YOUR RACE

 

It’s race day and if your like most young athletes the most important thing is the result of your competition.  Coaches are evaluating many different things during the competition, but we are human and the results    are important but not the end all.  

Speaking for myself, one of the things I really look for and that you absolute  control of is, EFFORT.   You see  results can come in a variety of ways ranging from good, bad and downright ugly, but the effort that you put into those results is what matters the most.  Think about it and I know you have because during those little feedback talks after your race I hear a lot of  “ I think I could have done better” or “ I could have gone faster.”  What are you waiting for? No better time than the present.  I see it in your faces sometimes yes the results were good bu t in your ❤️ you know you had more to give and that feeling can be devastating to a young swimmer.

You might ask yourself this, “ Am I applying myself as much as I can and giving it my all?”  Hopefully you can all answer an astounding yes to that question and if you can than take comfort that you gave all you could in that one moment.  As a coach that’s all I could ask for, but more importantly that is all you can ask of yourself regardless of the results.  You can never do better than your best and that is what you should be celebrating because effort is a constant unlike results that can be influenced sometimes by things out of your control.  You control your effort and as long as you have swam as hard as you possibly could at that moment in time, the scoreboard doesn’t matter and you are king or queen for the day in my book.

what were we accomplishing

 This past week we the gold, prep, and highs cool group started the week on Monday with the goal of finding a new comfortable.  As a swimmer often times we know what we have to do at practice in order to become more successful.  The problem is that often the things we have to do tend to make us uncomfortable during practice, it takes more focus, more effort and quite frankly, IT's HARD.  

What is your comfort zone and why does it exists?  This is that area in which you swim to avoid anxiety

and that feeling of pain that you fear and are afraid to confront when swimming fast and hard.  Sometimes you have set up these boundaries unconsciously not even knowing that you have done it.  There are many reasons for this such as, lack of confidence, fear of failure and yes fear of winning.  That's right if you swim in your comfort zone you have a built in excuse for just being average.  Think about that for a few minutes and the next time going into a meet.  Comfort zones are a "safe haven."

 Competitive swimmers everywhere are always looking for ways to improve, ways to do something better and get better results.  Always swimming in your comfort zone and doing the same things will tend to yield the same results.  Sure your times drop and you have some good swims, but what we are searching for are those

GREAT swims that come along a few times each season.  By going outside of your comfort zone during practice you will prepare for those GREAT opportunities when they do appear.

On Monday we did our little test set for all the groups where we just went to see how far we could go during practice at this time of year.  Coaches sometimes get a little wrapped up in total yardage like it's a badge of honor and yes we have a range during parts of the season in order to keep your aerobic base at a high level, but for the most part we are looking for quality instead of quantity.  This is the reason we are hard on you when we see the same mistakes over and over, remember "doing the same things produces the same results". All the groups used the same template for practice but on different intervals, keep in mind that when we are going for yardage and it was a  a freestyle based workout.  The results for the groups were:

• GOLD (70 MINUTES) 3650 YARDS
• PREP (90 MINUTES) 6100 YARDS
• HIGH SCHOOL (75 MINUTES) 4800 YARDS

What we were looking for was your effort and how long could you hold onto your technique during both a high intensity/ high yardage workout.  This was the highest yardage total for a day during this season including our holiday workouts.  This was designed as that first step outside of your comfort zone and to actually see what it's like to feel uncomfortable during practice, and to come to he realization that you're be okay.

As mentioned comfort zones should be like a moving target, one that is attainable, but sometimes are right outside of your reach and will require you to get up on your toes stretch and touch it with your fingertips.  Like finishing a race to the touch pad, "if you want it stretch, reach and go for it."  As you go beyond your comfort zone you will be successful and will become comfortable again.  Your goal is to push yourself to this level of discomfort, and our job is to help you and create the challenge.

LEARNING FROM A BAD RESULT

 Okay so your swim was not what you were expecting as you look towards the scoreboard.  Not the end of the world.  It also may not be the end of your meet, with more races ahead, so brush yourself off and let’s move forward.  Use this as an opportunity to grow, become stronger mentally and look towards your next opportunity to race.  Instead of making excuses or questioning your abilities, or your training when faced with a bad result, look for ways to learn, grow, and improve.

We may not be superheroes, although as little kids we may have dreamed about having superpowers to do anything.  The fact of the matter is this; each of you are a superhero in your unique way.  “You have the power to alter your perception; to see things how you want to see them and interpret out experiences any way you see fit.”

Do you understand what that mans?  It goes back to our discussion on self talk and the ability to change any negative thought or comment you have into a positive one.  Everything comes back to that.  If you

take a bad result and only dwell on the negative side you start becoming what you perceive and that is a negative swimmer.  One who swims with less confidence and effort and one who is not as happy.  This way of thinking will not only affect you swimming but tends to spill over into your daily lives.

