Saturday Notes and Discussion on "Steering the Ship"

Both 6am and 8am Saturday practices offered plenty of opportunity for learning for the National group athletes.  

We had some great performances as well!  Our breaststroke group at 8am was very good, with Matt leading the way going lots of 34s throughout the set.  Wyatt and Alex were in the 35-37 range.  I remember when 37-39 was our normal range strong swims at practice, with an occasional 35.9-36.9 in there at times; now we’ve got a number of guys who can hold in the 36 second range with good-looking strokes.

How do we know the stroke is good?  Matt was doing his 50s at 28 strokes, which is a few under his 2^nd 50 racing stroke count (his best swim second 50 is 33 strokes).  So he is basically doing something equal to his best 2^nd 50 for his 100, and he’s doing it with 5 less strokes.  He is keeping one variable about equal to the norm (his time), but he’s moving forward on another equally important variable (his stroke rate) – by taking less strokes.  It would also be ok to keep the stroke count the same as it is in the competition, while going faster. 

Our 150s at the 6 AM practice were led by Jack, Paolo, and Cole.  Jack and Cole were going 136-137s, and Paolo was holding 138-139s.  Emma and Karen were holding between 144 and 140, which is great training for aspiring distance swimmers. 

I thought one of the best parts about the workouts was that we had a few athletes who didn’t start off very good, but figured out a way to get better and salvage a good workout.  Maybe not a great workout, but a good workout.  I’ve seen plenty of workouts thrown away in my coaching career and I can tell you that the poor workouts that turn into the good workouts are just as valuable as the good workouts that turn into great workouts.  Why?  The answer doesn’t reside in the statistics of the athlete (how many seconds the athlete improved for their 100s in practice); the answer is found in the athlete having turned their experience in a different, more effective direction.  This is important because we, as people and as athletes, are not capable of continually performing actions that are 100% inline with our own expectations, and at times we can eventually get to our goal if only we keep striving towards the goal.  We give up early too often, and sometimes we want to give up before we even get started!  We have to be able to abide by this key sport’s psychology rule: don’t look for perfection in your performance; instead be steady enough in your pursuit where you can feel the “bumps in the road” without letting those bumps convince you that you’re off-track. 

Consider Michael Phelps’ 200 Fly Gold Medal swim from Beijing.  Anyone who was around Michael during that time thought 149 was possible, based off his training, and even through he was winning there were people on the sidelines wondering why he looked so “off”.  Turns out, he had a significant goggle leak.  Not a problem for Michael.  He was tough enough mentally that although the leak hindered him, it didn’t stop him. 

Another great story was Dara Torres’ performance in the 1984 Olympic Trials.  She didn’t get off the blocks on time – I’d have to go the video but I think she was leaning in the wrong direction.  She came back to get second and make the team.  Apparently, to those who saw it – it was pretty incredible.

Check out this video of Jason Lezak talking about changing his mind state during the race in the 2008 Olympics, as he came back to touch-out the highly favored French team:  Jason Lezak talking about blocking about Negative thoughts during competition

This is called "Steering the Ship".  You simply won't have things go the way you've planned every time you hit the water.  Sometimes you will, but often you won't.  How big of a heart do you have?  When the going gets tough, can you respond?

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO if you have 1:29 and you want to hear an experience about exactly what I'm talking about!  

Have a great weekend everyone!