7 Ways Swimmers Can Build Confidence as Pre-Race Jitters Kick In

The moments leading up to racing can be a whirlwind of nerves and stress. Here’s a guide to dealing with pre-race nerves and swimming your best when it matters most.

Undoubtedly you have been there. I know I have. Standing behind the blocks, adjusting my swim goggles, shaking my legs and arms out for what might be the thousandth time, anxious to just get in the water so that I can get the race over with.

Here’s the good news: you are not alone.

Everyone experiences pre-race jitters and anxiety.

You see it on the highest stage of our sport, and at the most introductory levels as well.

From novice to Olympic gold medalist, pre-race jitters are a universal experience.

That being said, there is a line that separates athletes who can use that nervous energy as fuel versus those who allow it to consume them.

In this guide to dealing with pre-race nerves, we’ll look at some time-tested and proven strategies for swimming fast when it matters most.

How Swimmers Can Overcome Pre-Race Jitters

Ways to overcome pre-race nerves and jitters include:

• Reframe stress as excitement
• Find your ideal zone of performance
• Mentally rehearse your races
• Focus on the process
• Use a pre-race routine
• Reduce fixating on outcomes
• Use self-talk to channel nerves

Next, we will more deeply examine these strategies for keeping calm, focused, and sensibly nervous behind the blocks the next time you get up to race.

1. Reframe stress as excitement

Competition has a very real physiological effect on us.

The sweaty palms, the racing thoughts, the constant urge to pee, the churning belly, clammy armpits, elevated heart rate, uncertainty, and so on.

Swimmers get into trouble when they frame the nervousness as something that is wrong with them.

What follows are usually suppression techniques (trying to make the nerves go away), which have the cruel side-effect of only creating more nerves and more tension.

Next stop, Choke Town.

Remember that the nerves are there to help you out. They are trying to help you FIGHT. Instead of trying to smother the nerves, embrace them.

Literally doing something as simple as reframing your nerves from “I’m nervous!” to “I’m excited!” will help you channel the nerves for faster swimming.

In the weeks leading up to competition, either in the pages of your swimming logbook or in your journal or as part of your daily affirmations, remind yourself that racing is fun, nerves are normal, and that competing is a reward:

• “I’m excited to race and see what I do with my hard work!”
• “I love competing and seeing how fast I can go!”
• “Nerves are part of the competitive experience–let’s use them to swim fast!”

Stuff like that.

At the end of the day, pre-race nerves are your body’s way of helping you get the most from yourself on race day.

Utilize them and swim on to shinier and faster new PBs.

2. Find your ideal zone of performance

When you look behind the blocks at a field of 8 swimmers you will invariably see the full spectrum of emotional states; there is the emotional wreck, the calm and cool customer, the Hulk, and so on.

Find out what works best for you.

Search your performance history. Draw out the commonalities. Add your ideal emotional state to your pre-race routine. (You have a pre-race routine… right?)

Some swimmers will perform at their peak when they are jacked up on anxiety, while others will perform at their best when calm, cool and seemingly acting care-free. Engaging the Hulk might work for some people, while for others it doesn’t.

When you start to get a clearer idea of what it takes for you to perform your best, you can more reliably bring your best to competition.

Having the blueprint cuts down some of the anxiousness and replaces it with excitement (a whole lot more on that shortly).

3. Mentally rehearse your races

Visualization, or mental imagery, is an excellent way to prepare yourself for the increased stress and pressure of competition.

By rehearsing the race in your head in the months and weeks leading up to the meet, you can find yourself feeling a sense of déjà vu when you step up on the blocks, which can help settle your nerves.

One of the interesting aspects of dealing with pre-race nerves is that when we step up on the block, we are doing the same thing we’ve done in training a million times.

The length of the pool is the same. The starting block is the same. The water is the same. And yet, it can feel different and unnerving because of the added element of pressure and stress.

Leading up to the big meet spend some time each evening and mentally rehearse your races.

Feel the nerves and the sweaty palms. Feel the cold water hit you when you dive into the pool. Picture yourself swimming your own race, giving your best, and overcoming minor forms of adversity along the way.

“It’s weird because I didn’t really get that nervous during the Olympics. I’d swam that race a thousand times in my head. I’m a big fan of visualization so I’ll always visualize my race beforehand.” – Adam Peaty.

4. Focus on the process

Competition is great in a lot of respects, but for those who live by comparing themselves to other swimmers it can be hellish.

I was guilty of doing this more than I care to admit—I’d watch the swimmers in the heats before me and would end up worrying about how my swim would measure up against theirs instead of focusing on preparing myself as best as possible.

There will always be things you cannot control: how crowded warm-up is, traffic on the way to the pool, and how other swimmers perform. What you can do is prepare yourself as best as possible and go into race day with a simple process for success.

Instead of judging your swimming by way of where you are positioned within your race, concentrate on the things you need to execute in order to swim a race that will reflect the hard work you have put in:

• Crisp start, easy speed on the first 50m.
• Snap in and out of the terms.
• On the last lap give it everything I have.

And so on.

Swimmers succumb to nerves when their attention is centered on things they don’t control.

