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May 14, 2013 |
What you focus on both before and/or during your races
will largely determine if you soar with the eagles or gobble with
the turkeys!
Your training and health being equal, what you concentrate on at
meets is the main cause of your best and worst swims. When you
struggle with going faster in practice than races, faster in your
off-events than your best ones or being unable to break through and
get a certain time, faulty concentration is usually the main
cause.
What you focus on as you go into a race will dramatically
affect:
- Your ability to stay calm and loose under BIG meet pressure
- How quickly you're able to bounce back from disappointing swims
- Your level of self-confidence
- Your skill in avoiding getting psyched out and intimidated
- How well you handle adversity
Did you know that you're ALWAYS doing a great job of
concentrating, but most swimmers concentrate on the WRONG
things?
That's right! When you swim your fastest and when you totally fall
apart under pressure and add gobs of time, you're doing an
excellent job of focusing! The key question here is, “ON
WHAT?” When you go fast, your concentration tends to be on
the RIGHT things both before and during the race, and when you
struggle performance-wise, your focus is on all the WRONG
things.
What SHOULD you focus on?
Championship concentration involves focusing on two, overlapping
things: The first is the NOW, as opposed to the
PAST or the FUTURE. Whenever you
swim, your focus always has to be in one of these three
“mental time zones.” The NOW is what is
happening in the present and is the only time zone you have total
control over and can swim fast in! If you're stretching
behind the blocks, three minutes before your race, your focus needs
to be in the NOW on your stretching, not on your last race, (the
past) or whether you'll make tonight's finals, (the future).
The second important target for your concentration is on what
YOU are doing as opposed to what everyone else
around you is doing. In other words, before and during your races,
you want mentally to “stay in your own
lane,” focusing on yourself and no one else. All too
often swimmers get caught up comparing themselves, paying too much
attention to their competitors or focusing on what others watching
(parents and coaches) might think of them.
What does it really mean to stay in the now and in your
own lane?
Staying in the NOW and in your OWN LANE means that your pre-race
and during race concentration needs to stay on the
FEEL of what you're DOING before
and during your swims. This means that if you're behind the blocks
pre-race, you want to focus on the feel of the stretching, NOT your
thoughts about the race. Focusing on feel during your swim might
mean that your concentration is on feeling long and smooth, how
much water you're pulling, your pace, feeling your chest pressing
down just the right amount during fly or any number of other things
depending upon what stroke you're swimming. FEEL IS THE
“GAS PEDAL” FOR FAST SWIMS!
Performance-disrupting distractions come from both outside
and inside the swimmer!
OUTSIDE: Swimmers need to let go of all of the
external distractions, such as who's watching the meet, how their
teammates or competitors are doing, the conditions of the pool, the
clock, how crowded warm-up is, what their coach may do or say,
who's in their heat, their lane assignment, how important their
race is and what's at stake, their parents’ reactions to how
they swim, etc.
INSIDE: Distractions from the inside encompass
the swimmer's thoughts about everything above as well as how they
feel that day, whether they got enough sleep, how their training
has been, whether they missed critical practices because of
illness, how the taper went, the last time they swam this meet, how
the season has gone so far, how they felt in warm-up, how big and
fast their competition is, things going on in their personal or
academic lives, etc.
Concentration is a two part skill:
#1) Recognize that your focus has drifted from what's
important
#2) Quickly return your focus to what's important
What hurts swimmers isn't that they lose their concentration.
Breaks in concentration are absolutely NORMAL. What really hurts
you, is when you lose your focus and you don't immediately catch it
and bring it back!
How do I get good at recognizing that I've drifted and then
bringing my focus back?
- You must spend regular time in practice deliberately working on this mental skill Throughout practice, for two minutes at a time, both during your warm-ups and through the main set, practice noticing when your focus drifts, and then immediately returning it to what you're doing in the NOW
- If you start thinking about what happened in school today, the past, quickly bring your focus back to your breathing pattern or keeping your stroke long as you swim
- If you notice that you're thinking too much about another teammate, return your concentration to your lane and the feel of how much water you're pulling, one stroke at a time
- In dryland training, focus on the feel of each exercise, one rep at a time
By regularly practicing this master skill of concentration, you will develop the ability to consistently swim fast when it counts the most!
