Saturday, January 30, 2010

Winning and losing –

Winning and losing –

Ever notice the difference in the reaction of a winner of a race, and the 2nd place person? Winners seem to have the extra energy to fist pump, point fingers to the stands, have ear to ear smiles, congratulate their opponents, and even give interviews!

Second place people hang their heads, pout, slouch over the lane-line as if they swam twice as far. They have long sad faces, as if they ate an onion, and never get interviewed!

Both put tremendous effort and skills into the same race. Which one do you want to be?

To enjoy swimming at a high level is to conquer the many details of practicing and racing every chance you get. It all begins with a positive outlook on what you want and how you are going to get there. Key words like – I want, I like, I can, I will must possess you brain on a consistent basis in order to begin you positive journey to swimming excellence.

Champions train, compete, and expect hard efforts everyday. Easy is out of the equation. They may take a simple detail of a race - for instance a dolphin kick on a dive, and repeat it everyday until the desired result is achieve. They know that improving this technique might make them 1-2 one hundreds faster and allow them to win a race. Champions love improving details, and enjoy working hard to get there.

Picture 2 swimmers at practice of equal ability. Both have a set of 10 x 25 fly on 40 seconds.

Swimmer 1 says “I love improving fly; I want to get better at dolphin kicking, I can beat everyone here, I will race each 25!” Love – want – can – will.

Swimmer 2 says “I hate fly; underwater kicking is hard; I can’t hold my breath, I won’t make it, it’s too tiring!” Hate – hard – cant- won’t.

Which swimmer will benefit the most from this set? As you can see, winning and losing habits are beginning to form. Attitude is everything! What you say is what you get!

How do you approach practices, practice sets, your worst stroke, meet races?
Will you be pouting and hanging on the lane-line?
Will you be jubilant and giving interviews?

Winning and losing is UP TO YOU!!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

New Year Resolution!

Happy New Year! This is the season for those New Year Resolutions. One problem with resolutions is that they usually don’t become reality. It’s not that your resolution isn’t worthwhile, but like most other resolutions, most people don‘t follow up on them, which is the most important part of the process.

Heath clubs make a killing during this time as lots of people vow to get in shape during the New Year, spend lots of money in memberships, and then stop showing up. It can be exciting for the first few visits, but getting in shape boils down to establishing a new routine and putting in a lot of hard work. It is easy to find reasons not to follow up and have your body ache every day. Old routines are easy and don’t hurt as much!

Like the health club situation, improving your swimming skills require a new routine and hard work. It is much easier to do things only when your coach asks you to do it. The most difficult par is to do I when they coach isn’t watching or asking you to work on it.

It takes only 2-4 weeks to create a new routine. Can you imagine the rewards if you acquired all the skills your coach showed you? How many seconds could you save?
Michael Phelps would stand a chance!

Simple steps to acquiring a new skill
1 – Picture what you would look like
2 – Write it down
3 – Take action – do it every opportunity
4 – Evaluate you progress
5 – Enjoy the new you