Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
By Wayne Goldsmith
Happy (swimming) New Year… and here’s your first New Year’s Resolution: “I will read this article about the 5 Best Swimming Tips for 2015”.
If you woke up this morning and decided “this year is my year”: “this is the year when all my swimming dreams become my swimming realities” – then this article is probably the most important thing you’ll read all year.
Here’s the “Five in 201-Five” – the 5 Best Swimming Tips for 2015:
1. See the swimmer you want to be, to be the swimmer you want to see:
They call a “vision” a “vision” because you can see it.
Start the year with a clear “vision”: a clear image in your mind about what you want to achieve in swimming over 2015 and what success “looks like” for you.
Close your eyes. Take a few slow, deep, relaxing breaths and now imagine you one year from today.
What do you see?
A stronger, more powerful, faster and more committed you who strives for success in everything you do, everyday, in and out of the pool?
Or do you see the same old you who just turns up at the pool, does a few laps and hopes for the best.
Every great success story starts with a dream and with the thought…“what if”.
Make this the year when you dream big and the year you make those dreams become reality through your consistent hard work, commitment and dedication in and out of the water.
If you can dream it – and you can “see it” – you can be it.
2. Start the way you want to finish:
And the first step to achieving your swimming dreams in 2015 is to start the way you want to finish.
Right from the first workout – the first lap – the first dive, make the decision to start this year the way you want to finish this year.
If you want to finish the year as a national level swimmer, then right from the first dive at the beginning of the first workout for 2015, dive, streamline, underwater-kick and breakout like a national level swimmer.
To become a swimmer at the next level, think like, talk like and act like you are already there.
Make the decision – make the commitment that right from the get-go, you will train like the swimmer you want to be.
3. Don’t count the laps: make every lap count:
Every lap is an opportunity to improve something: to streamline a little tighter, to kick a little faster, to breakout a little more powerfully, to stroke with a little more pressure on the water…..every lap is a chance to get better.
It’s easy to think in terms of counting laps or yards or metres but to achieve your swimming goals a lot sooner, start counting moments.
A simple way to make every lap count, is to think of the word “This” every time you dive in or push-off.
Think “this lap” or “this stroke” or “this kick”: the word “this” keeps you in the moment and keeps you focused on doing what you need to do to improve right now.
4. One quarter of an inch a day:
“Pinch” your thumb and fore-finger together so that the tips are about one quarter inch apart.
Take a good, long look at that quarter-inch because it’s the real secret to your swimming success in 2015.
One of the reasons so few people keep to their New Year’s Swimming Resolutions is that they get intimated by the enormity of the total task.
A goal like “I want to take two seconds (roughly four feet) off my PR this year” is a daunting prospect if you think about all those two seconds all at once as one single goal.
All you really need to do is to aim to improve one quarter inch each day. Do you think you can do that? Of course you can!
Because to a swimmer in regular training – for example, a swimmer swimming three to four sessions a week – a quarter of an inch a day is about an inch of improvement each week.
That’s about four inches of improvement a month: a full foot of improvement every three months and – believe it or not – that’s a four feet better you this time next year….that’s two seconds off your PR!
Goals are important: after all, a goal is dream with a deadline.
A goal like “I want to take two seconds off my PR” is a great goal. But an even better goal is to aim to improve just one quarter inch at every workout. It’s realistic, it’s simple and it’s infinitely achievable.
5. Success comes in Cans.
And perhaps the best of the 5 Best Swimming Tips for 2015 is for you to start believing in you.
When you stand on the blocks at the beginning of every workout you have choice to make: the choice between thinking “I can” or “I can’t”.
It takes the same amount of time and energy to think “I can” or “I can’t” but the impact on your mind and body is vastly different.
When you’re standing on the blocks ready to start your first workout for 2015, with the “vision” of the swimmer you want to be firmly fixed in your mind, say the words “I can do this”.
Make these four words your “default” mindset.
Coach sets you a new challenge: “I can do this”.
Coach teaches you a new drill or technique: “I can do this”.
You need to do something in training you’ve never done before: “I can do this”.
You’ll be surprised, amazed and immensely satisfied once you realise that your success comes in “Cans”.
Make 2015 the year to feel really alive!
