So why do swimmers or for that matter any athlete need to practice so much? look at that statement on the right, "We practice to make our strokes and races perfect" but is perfect possible. Perfect is "having all the required or desirable elements, qualities or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be."
When you think about it; What is a perfect stroke? As coaches we all say from time to time during practice; "Focus on perfect stroke during this set." For myself what I mean is for YOU to focus on getting to your perfect which may be different than swimmer B. Sometimes what is forgotten is that we all come in different shapes, we all have different physical limitations, we all have our own goals, and we are all at different points in our own swimming.
Yes, we all want to end up being in the fast lane, winning the heat or winning the event. That is always the "DREAM GOAL" for every swimmer and that is a great goal to have as long as you keep it in perspective. Out of all the swimmers in the event only 1 gets that honor and out of a heat of one only one gets the fast lane and only one will win the heat. What does that mean for the rest of us? We go back to the definition of Perfect from above and that is "being as good as it is possible to be" and as long as you can tell that to the person in the mirror, YOU were perfect at that moment in time.
Now lets get back to practice and that age old question from swimmers and their parents, Why do swimmers practice and train so much compared to other athletes? What I have found is some swimmers and parents have a difficult time trying to wrap their heads around that question. Children who participate in other sports such as basketball, volleyball, baseball, soccer or what ever sport it may be attend practices a couple of times a week and in most cases their games last much longer than their practice sessions. Most of the skills that children learn and need in these activities have been learned since the time they started crawling, walking and running which by the way are all land based activities.
Now lets introduce water into the child's activities which at first is a very foreign concept to an athlete. It affects our balance and our ability to breathe and the way we propel ourselves from Point A to Point B. On land we move ourselves with the use of our legs but in the water we need to learn to move ourselves forward with our upper bodies and we have to be able to propel ourselves through a new medium, water. That
first time in the water is like crawling for the first time and starting from scratch. To be sure this can be both a refreshing feeling but at the same time a little bit intimidating to children.
TRUE FACT: when we run or jump on land we make contact with the ground which doesn't move and that force is so great that it moves us past the point at which we made contact. In the water as we make contact "the catch" that point in the water where we make contact moves as we are pulling and because of this we need to apply force to the water to move forward. This is where all that practice fits into our story. Each day you need to focus how you catch the water and how much force and how to channel that force to move forward through the water. That cannot be learned on land. With swimming there are so many strokes, turns and events that it takes a lot of practice in order to just be a swimmer. With enough practice you may progress to a good swimmer and then a great swimmer and eventually emerge as a exceptional swimmer.
If you work hard on focusing on our technique during our skill sets, and on all the little things during practice such as ready positions off walls full extensions into each each turn with explosive push offs and strong underwater's you are likely to get better and will be on your way to perfection to that person in the mirror. The one caveat is that if you don't practice on a regular basis you won't improve and you will end up experiencing what all swimmers have experienced at some time and that is swimmers can quickly lose their feel for the water. That is why the sport does not have long breaks in it.
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| WHAT A SWIMMING PROTEST LOOKS LIKE ON A SATURDAY MORNING AT 9AM |
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