The 90 Day Experiment

Nationals is almost 90 days away so I wanted to encourage y'all to try the The 90 Day Experiment www.usms.org/.../showpost.php the training and choices we make now have a big influence over how we'll do at Nats hope it helps you get ready Ande Swim Faster Faster: Tip 56 The 90 Day Experiment Your potential to swim faster faster could astound you. Your potential is what you are really capable of. Most of us wind up settling for far less than what we could have been. What would happen if you chose one event and perfectly prepared for it for 90 days? 90 days gives you enough time to train hard and taper. It gives you enough time to make remarkable improvements which are likely to create significant results. What if you did every thing right? What if you prepared for that swim as perfectly as you possibly could? What if you: + Got a great coach + Got in a great program + Stayed healthy and injury free + Perfected your body and weighed your ideal weight + Ate a healthy diet and drank plenty of water + Improved your strength and conditioning + Trained in the pool 6 days a week, harder, faster, and further than ever before. What if you perfectly split each fast swim in practice? What if you pushed yourself to your true limits rather than what you think you're capable of? + Got plenty of sleep each night and woke up rested and ready to train + Perfected your stroke technique + Perfectly planned your season, when to train, when to taper + Mastered the mental aspects Goals, Plans, Action, motivation, ideal performance state, self image, acting as if, handling fatigue and pain, are a few + Always got to practice on time and never missed a practice? + Had good luck in your final race, where the little things fell in your favor? Like a fast start, hit all your turns, perfectly split your race + what else? What's missing from this list? What if you did every aspect of your preparation for your event as perfectly as possible? I say you would be astounded by how much you improved Your time in your event would prove your improvement. But the reality is, we fall far from perfection, things go wrong all the time I encourage you to strive for perfection and do the best you can. Here is the simple truth. How well you PERFORM depends upon how well you PREPARE. Try perfect preparation for a day, then a week, then try a month. Then try it for 90 days and reap the results. I hope you astound yourself. Here's what you need to do: 1) Commit to 90 day experiement, pull out your calendar and decide when to start and when it will end. 2) Test yourself in that event on day zero, the day before you begin the 90-day experiment. What time did you swim it in? How did you split it? How did it feel? 3) Set a goal, write a plan and follow it each day. Perfectly prepare for 90 days 4) At the end of 90 days Test yourself again, preferably in a meet. What's your time? How did you split it? How much did you improve? How did it feel? If you don't have time for a 90 day experiment, try 15, 30, 45, 60, or 75 days instead. go for it, and if you do please let me know how it went. Wishing you the best of luck.
  • Sounds like a great plan. Let us know how it works.
  • excellent you're welcome I look forward to hearing how you do ande I've started my experiment back at 120 days, including squeezing extra training time in, laying out a plan, focusing on breaststroke, setting March 1st at DAM to make my qualifying times, and then perfecting by nationals; already I've made great progress, renovated my stroke technique, greatly improved endurance, getting feedback from everyone here (more always welcome) and I'm pumped and focused - I'll let you know how it goes as I keep pushing for more and better from myself; your self-motivational prompts are an inspiration, Ande - thanks!
  • I started mine back in August and I am already seeing the rewards. Now I am kicking it up an additional notch by moving out of my comfort zone and actually trying to keep up with the really fast kids in my workout group atleast 3-4 days per week even if I have to use fins to keep up.
  • Need suggestions on where to send the kids for 90 days...for those 8 hours of sleep. :yawn: Really! There needs to be boarding school in this 90 day plan. Are you serious about focusing on just one event? Are you giving advice about each event? :laugh2:
  • I just copied it out of my swim Faster Faster thread and didn't edit it It's more sensible to train for several events why not get your moneys worth when you go to nats But If you train for one event and improve you're very likely to improve in your other events ie if I get faster in the 50 fr by default my 50 fl, 50 bk, 100's and even 50 br should be faster to what's your one best event? Really! There needs to be boarding school in this 90 day plan. Are you serious about focusing on just one event? Are you giving advice about each event? :laugh2:
  • But If you train for one event and improve you're very likely to improve in your other events ie if I get faster in the 50 fr by default my 50 fl, 50 bk, 100's and even 50 br should be faster to what's your one best event? I'm not sure. I'm usually ranked highest in the 50 back. However, I believe I am better at LC sprints than SCY sprints. What I'd love most to improve in is the 100 fly. I have a sentimental attachment to that event as it was my best event a zillion years ago.
  • Really! There needs to be boarding school in this 90 day plan. No foolin'... Our third (and last!) is a senior this year. While I will miss him in some ways when he goes off to school, in some other ways I won't miss him a bit. I'm sure you other folks with teenagers know what I mean. My wife and a friend came up with the idea of creating a teenage "bouncer" service, so you could go away assure in the knowledge that your teenager wasn't having crazy parties while you were away. Skip
  • I pretty much did this experiment last year, though due to illness it was a 63 day rather than 90 day experiment (9 weeks up until the IL State meet). I cared about, and focussed on, one event only: the 100 free. Though I only made it to 3 practices a week, I 6-beat kicked all the time at practice; if the coach said sprint, I sprinted; if I was getting tired I imagined it was the last lap of the 100 free and I couldn't give up, etc etc. I ended up going lifetime bests in the 50, 100, 200 free and the 100 IM. The lifetime bests I broke were from 2002 for the frees and 1998 for the IM. It's safe to say I was a tad bit obsessed with the 100 free last season... and probably continue to be so... At the meet this past Sunday, my 2-1/2 year old was running around wearing a pair of goggles. I asked her, "What stroke are you going to race?" I expected an answer like, "butterfly" or, more likely, "scoops" (what they call freestyle arms/doggie paddle at her kiddie lessons). Instead she looked straight at me and said, "the 100 free." :)
  • I started mine back in August and I am already seeing the rewards. Now I am kicking it up an additional notch by moving out of my comfort zone and actually trying to keep up with the really fast kids in my workout group atleast 3-4 days per week even if I have to use fins to keep up. Donna, based on the time drops you are having, you are ROCKIN' this experiment! Way to go, and hope to meet you at Nationals!
  • Former Member
    Former Member
    + what else? What's missing from this list? Need suggestions on where to send the kids for 90 days...for those 8 hours of sleep. :yawn: