|
December 9, 2020 |
Take This "Amazing Opportunity" To Work on Strengthening Your Weaknesses, Both Physically and Mentally
by Dr. Alan Goldberg//Contributor
This is a really tough and unprecedented time to be a serious,
competitive swimmer! With COVID-19 still raging around the country,
forcing schools to go remote, making it difficult to get pool time
and train the way you’re used to and creating so much
uncertainty, it’s no wonder that so many swimmers I talk to
are feeling lost. You have no clue what this short-course season is
going to look like and whether you’re even going to be able
to compete.
How are you supposed to work on your goals if you’re not
going to be able to prepare for and get to race? And if there
aren’t going to be any meets, how are you supposed to keep
yourself motivated to train the way you need to in order to excel
as a swimmer and achieve your goals?
If I could, let me offer you a helpful perspective to navigate
these confusing, uncertain waters. Because you won’t have
your normal meet schedule anytime soon this short course season,
you actually have a “wonderful opportunity” right now
to be able to take your swimming to the next level! While this
might sound like I’ve been in the hot sun far too long, let
me reassure you that I’m not delusional!
Here’s what I mean by “opportunity.”
This is a perfect time for you to work on your weaknesses. This is
a perfect time for you to take a really close look at your stroke
mechanics, starts and turns and begin to work on improving them.
Additionally, this is a perfect time for you to examine your mental
weaknesses both in training and competition and to turn those into
strengths!
During a “normal” season where you’d have a
regular schedule of meets and would be racing be a lot, it would be
very difficult to both work on your stroke mechanics and compete
well. Whenever we make mechanical changes of any sort, we have to
think about the changes and consistently work on them in practice
until they become automatic and part of our muscle memory. However,
when we’re competing and really want to go fast, we
can’t afford to be thinking about technique either before or
during our swims.
The very best and only time to work on both your physical and
mental technique is in training, when you’re not under
performance pressure and have the luxury to just focus on the
needed changes. Because of the pandemic, this is actually that
perfect time for you to start to integrate these kinds of changes
into your swimming.
PHYSICAL TECHNIQUE CHANGES
Sit down with your coach and ask him/her about what they think you
need to work on that will really help you take your swimming to the
next level. Have them shine some bright lights on your weaknesses!
Do you have a hitch in your stroke? Is your breathing pattern
slowing you down? Do you need to improve your underwaters?
Understand that working on your weaknesses is the fastest and best
way to get stronger as a swimmer.
Plus, this kind of specific information from your coach will help
motivate you because it will give you a clear direction for your
training. Yes, you might not have a meet coming up on the horizon.
However, if you know that you’re strengthening your
weaknesses every time you train, and that this will eventually make
you a faster swimmer, then you will get more excited about your
practices and not feel like you’re just going through the
motions in a purposeless fashion!
MENTAL CHANGES
Almost all swimmers who go slower in meets than they do in
practice, or go faster in off events than best ones, do so because
they are making very predictable mental mistakes both before and
during their races. Specifically, these performance problems are
caused by two concentration mistakes. First, the swimmer goes into
their event focusing on the future and outcome. They might be
thinking too much about their time, the cut that they need to
achieve or a specific goal. Since it’s a HUGE performance-
disruptive mental mistake to bring your goals and expectations into
a race with you, this future focus will always generate nervousness
and can sabotage your racing!
Going fast under pressure demands that your focus of concentration
stay in the NOW on the feel of what you are doing, one stroke at a
time! Whether that means that you’re focusing on the feel of
how much water you’re pulling, staying long each stroke or
your tempo, etc., going fast can only happen in the NOW.
The second most common mental mistake made by swimmers is focusing
too much on who they’re racing. If you are too caught up with
needing to beat someone else, worried that they may beat you,
thinking about their reputation, etc., then you will get nervous,
tighten up physically and go slow! Swimming fast requires that your
focus stay between your two lane lines! You need to focus on the
feel of what you’re doing and NOT on what you think others
are doing!
You can work on correcting these two mental mistakes each and every
day that you train! If you’re the kind of swimmer who
consistently “time travels,” allowing your focus to go
from the past to the future, then you want to work on "staying in
the now" during your practices. Find something feel-related to
focus on (for example, staying long) and you want to be aware the
instant that your focus leaves the "now," and then quickly and
gently return your focus to the feeling of staying long.
Similarly, if you’re the kind of swimmer who gets too caught
up with who’s around you, then you want to practice staying
in your own lane. Again, find a feel-related target for your focus
(i.e. your underwaters or how much water you’re pulling) and
every time your focus leaves your lane and goes to thoughts about
others, you want to quickly bring your focus back to the feel of
your underwaters or how much water you’re pulling.
If you spend time consistently working on your mental and/or
physical technique during this challenging and frustrating time,
when things return back to some semblance of normalcy, and meets
start up again, you will be pleasantly surprised with your results!
