The old discussion format left dangling an interesting topic suggested by Paul Smith in the rather excellent Distance vs Sprint thread started by Jim Thornton. The topic being that of the mental side of training/competition.
My own selfish interest in this area would be on the mental preparation for 50yds/m competition. Obviously there is not much time to do a great amount of thinking during this event (one of the benefits of 50's) but you need to go into the race with some limited number of important thoughts to concentrate on while swimming. Kind of like 'swing thoughts' in golf (my cross over training sport). As in golf, muscle memory will play a large part in not having to think about everything involved.
I wonder if Paul or any others would care to share what those few key race thoughts might be, from the start, swim and turn through to the finish? And would there be any mental aspects to training for a 50 that might be different from distance training?
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As usual, thx Bert for some useful good crisp racing advice. (Bert, if I ever kick your hindey in fly, the credit will be all yours - your hindey is pretty safe, however, never having swum this stroke in my youth, fly remains somewhat of a mystery to me)
Definitely not wanting to divert from the interesting topic of tactics (for all events longer than 42 seconds, I have learnt) but given the lack of forthcoming mental training advice, I thought I would describe what we are currently receiving in the mental training department and invite comments.
I have to say the concept of mental training was new and intriguing to me but then training certainly has changed since I swam 40 odd years ago. We never had any 'mental training' (nor did we have drills, intervals or much else either); we just had another beer for our mental health and fortitude or went surfing (or both).
As far as I can establish, the only mental training I currently get on my team is trying to "get" the sets announced by the coach at our two morning sessions. This can be tough at 7am before having had a coffee. Up until arriving at the pool, as little as possible mental activity takes place; any thinking at all would send any reasonable person back to bed.
Allow me to illustrate a typical team mental training set:
"The main set this morning will be 6 x 250….
1) 4 x 25 fly / 50 fly / 100free
2) 3 x 25 back / 50 back / 50 *** / 125 free
3) and so on…"(maybe at this point our Mensa members have spotted the pattern)
"The 25's will be 'build' on 30, work the middle sets on 60 and the free is at 1500 race pace" (as if I would know what that was - I suppose this has to be somehow calculated in your head).
"The 250's are on 3:55" (to make it 4minutes would severely diminish the mental training benefits, I imagine)
"We leave on the green top in 5 seconds….go!" (this is a ploy by the coach to prevent negotiation for more rest time between 250's - needed only to determine the composition of the next 250 of course)
Other mental training involves having to build the 'odds' while descending the 'evens' but, at the same time, decreasing or increasing intervals by 5 seconds each repeat. Not forgetting, of course, that certain components of the set have to be in reverse IM order.
The best way to avoid mental overtraining is to have a genius ahead of you in your lane and hope that you make the interval with enough time to ask what's next. (I have found that 35 year olds and younger are quite good at serving this purpose; you just have to find one slow enough to be in your lane) This is especially important if you do not have prescription goggles and the coach writes the set on the white board with a fading yellow marker.
If we had better mental training, would it be possible to get these sets first time?
As usual, thx Bert for some useful good crisp racing advice. (Bert, if I ever kick your hindey in fly, the credit will be all yours - your hindey is pretty safe, however, never having swum this stroke in my youth, fly remains somewhat of a mystery to me)
Definitely not wanting to divert from the interesting topic of tactics (for all events longer than 42 seconds, I have learnt) but given the lack of forthcoming mental training advice, I thought I would describe what we are currently receiving in the mental training department and invite comments.
I have to say the concept of mental training was new and intriguing to me but then training certainly has changed since I swam 40 odd years ago. We never had any 'mental training' (nor did we have drills, intervals or much else either); we just had another beer for our mental health and fortitude or went surfing (or both).
As far as I can establish, the only mental training I currently get on my team is trying to "get" the sets announced by the coach at our two morning sessions. This can be tough at 7am before having had a coffee. Up until arriving at the pool, as little as possible mental activity takes place; any thinking at all would send any reasonable person back to bed.
Allow me to illustrate a typical team mental training set:
"The main set this morning will be 6 x 250….
1) 4 x 25 fly / 50 fly / 100free
2) 3 x 25 back / 50 back / 50 *** / 125 free
3) and so on…"(maybe at this point our Mensa members have spotted the pattern)
"The 25's will be 'build' on 30, work the middle sets on 60 and the free is at 1500 race pace" (as if I would know what that was - I suppose this has to be somehow calculated in your head).
"The 250's are on 3:55" (to make it 4minutes would severely diminish the mental training benefits, I imagine)
"We leave on the green top in 5 seconds….go!" (this is a ploy by the coach to prevent negotiation for more rest time between 250's - needed only to determine the composition of the next 250 of course)
Other mental training involves having to build the 'odds' while descending the 'evens' but, at the same time, decreasing or increasing intervals by 5 seconds each repeat. Not forgetting, of course, that certain components of the set have to be in reverse IM order.
The best way to avoid mental overtraining is to have a genius ahead of you in your lane and hope that you make the interval with enough time to ask what's next. (I have found that 35 year olds and younger are quite good at serving this purpose; you just have to find one slow enough to be in your lane) This is especially important if you do not have prescription goggles and the coach writes the set on the white board with a fading yellow marker.
If we had better mental training, would it be possible to get these sets first time?
