I started swimming competitively at age 8, and for nearly that long have had the same issue: I swim pretty fast in practice, but when it comes to meets, my results are not so spectacular. I find that the people who swim in my lane during swim workouts all get times 5-10 seconds faster (on sprints to mid-distance), than I do. I kind of avoided pool swimming and did open water for a while, but recently swam and the same issue is still there.
I don't feel like I get overly anxious about my swim events. At least not enough to hurt performance, and I usually have enough rest and food, etc. beforehand. It's less of an issue with distance swims - which makes me think that there's a switch turned off my brain that would make me really 'work it' when in a competition.
Any suggestions? :confused:
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Former Member
hmmm not nearly a suggestion, just maybe little anecdote.
Once a 14yo lady who is used to confess to me (I am not coaching her directly, but I coach in the same team), come at me and complains about the same thing. She's a 400-800 specialist, stuck in this vicious circle.
Knowing that this lady had a personal swimmer's profile of a pure distance swimmer rather than a true mid distance swimmer, here's what was my recommendation to her (again, that is not a recommendation for you, every one is different and I don't know you as I knew her):
I said Lady. At this meet you have this weekend. During the warmup, try to disappear. Put your bathing cap the other way so that we don't distinguish Team's logo. Because I do not want your coach (my boss) to see you doing this.
Get into your own lane, and perform a 10x400 freestyle moderate to high pace (instead of the usual soft and safe warmup). Build some speed through it. Build some confidence. In other words, don't only warmup and then sit on the deck waiting for your nightmare, train like usual and have fun.
She swam her best on both events that weekend (she would usually swim her PBs during training sessions). And fortunately for me, my boss didn't notice anyting (pfffeww).
In her, case, I turned a competition into a training session. This 10x400 has had the consequence of putting her in a training type of state of mind. Since she was a distance swimmer really (she did Magog, a 40k world cup event the year after at age 15), this 4k broken into 400s has had no bad consequence on her ability to perform her to events at her best.
And psychological factors put aside, I think that her aerobic metabolism truly needed a high dose of volume to get to operate at its optimal rate.
hmmm not nearly a suggestion, just maybe little anecdote.
Once a 14yo lady who is used to confess to me (I am not coaching her directly, but I coach in the same team), come at me and complains about the same thing. She's a 400-800 specialist, stuck in this vicious circle.
Knowing that this lady had a personal swimmer's profile of a pure distance swimmer rather than a true mid distance swimmer, here's what was my recommendation to her (again, that is not a recommendation for you, every one is different and I don't know you as I knew her):
I said Lady. At this meet you have this weekend. During the warmup, try to disappear. Put your bathing cap the other way so that we don't distinguish Team's logo. Because I do not want your coach (my boss) to see you doing this.
Get into your own lane, and perform a 10x400 freestyle moderate to high pace (instead of the usual soft and safe warmup). Build some speed through it. Build some confidence. In other words, don't only warmup and then sit on the deck waiting for your nightmare, train like usual and have fun.
She swam her best on both events that weekend (she would usually swim her PBs during training sessions). And fortunately for me, my boss didn't notice anyting (pfffeww).
In her, case, I turned a competition into a training session. This 10x400 has had the consequence of putting her in a training type of state of mind. Since she was a distance swimmer really (she did Magog, a 40k world cup event the year after at age 15), this 4k broken into 400s has had no bad consequence on her ability to perform her to events at her best.
And psychological factors put aside, I think that her aerobic metabolism truly needed a high dose of volume to get to operate at its optimal rate.
