The Mental Training Lane

Paul, I've written many swim faster faster tips on the mental aspects of swimming. From what you described you need to change your self talk. What you're saying to yourself and how you're saying it. Write a new script to say instead. 'Give up' ~~~> keep going 'ease up' ~~~> swim smart & stay steady 'quit' ~~~> begin, stay with it, you can do it 'breaststroke's coming up, why not stop?' ~~~~> 'breaststroke's coming up, let's go 'you suck' ~~~> you're great You probably also need to modify your behavior. In the past your training has been spotty. It's easier to think positively when you train consistently and have good swims in practice When coaching, keep yourself out of it and just say what each swimmer needs to hear. Ande has done a great job of having all the various physical aspects of swimming covered but I need help with the mental aspects. I'm really struggling with negative self-talk while I'm swimming. It feels like there's a huge jumbo-tron in my brain and messages are just running accross it non-stop while I'm swimming: 'Give up' 'ease up' 'quit' 'breaststroke's coming up, why not stop?' 'you suck' I'm having trouble getting this stream of consciousness to stop. Not only that but I feel like such a fraud with my kids when I'm coaching. I stand there and tell them to get tough mentally but I seem to have the mental fortitude of a Krispy Kreme. Not being able to 'get out of my head' seems to only happen when I swim. Help?

My problem lately has been getting to the pool consistently. I'm swimming four days per week most of the time, but there are definitely times when I plan to swim, but then find myself driving home instead (I swim after work). The strange thing is I'm always glad I swam after the workout is done, but after work I usually feel like I just want to take a nap rather than swimming. Any suggestions? Swimming before work is problematic because I like to be at the office (~30 minute drive) before 7:00 a.m. and I really don't want to get up any earlier than I already am.

Wolf, To a point, I can relate. I love to swim. I love to go to practice with my teammates or swim on my own. Since beginning of Sept., I have had zero desire to go to meets. I use to hate it when I would miss a chance to swim during the week. Since sept., if I missed a swim, it didn't bother me one bit. I have made goals for my favorite events and goals for events that I don't normally swim as away of getting more motivated. Yet, they don't seem to be working as well. I don't know if it is the nagging issue with my left arm/upper back or if I am just don't care right now. I think a large part is the issue with my left arm/back(wondering if I have pinched a nerve) The best I can offer you is exactly what I do. Each day that you want to swim, go swim. Swim has hard or as easy as you want too. Just enjoy the time in the water. Be 30 minutes or 90 minutes. This is what I do. I try to swim 5-6 times/week because I love swimming and being in the pool. Somedays I push myself. Somedays I just float my way through practices. Don't get too worked-up either way about your preformances and just enjoy being in the pool.

So, desire aside for a moment, does anyone use technique thinking during a race, or must one get to a point where the race-day must be an autopilot? Is it different for sprints vs. distance? On more than one occasion I've found myself thinking "high elbow, high elbow" in the last 25 of a 200 Free race. Autopilot would probably be far superior to talking to myself.

Everyone has that voice in the back of there head that at times tells us some variation on"you suck."There are several ways to deal with it and no one thing works for everyone or even all the time.Some find it helpful to just say to it "shut up." Positive imagery as Ande suggested is also often helpful.Some can just ignore it.One thing I suggest is to recognize it is really meaningless and that it is just something you do when stressed.I tell myself "there you go again,playing the old tapes,that doesn't make it true,it's just what you do when your stressed."

