want?"
Over the years I have seen many swimmers just “Dive In” and start swimming without really understanding the process or why they are doing it. Without understanding the process they have no roadmap to their final destination. They develop habits that will carry them throughout their swimming years. Some of these habits are GOOD, but some tend to be bad also. Often swimmers will get sucked into just swimming laps and will forget to focus on the little things coaches are teaching within the set. For instance the other day all three of our groups did a set that looked like this; 12 or 8 x75 (50 free-25 back) or 8x50 (25 free-25back) depending on the group. The two main things to focus on for the set was “get to the 10" meter mark off the walls and the second was open turns off ever wall keeping are head in line and getting our hips turned into the wall quickly. Now last I checked we all speak English but watching the set I started to wonder if we were having a communication lapse because some of us were all over the place.
The point I am getting to is this, sometimes we take the time to do the work but we come up short when trying to focus on the little things in the sport that will make us happy and successful. I was told once that I was hard on swimmers when watching races. I can accept that to an extent. I am always happy for a best time because the time is an instant gratification which is the world we live in, BUT in the long run I get more excited when the swimmer executes what we have worked on in practice, which relates back to the process.
I understand that most if not all swimmers will have more failures than successes as they go through their swimming years, but if you go through the process correctly and trust it you will have a best time at those important meets, most of the time.
Simply showing up for practice/meets is only the first step. The process involves being on time with the proper mind set. Just this past weekend a swimmer said to me “I’m just not feeling it today”, (this will put your coach in a bad mood) about a half hour before the race. I had to bite my tongue because I wanted to be brutally honest with my reply. The next thing is proper warm ups and warm downs. I have watched many swimmers leave a meet with no warm down and than wonder why they are sore later on. Yes parents even your little ones should warm down, even if its a 50. Its correct that they may not need one, but again my job is to teach them about the sport and how to be successful as a senior level swimmer. Again the “PROCESS."
As for practice I believe I have demonstrated that the focus of the set should be doing things correctly not just some of the time, but all of the time. During your sets think of it this way; Am I practicing just for a time, ore am I practicing for success and the chance for a Personal Best? Remember those three kids in my pool at the gym, I could have just timed them no practice needed. Just a thought!
Hey if you all have topic for me let me know
See you this week. Mike
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