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:
My eldest son was much the same way. He would work hard in workout and go fast, but come a meet he would be faster, but not by much. Both his high school and club coach got together to discuss the issue and came up with the solution of a longer warm-up. In fact, he would still be warming up five minutes before the 200 or 500 free. He was just a kid who needed the extra warm-up to go fast. The longer the warm-up the better he would do.
Me, I might be a distance person, but I do not need a warm-up to go fast. A warm-up helps, but it is a short one less than yards.
My eldest son was much the same way. He would work hard in workout and go fast, but come a meet he would be faster, but not by much. Both his high school and club coach got together to discuss the issue and came up with the solution of a longer warm-up. In fact, he would still be warming up five minutes before the 200 or 500 free. He was just a kid who needed the extra warm-up to go fast. The longer the warm-up the better he would do.
Me, I might be a distance person, but I do not need a warm-up to go fast. A warm-up helps, but it is a short one less than yards.
