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:
Parents
Former Member
You just might be able to really turn it on in practice, and thus your time drops in competition are less than normal. This seems to be true for the faster swimmers in this forum, they train faster in practice, go fast in meets, but the difference between meet times and practice times are smaller than someone who practices less frequently or with less intensity.
As for distance events, why would there be a big difference between competition and practice? The environment is not different enough to justify a huge time difference.
There is also a male/female bias to time drops I have seen. A female that can train as hard as I can cannot go as fast as I can in anything below a 500. As distance increase, this bias seems to fade. If you are comparing your drops to male swimmers drops, it really is apples to oranges.
Warm up is another thing to consider. Can you swim fast at the beginning of practice, or are you really getting going the second half of practice. I have trained with people who could stretch a little on deck and be ready to swim fast and others who needed a couple thousand warm up to get ready to go.
To summarize, I don't think you have a problem to fix, it is just that you train fast. If you want big time drops between practice and meets, start slacking off in practice.
You just might be able to really turn it on in practice, and thus your time drops in competition are less than normal. This seems to be true for the faster swimmers in this forum, they train faster in practice, go fast in meets, but the difference between meet times and practice times are smaller than someone who practices less frequently or with less intensity.
As for distance events, why would there be a big difference between competition and practice? The environment is not different enough to justify a huge time difference.
There is also a male/female bias to time drops I have seen. A female that can train as hard as I can cannot go as fast as I can in anything below a 500. As distance increase, this bias seems to fade. If you are comparing your drops to male swimmers drops, it really is apples to oranges.
Warm up is another thing to consider. Can you swim fast at the beginning of practice, or are you really getting going the second half of practice. I have trained with people who could stretch a little on deck and be ready to swim fast and others who needed a couple thousand warm up to get ready to go.
To summarize, I don't think you have a problem to fix, it is just that you train fast. If you want big time drops between practice and meets, start slacking off in practice.