In some ways I am finding it a relief not to be able to swim right now in the way I am used to. For instance, I am not going to be trying to achieve my elusive 4000 yards for the one-hour swim. That's a relief. I get so nervous for that event because it means so much to me to hit 4000, when in fact it really means very little re my race times. I proofread and edit Buddhist books and one of them, by Pema Chodrin, talks about acknowledging the thought then moving on. I am far from being a Buddhist, but this particular strategy has helped me. I will think "tired," then look at the bottom of the pool and try to see pretty light, or I will think "angry" when I notice I am ruminating, or "competitive" when I am wanting to swim faster than people in my lane. Or "sad," "lonely," etc. You get the point. In my case I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform in the pool because it has been my best place of success (always relative). With no ability to swim more than 200 yards and slowly at that, I am just happy to get in the water. I will be happier when I can start to train hard again, but it is interesting to see how nice it feels to anticipate doing the one-hour swim hoping I can kick 600 yards and not cramp up, and looking forward to chatting with my counter and eating M&Ms. Sure, this is not about swimming fast or faster or fastest, but it is nice to take the pressure off myself for now, since I have no choice. Of course, on the other hand I am going crazy because I cannot swim the way I want to. But I learned the hard way at the beginning of the summer, when I wailed to someone about how it was going to be the same old same old, and then suddenly I lost my 20-year-old cat, my first pet, and my best friends moved to Singapore for 3 years, a long-term relationship ended, and then I had shoulder surgery and lost my main outlet for coping with life (swimming) or for terrifying myself into being "in the present" (sailing). It's hard not to want to do something that has meant so much in the past, so I empathize. Sometimes forcing yourself to the pool is all it takes, and sometimes it gets scary when that doesn't work. But if you can see that swimming makes you feel better generally, and being around teammates lifts your spirits generally, then perhaps you can focus on those two things and then use the workouts as a mood monitor, maybe even writing about it afterward, to see what might be going on that is derailing you. What words/statements come up the most, etc.? Maybe they don't have that much to do with swimming. Dr. Isobel Feel free to cross-ref this entry with "What's Your Swim Type?" in non-related swim section of forum to see if that helps. Remember, all the datable types are me. :)

On more than one occasion I've found myself thinking "high elbow, high elbow" in the last 25 of a 200 Free race. Autopilot would probably be far superior to talking to myself. I agree with you on this. I find that in my longer events (200 and up), there is ample time to tweak/maintain a technical mental thread (kind of like a checklist) as I plow throw each lap and the turns. However, when I get to the 50's, it's like all I can think about is turnover and maintaining an "even keel".

I think negative self talk sometimes comes about because people who strive to achieve and do well can put pretty high expectations on themselves. I don't believe this is a bad thing, but when you hit a dry spell where you don't/can't see any progress, it gets frustrating. I've hit sets in the past where I've berated myself for "wussing out" or not pushing as hard as I think I could have as well, but it's not been an all-the-time thing. On those days when I don't feel like swimming or lifting whatever, I'll try and go to the gym and at least go through the motions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Currently the thing that keeps me going is knowing that I can still improve technically, and if I can do that, perhaps I can go faster. I like this because I'm starting to see that engine building in my 40s is not as effective as it was in my teens. Another thing that gets me going is knowing that it's good exercise and the benefits will hopefully help me to continue doing stuff when I'm in my 50s, 60s, 70s… It's a tough issue and I'm sorry I don't have some good advice, but on some levels I can relate to what you're going through. Good luck. :banana:

I have struggled with the negative self-talk for years, since I swam competitively as a kid. I have always looked back and wondered why I didn't swim better than I did, and I think the negative self-talk was a big part of the reason. I have decided that I am tired of having my head hold me back, and I have really been working on not being that person anymore. The last time I went to a meet (last spring, I don't compete often), I said, OK -- I am not going to sabotage myself, I am going to get psyched, I am going to tell myself that I CAN do this. I just don't want to be that person anymore. And it worked well -- all of my times dropped. So, it can be done. If I, the queen of the negative self-talkers, can do it, so can you. It hits me in practice, too -- I am still fighting it. But things that help me are focusing on the interval at hand, rather than the whole set. Tell yourself that you will do this one bit well, and don't think about the rest. Lately I have been working on not obsessing over how hard I am breathing -- instead of thinking "I'm really tired, I need to rest," I try just to get my breath under control and just swim strong. I figure it's a mind over matter thing. But as I said, I am still a work in progress. Keep fighting it -- it's worth the fight.

My problem lately has been getting to the pool consistently. I'm swimming four days per week most of the time, but there are definitely times when I plan to swim, but then find myself driving home instead (I swim after work). The strange thing is I'm always glad I swam after the workout is done, but after work I usually feel like I just want to take a nap rather than swimming. Any suggestions? Swimming before work is problematic because I like to be at the office (~30 minute drive) before 7:00 a.m. and I really don't want to get up any earlier than I already am. You might try swimming just three days a week, but tell yourself that those three days are not optional. This is just what you do, you go to your job, and then on the days you've picked out -- likely Mon, Wed, Fri, you will just go swim. I am not explaining this well, but I find that makes it easier to just make the commitment to myself and to go regardless. If you make it Mon, Wed, Fri it's a little easier to do that because you are never going to the pool two days in a row and so it always feels like it's been awhile since you've been swimming. There's not that "I'm at the friggin pool all the time" feeling. Then maybe after you've been doing that for awhile you'll feel more positive about going to your workouts and can sneak that fourth one back in.