Golden Goals: Setting New Year’s Swimming Resolutions for 2025
After 12 months of hard work in the pool, 2024 has finally come to a close. Whether it’s been a successful year or not, the end of the year often represents a time to reflect. Research from the University of Oregon suggests that setting “specific and challenging” goals over the new year leads to “reduced attention lapses and improved performance.” But what qualifies as a “specific and challenging” goal in the swimming world? And how can they be pursued effectively? Here are some effective new year’s goals for the pool.
Endurance Goals
For most swimmers, the turn of the year comes at one of the most crucial times in the training cycle. The holidays are often a time for the most difficult training of the season, preparing you to withstand swimming’s most difficult races and taking your conditioning to the next level. This makes it a great time to set goals for endurance, with every practice challenging your aerobic capacity.
Maybe you struggle to keep up with the interval during freestyle sets. A great new year’s goal could be to begin making these intervals consistently, something that can be achieved through consistent practice and training. Maybe you find yourself having to take breaks during sets due to cramping or conditioning struggles. A goal could be to eliminate these breaks and work through the practice. All of these “resolutions” could help improve practice habits and, therefore, performance as the year progresses.
Technical Goals
While improving endurance represents one way to improve performance, it’s far from the only way to get better results in the pool. Setting goals for improvements on technique is essential toward success. And with just two months left until championship season, now is the time to start, giving you room to establish the habit.
Here are two types of technique goals, both incredibly beneficial. One is changing specific pieces of your stroke, such as improving head position in butterfly or rotation in freestyle. Even Olympians have flaws in their strokes, and improving them always leads to a greater efficiency in the water. The other type of technique goal is maintaining current technique during difficult sets. As mentioned, winter training generally presents a greater aerobic challenge. This makes it harder to maintain “good habits” in the water, as swimmers’ technique often breaks down under duress. Maintaining little technical aspects during hard sets, like finishing your breaststroke kick during a difficult IM set, goes a long way toward improvement.
Mental Goals
Swim races are commonly seen as being won in the water. But a huge part of swimming, like any sport, is handling the mental side. Whether it’s preparation for the races ahead, or dealing with challenges in competition, mental stability is crucial to success within the sport. The new year provides an opportunity to set new goals in this area of the sport as well, increasing your preparedness for championship meets. Perhaps you can’t find a pre-race routine that works for you while standing behind the block. A goal could be finding a custom here, whether it’s listening to music, wearing certain clothes, or any other ritual.
Mental goals can also go hand-in-hand with recovery. A mental goal could be to try meditation, or to get more sleep over the latter half of the season, factors which could improve your mental preparedness for racing. Although not as directly impactful, mental goals also go a long way toward improvement in the water.
With the new year upon us, new opportunities await. But whether it’s aerobically, technically, or mentally, it’s important to challenge yourself in order to find success. 2025 could be an unforgettable year in the pool for you, through resolving to new heights in all aspects of the sport.