With the world shutting down, we’re reaching into our archives and pulling some of our favorite stories from the SwimSwam print edition to share online. If you’d like to read more of this kind of story, you can subscribe to get a print (and digital) version of SwimSwam Magazine here. This story was originally published in the 2017 Year In Review edition of SwimSwam Magazine.
Whether you are a distance sprinter trying to log the miles or a sprinter trying to squeeze out slivers of improvement, the sport is hard. There’s the whole no-breathing thing, the never-ending season, the endless meters.
And, of course, there is the murky relationship between our mindset and how we perform. We aren’t always entirely sure what it is that works for us mentally.
There are times when we swim fast and have to shrug our shoulders if asked to pinpoint why it went so well. It just felt right. And when things go badly, we are at even more of a loss to explain where things went awry.
This leaves us feeling like our mindset and mental approach to the sport are mostly luck and genetics — either we have it or we don’t, so we sit there with bated breath the night before our big race, hoping things come together.
To make swimming even more of a white-knuckled ride, we consistently base our motivation on the way we feel that day, meaning our motivation — and how much effort we put into our practice — depends largely on how much sleep we got last night, how stressed we are, or what kind of day we’ve had.
There’s a better way to train and a better mindset to use with your swimming so you generate more consistent results in the pool both at practice and on race day.
Here’s a three-step mental strategy you can use to swim seriously fast this season:
- Build a process.
Swimming is a results-based business. We judge how we are doing with a very clear measuring stick, right down to hundredths of a second. With one quick look, we know whether we were successful.
We award medals based on results and not on how exceptional the routine and process used to get there was.
Because we focus so much on the outcome, we lose sight of the importance of having a powerful process. We will think long and hard about crafting an exact result but gloss over the process, usually sufficing with “I’m going to work really hard.”
An elite-level process that generates the elite-level results you so badly want goes deeper than working hard. It gives you quantifiable things to work on in practice. It escalates as you progress. And it leaves you feeling less stressed and anxious about your goals, which aren’t always completely in your control.
Working backward from your season goal, what are the things you will be doing each week and each day in training to make it happen?
Here’s a quick example:
A results-based goal would be: “I need to improve my underwater dolphin kick.”
A process-based goal gives you specific things to build on, such as: “I am going to do 10 minutes of vertical fly kick at the end of each swim practice and get Coach to time me for a 15-minute fast underwater each weekend to measure improvement.”
Go beyond wanting to be faster and write a process that will give you the confidence and focus necessary to achieve the results you want in the water.
- Write out the self-talk you use each day.
Do you ever stop to think about what kind of self-talk you use during the day? From the time you wake up, through your morning practice, over the rest of the day, into and through your night practice, you are carrying on with a narrative.
Some of the things you tell yourself are positive: “I can totally do this set.” And some are profoundly unhelpful: “There’s no way I can do that set. I’m not even going to bother trying.”
The reality is that your self-talk dictates your attitude and your response to adversity. Your self-talk, ultimately, decides your mindset.
Today at practice, try to neutralize some of that bad self-talk. I’m not talking about being overly cheery and optimistic — the goal isn’t blind optimism. The self-talk has to be realistic to be helpful.
Here are a couple of examples of how you can take the sting out of the self-talk that leads you to prematurely giving up on a tough set:
“There is no way I can do this whole-set butterfly.” → “It’s going to be really challenging, but I’ll try the first-round butterfly and take things from there.”
“The intervals for this set are going to be impossible.” → “I’ve never made this set of intervals before, but it would be pretty awesome if I did. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
Seriously, it’s that simple. The goal of better self-talk is to inch your effort upward and give you a chance to overcome the adversity with which you’ve been presented. It’s not about pretending the set isn’t going to be hard, but acknowledging the situation and starting anyway.
- Use visualization for better practices and swim meets.
Visualization is nothing new — swimmers like Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky have long used it as a tool to prepare for racing and to combat nerves and anxiety.
Like self-talk, visualization is something you are already doing, even if you don’t realize it. You’re doing it when you’re lying in bed the night before a big practice and imagining how much it’s going to hurt, or when you’re sitting in the bleachers a half-hour before your race and picturing everything that could go wrong when you step up on the block.
You are already using it, so you might as well put it to work for you.
Here are three ways you can use this to swim faster:
Before practices. Big set coming up later that day? Imagine yourself struggling and ultimately conquering it. Consider how good you will feel afterward.
During your workouts. Visualization has been found to be a more powerful psych-up tool than something like aggressive self-talk (“Come on, let’s do this!”). In the moments when you’re hanging out in the gutter between reps, quickly imagine the stroke and feel for the water you are trying to achieve. It will not only help you improve your technique but turbocharge your efforts in practice.
In competition. This is usually where swimmers and athletes use this tool. It can be a great way to lessen prerace anxiety — by imagining yourself feeling the nerves and swimming fast anyway, you feel as if you’ve “been there, done that” when you march out on deck. Mental imagery can simulate reps of the big race that help relax your anxiety a bit.
One of my favorite tips to maximize this technique is to have swimmers picture everybody in the stands, other swimmers on the pool deck, and the officials so that when they get on the block they aren’t as worried about performing in front of people.
The next step
Work backward from your dream race. Put together a daily process that hits all the areas where you need to improve.
Write out the self-talk you will use each day on your pull-buoy, kickboard, or the background of your smartphone.
Use visualization during your practice to reinforce better technique and give yourself a burst of jet fuel during those hard sets that tax you physically and mentally.
And go forth and conquer the water.
Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national-level swimmer and author of an “elite mental training skills” workbook for swimmers. You can learn more about “Conquer the Pool: The Swimmer’s Ultimate Guide to a High-Performance Mindset” at www.conquerthepool.com.