On the other hand if you take that bad result and view in a positive way and look for things to differently or maybe change the next time out you can actually start to learn and grow from the experience and in doing so start repairing your confidence immediately.  Those bad results can actually be a good thing as they may point out a weakness that needs both yours and your coaches attention.  Instead of viewing a bad  result as a setback, view it more as an opportunity to grow both as a swimmer and a better version of your self that you can be proud of.

NEXT UP:  THE RACE

A BAD RESULT

 

Okay, so the race didn't go as planned and you look at the scoreboard in horror.  Do you go into a downward spiral or do you take the path of looking for the positives that you can take from the race.  First off own your race, no excuses, so it was not a great race but neither was it terrible and you need to accept that sooner than later.

Everyone will have those days when it seems like the universe is against you in your daily life and for our purposes your swimming.  The ability to understand this and what to do next will be key into what happens next.  

It's understandable to fall into the trap of self doubt or self pity where you begin to question your swimming capabilities.  This sport is hard because we are always

and sometimes too often looking at that clock for clarity in our efforts. The hard fact is that some days you going to have great swims, and at the same time there will be those days that are not so great.  The key is to understand that and to move forward from both.

The truth of the matter is that swimming has and will always be littered with peaks and

,

valleys along its path and guess what, your human and humans are imperfect.  You always have been and you always will be.  It is hard to be perfect every minute of every day.  You can try and avoid bad results, or from falling short during a meet, but inevitable they will happen, when you're just not going to be at your best on any given day.  Now how you deal with that moment will determine how you will move forward.  A bad result does not make you a "bad swimmer" all of a sudden, it just means your an imperfect human who had a imperfect race or meet.

At every level of swimming from a developmental swim meet in the summer to the olympics and everything in between swimmers are looking for that great swim and sometimes they come up short, and yes that includes the likes of  Phelps, Andrew, Baker, King all national team members who have gone through those peaks and valleys just like yourself.  Your no different.  Don't see a bad result as a reflection of yourself.  Don't get so upset that you let it consume you, or define you as a swimmer or more importantly an individual.  Those are the moments that you need to trust yourself and the preparation that you have put into it.  Lean on yourself a little more in those situations and most of all trust yourself.   You haven't become a bad swimmer overnight, you'll be fine.  

You will need all your trust and the knowledge that a bad result does not define you if you are to emerge from this on the other side ready to tackle the world.  Accept what ever happens, no excuses, learn from it and move forward.

NEXT "LEARN FROM A BAD RESULT"

COPING

 

How do you handle a bad result?  How do you view it?  Do you look at it as a failure?  Now guys you may be thinking to yourselves, oh no he’s on his soap box again, but rest assured I’m not.  I’ve been thinking about this all week and it stems from a couple of sets we were doing where fins were optional.  

As we watched you work through these sets, we noticed that some of you were struggling towards the end and we asked you to put on your fins.  A couple responses were but I don’t want to because than I fail.  First off, no you didn’t fail.  The sets and interval were designed for the upper end of our group in the hopes that the others would be able to follow for as long as they could, and the entire group was great 👍. Our coping mechanism in this scene were the fins, and next time maybe we can go longer without them.

Instead of looking at a bad result in anything you do as a bad result, ask yourself what you can do the next time out to produce a better result and the first thing you need to do is get back up.  Yes, I know sometimes it's hard but to move forward sometimes you get knocked down, but you need to get back up.

Now down to the nuts and bolts of coping.  It goes without saying that every

swimmer wants to do well every time out whether its winning your heat or event, a personal best time, or achieving a next meet cut.  All of you make sacrifices and put in a lot of work in order to achieve success in your races and meets. Unfortunately sometimes things don't go as planned and when that happens it's easy to make excuses and indulge with negative emotions, maybe even anger.  Your brain is like a giant computer in your head that you can program and control with your thoughts and emotions.

Let's look at this statement I hear way too often,  "I'm tired" or "I felt slow", and there are many others to be sure but these are the two biggies that I hear most often.  When you feed your brain with these kind of thoughts or statements you have already begun the day sabotaging your chance of success.  The more that you condition your brain to those negative feelings, thoughts and anger the more you hard wire your brain in making them become a habit.  Now don't get disappointment and anger confused because there is a difference.   We have already talked about how it is ok to be disappointed in a result as long as you can gather yourself quickly and move forward to the next race or event.  "Anger and frustration are the extreme, poisonous versions of disappointment when taken too far."

If you can learn to cope with both your good and bad swims and how to calmly move beyond both the better swimmer you will become and on the way to the results your searching for as long as they are goals that are both reasonable and attainable.

Next UP:  A bad result does not define you.