But by having a simple, clear, and controllable process for YOUR swimming, you can spend more time getting the most from yourself and less time worrying about the competition.

5. Use a pre-race routine

A pre-race routine is a set of actions, including physical and mental practices, that a swimmer uses on race day to prepare. It can include things like your meet warm-up, a banging playlist, and a set number of times you squish your swim goggles into your face before racing.

But the real magic in pre-race routines is that they give you a sense of control and familiarity that helps calm pre-race jitters and channels them into excitement and energy.

With a set routine, you know exactly what to do, and when you are going to do it, helping boost confidence and providing an anchor in the swirling stress and pressure of competition.

A study (Houston et al., 2011) with competitive triathletes, 272 age groupers in total, showed that pre-race routines were correlated with faster finishing time.

Pre-race routines can be wildly elaborate, or they can be simple and to the point (I recommend the latter as it leaves less room for things to go haywire).

The routine should be flexible enough that it can be completed in different circumstances and environments and focused on the things you control.

6. Reduce fixating on outcomes

A major cause of pre-race stress is the overwhelming pressure we put on ourselves to perform to a certain expectation. Having completed X amount of training we expect a particular result that matches it, meaning that whatever result we get will be representative of the work we did.

If we end up having a bad race all of that training was for nothing, lending an extra layer of stress, doubt, and pressure when we need it the least.

(Often this sense of burden comes from external sources, too. For example, a parent that says, “You better go best times, I spent a lot of money on this meet” can inadvertently add a layer of burden to a swimmer’s mindset.)

As a result, we end up spending less time focusing on executing our race strategy, or doing our pre-race routine to its fullest, or mentally staying in our own lane.

Fixating on outcomes, whether a medal or time, can have the opposite intended effect, leading us to find ourselves neck-deep in nerves and anxiety.

Instead, build a race plan and stick to it. Focus on executing each stage of your preparation to the best of your ability. The sneaky reality is that once you do this, and take things step by step and avoid getting lost in “what ifs” and possible outcomes, those much-heralded outcomes start to fall before you easier than you could have imagined.

• “I had a talk with my confidence coach, and we were just saying, all I have to do is execute. Nothing more, nothing less. Just execute.” — Gretchen Walsh, before making the US Olympic team in 2024

7. Use self-talk to channel nerves

Self-talk is a powerful mental skill that swimmers can use to manage and channel pre-race nerves. (We already saw a form of self talk with the “I am anxious!” versus “I am excited!” example above.)

Positive, focused self-talk can help reduce and stop runaway thoughts that can cause pre-race nerves to get more intense.

Focused self-talk has been shown to improve endurance (Rushall et al., 1988), persistence (Weinberg et al., 1984), and improved time trial performance in age group swimmers (Hatzigeorgiadis et al, 2014).

In the weeks leading up to the Big Meet, write out 2-3 forms of self-talk that will help you to manage nerves and promote better performances.

Things like:

• “I love competing and seeing what I can do.”
• “Swimming fast is what I do.”

And so on.

Writing out some designated self-talk that is positively oriented (or even neutral) and using them when the pressure is on will help get you focused on performing instead of worrying.

• Pro Tip: Combine your positive self-talk with nodding. A study (Horcajo et al., 2019) with CrossFit athletes found that jump height was highest when participants used positive self-talk with head nodding compared to positive talk with head shaking (as in, Nope!) and negative self-talk conditions. E.g. Tell yourself, “You got this!” while lightly nodding your head.

Wrapping Things Up

Pre-race nerves are as part of the competitive experience as soggy butts from sitting on metal bleachers and crowded warm-up pools.

And here’s the big secret you should remember the next time those pesky nerves starting rising up your freshly shaved back:

Everyone’s feeling them, too.

On reflecting on his gold medal success at the Tokyo Olympics, where he won five gold medals (and set a world record in the 100m butterfly), American Caeleb Dressel noted:

• “I was nervous before every race.”

It’s an awful feeling being a nervous wreck behind the blocks, and then looking up and down the blocks and seeing your competitors loose and in control. It’s important to remember that in spite of the calm exterior they are just as nervous as you are.

They have the same fears; of not swimming to their potential, of looking bad in front of their friends and family, of coming up short on their goals. Knowing that you are all in that nervous, bubbly soup together should be reassuring.

What you are feeling isn’t weird–it’s something you are all going through.

Feel the pre-race nerves, channel them into energy, and ride them to faster swimming and new personal best times!

ABOUT OLIVIER POIRIER-LEROY

Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national-level swimmer. He’s the publisher of YourSwimBook, a ten-month log book for competitive swimmers.

He’s also the author of the recently published mental training workbook for competitive swimmers, Conquer the Pool: The Swimmer’s Ultimate Guide to a High-Performance Mindset.

It combines sport psychology research, worksheets, and anecdotes, and examples of Olympians past and present to give swimmers everything they need to conquer the mental side of the sport.

Ready to take your mindset to the next level?

Click here to learn more about Conquer the Pool.

COACHES & CLUBS: Yuppers–we do team orders of “Conquer the Pool” which includes a team discount as well as complimentary branding (your club logo on the cover of the book) at no additional charge.

Want more details? Click here for a free estimate on a team order of CTP.