SQUARE PEG

 

Our Junior Gold and Senior Prep swimmers spent some most of Wednesday working on our breaststroke.  Why do it?  I’m not  a breaststroke person,  but when we asked the kids if they liked or enjoyed the IM event a lot of hands shot up.  Of course our comeback was how can you enjoy the IM without having at least something that resembles a breaststroke and the clip below ain’t it people.  That’s how are older lap swimmers swim breaststroke and maybe with a few more birthdays I’ll be swimming like that.  If i do my daughters informed me that I will never find my equipment bag again.

Now we aren’t looking for any world beaters in breaststroke, but as Coach Paul said they look like breaststroker’s now. On her way out Coach Wendy even mentioned that you all look better and all of this with just a little focus and some extra effort on trying something new.

Now we understand that like the child above not everyone is alike and we are not going to get that square peg into the round hole, but are you going to give up like the child above and just put it away.  You all are better than that and the only way to move forward is to keep plugging away, put the effort forward to just make some kind of improvement each day.  

This is the time of the year to make some improvements on your weak areas as we back off a little in training during the next few weeks.   

Take advantage of this time to improve in the areas you know you are weak in.

TIME TO PLUNGE BACK IN

 

With the end of spring break and the reality of getting back to school for your final quarter, its also time to turn our attention back to the pool.

Now that first plunge and workout may feel a little awkward similar to the bear after a long winter hibernation and it may take a couple of workouts to get that feeling back.  It’s okay, don’t panic all is right in the world, you’ll be just fine.

With a fresh new perspective and a clearer mindset it's time to refocus on your training habits such as, are you going to just stay the course, or are you going to attempt to change the way you practice.  It's time to put your bad swimming habits in a box and lock them down so that they can't get in your way to improving, and no matter how hard those bad habits want back in keep them locked down.

You all know the bad habits that we are talking about but in case they have slipped your minds here is the short list;

• getting in late (doesn't take 5 minutes to put on caps)
• lazy turns (not aggressive, slow rotation, loose tuck, poor feet position and on....and on)
• breathing (in and out of turns)
• skipping (repeats should not be skipped)
• ready position (leaving the wall from a bad position)
• Finish (gliding into wall art finish)
• technique (letting it get sloppy)
• beach ball streamlines (you know what we mean)

Okay those are just some of the bad habits that coaches see everyday and causes us to do a lot of head scratching.  Let's take a look at some good habits that you can start today.

TURNS-- Most of you have great intensity while your swimming but when you arrive at those walls your turns are seldom performed at the same intensity, in fact we would go as far to say that

you view them as a break in the action, a chance to catch your breath before the next length.  BAD MOVE as it's incredibly hard and tiring to make up ground off a bad turn.  If you remember anything grasp this notion, GREAT TURNS are the easiest way to get faster.

PACING-- Many swimmers have 2 speeds, fast, and not so fast.  Often fast can mean slow technique work or 200 race pace efforts.  When we do descending sets often times you come in at the same time on each repeat.  Its like you are stuck, but then we are working technique sets and your speed rivals a hard performance set.  Knowing your speed is extremely important in longer races that requires strategy.  Learn to gauge how fast your swimming.

HYDRATION and NUTRITION-- So you cramp a lot during practice, ever wonder why?  Often times it's because your not getting enough water.  You should make a goal to finish that water at every practice.

 This does not mean sitting on the wall and drink for minutes.  Every time you are between repeats take a sip or two from the bottle, you will be amaze how better you feel and the bottle will be empty before you know it.  Nutrition is the fuel that your body needs to recover, repair and perform the next time out.  

Often when a swimmer struggles during practice or a meet I come to find out that they skipped breakfast or haven't eaten for hours.  try to eat every 3 hours with your breakfast, lunch and dinner your 3 big meals and a good protein snack in between each.  You know the INDY 500 is fast approaching and I doubt any of those drivers will be taking their cars out with empty fuel tanks.  Why would you take your machine out on an empty tank?  How far do you think your go?and too    

DISTRACTIONS--- They are always around us and how YOU handle them often will result in

the way that you perform.  I often hear things like so and so is sprinting warmup or they are always on my feet.  You have now entered the twilight zone of swimming where outside distractions are affecting your workout and you begin too use it as an excuse to ease up.  Don't let distractions throw you off your game, dig down you don't need perfect conditions to be better you just need water.

DISCIPLINE-- There are two kinds of disciplines here, the one that get's you to the pool and the one that not only gets you to the pool but has you doing things the "right way" in and out of the pool.  The kind of discipline that we are talking about is the one that involves both time management and your habits in the pool.  Are you keeping up with your school work on a daily basis so as to avoid staying up late at night putting your health at risk.  Are you disconnecting

from your devices so as to have some "me time" which can be healthy in so many ways.  

Don't forget what we have talked about before, anybody can be a good swimmer by just showing up and putting in some work, but if you can somehow incorporate the 5 habits above into your lives you will be on the way to becoming that great swimmer that you dream about.