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Posts Tagged ‘Mental Skills and Attitudes’

Talent ID in Swimming: the Talent Pool!

Talent is Harder to Hide than it is to Find.

 

When looking for the characteristics, traits and abilities that may indicate a swimmer’s talent, the most obvious things to look for are the physical ones.

However, swimmers with real physical talent are harder to hide than they are to find!

How many times have you been to a Swim Meet and seen the ten year old who is built like a fifteen year old blitz the opposition and break the Meet record? Finding physical talent in very talented swimmers is like telling people you discovered the Pacific Ocean-someone was going to find it sooner or later – hiding it would have been a far greater challenge!

And…ultimately, physical talent is only one indicator - and not a particularly good one - of performance potential.

 

It’s more than merely muscle.

Real talent is a far more complex thing than merely muscles, tendons, nerves, blood and ligaments. It’s an integration of mind, body and spirit: a combination of physical, mental, technical, tactical, genetic, cultural and personality factors that come together in a pair of swimming costumes that may one day break the World record or win the Olympic Gold Medal.

 

So what are the Top Ten Talent ID Techniques for Swimming: how do you find the most talented swimmers in the talent pool?:

1. Parents – (genetic material): choose your parents carefully;
2. Parents- a supporting, loving, caring environment, where parents or carers provide a swimmer’s core needs in nutrition, time management, sleep, rest, education and family support;
3. The Ability to learn fast – learn more in a shorter period of time = faster progression and improvement;
4. The Ability to deal with difficulty, adversity and change – the path to greatness is never straight or smooth. Many Olympic Gold medalists have had to endure set-backs, surgery, illness and disappointment and fight hard to achieve their dreams;
5. Physical talent- you have to have at least one “weapon” – speed, size, strength, power, flexibility….having at least one physical gift is useful;
6. Self confidence / self belief – they can who believe they can;
7. Passion – the love of swimming is the driving force of so many great swimmers and great swimming performances;
8. The ability to get along with other people - swimming is an individual sport wrapped up in a team environment. The ability to work well with team-mates in often tough, hard, high pressure situations, e.g when touring with a representative team, is a critical skill and a much under-estimated talent;
9. The ability to keep a sense of humour and balance about life – after all it is only swimming and you are so much more than just a swimmer;
10. Time availability – whilst not strictly a measure of talent, the amount of time available to train, prepare, rest, recover and compete are critical determinants of the level of swimming you can achieve.

Or if you like…

• Talent is….
• Attitude to train to your full potential everyday;
• Love of the sport;
• Enthusiasm – particularly in the tough times;
• Nurturing – unconditional love and support at home from a family who cares;
• Toughness – being able to persevere and keep giving your best when your feel so tired you can barely lift your arms;
• Inherited characteristics – choose your parents carefully;
• Desire – never give up.

 

Putting it all together.

So when looking in the talent pool for talent in the pool, keep your eyes, ears, heart and mind open.

It’s a lot more than just being the biggest, the strongest, the tallest or the fastest…..talent is a total package: a combination of factors that, when combined with consistent hard work, dedication, commitment and an uncompromising devotion to perfect preparation, turns potential into performance.

Wayne Goldsmith

The Last Race

For every swimmer there will be one last race.

One time when you hit the wall, look up at the score board, see “Jones, P   1:03.07” for the last time. Or “Lane 6 56.83”. Or “Lane  3 – 2:45.71”

And in that one moment, how do you want to remember your swimming career?

And in that one moment, how do you want to be remembered as a swimmer?

And in that one moment and throughout the next 50, 60, 70 years…..what will you remember about swimming? 

What will all those early mornings, long sessions, tough gym workouts and competitions mean? Read more

A.T. – does it stand for Anaerobic Threshold or A Total Waste of Time?

A.T. – what does it stand for?

Anaerobic Threshold? Yep – for senior athletes, elite swimmers, swimmers 13 years of age and older – absolutely.

For swimmers 12 and under what does A.T. stand for? A Total waste of time. Read more

The W Word: Winning.

Winning. Winning. Winning. There, I said it.

That felt good. I’ll say it again. Winning.

That felt so good I’ll do it again. Winning!!

It’s time we made the “W” word fashionable again. Read more

Speed development workouts – five of the best speed workout sets to have you burning up the lanes!

Gennadi Touretski– coach of legendary Russian speedster Alex Popov once said, “speed is the most precious thing in swimming – in the end it is what we are all about – it is what we are all trying to achieve”.

There are no gold medals or world records for the person who can swim the slowest or swim with the best technique or with the strongest kick or who has the best heart rate. There are no gold medals for the swimmer who wears the most expensive swim suit (at least not any more!).

There are no gold medals for the person who can lift the most weights or who has the best hairdo – winning is all about speed. Read more

The Engagement Factor – the essential element in designing training sets and swimming workouts.

In my last post, I introduced the P.A.C.E. system – a simple, easy to use, practical way of managing training intensity in young age group swimmers.

P.A.C.E. System Level	Description	Feels like	Used for
P or PACE 1	Practice and Preparation Pace	Easy, relaxed.	Recovery, drills and skills.
A or PACE 2	Air-robic Pace.	Easy to moderate.	Endurance development.
C or PACE 3	Competition Specific Pace	Hard.	Race specific practices with race specific speeds, skills, techniques and breathing.
E or PACE 4	Electric Pace	Fast - explosive.	Speed development.

Now, let’s build on the P.A.C.E. system by introducing the Engagement Factor: the first training prescription system which incorporates a mental skills focus in swimming workout design.

Everyone talks about the importance of the mental side of swimming and how important it is for swimmers to train both their bodies and minds in training and preparation.

Talking about it is one thing.

The next step for coaches is to make mental skills and the integration of the mind into every session and the way to achieve this is to incorporate mental skills in the workout design itself.

Introducing the Engagement Factor. Read more

Mental Skills Training in Swimming – a new approach.

What is your experience with sports psychology and mental skills training?

Is it meeting a psychologist or mental skills professional at an office and talking quietly about attitudes, anxieties and ambitions?

Or is it having a mental skills professional come to the training centre and do a “motivation” lecture or a mental skills training session on relaxation, focusing, visualisation / imagery and attitude?

Time to take mental skills training out of the office, away from the training room and into the pool.

How?  Read more

Questions you always wanted to ask your coach but were afraid to ask.

• Did you ever want to ask your coach a question but couldn’t find the right way of asking the question?
• Did you ever have something you wanted to say to your coach but couldn’t find the right moment?
• Did you ever want to sit down with your coach and discuss some stuff you have been wondering about but never had the chance?

Well – here’s your chance!

Questions you always wanted to ask your coach but were afraid to ask! Read more

Swimming Psyche Outs. How to be in control, confident and composed when faced with psyche outs (and how to use them to your advantage!!). Part Two.

Ten things you can do to respond to a psyche out-er:

• Smile;
• Say “thanks”;
• Shake their hand and say “I really appreciate your support”;
• Laugh and say “is that the best you can come up with?”;
• Tell them, “I am sorry. I really wasn’t listening to you”;
• Tell them an even bigger “exaggeration”;
• Walk away;
• Say, “wow – I am really lucky to be racing someone as talented and gifted as you”;
• Keep chatting with family and friends.

But the best thing of all is to……………ignore them and swim your best.

Psyche out practice – dealing with Dirty Downers. Read more

Swimming Psyche Outs. How to be in control, confident and composed when faced with psyche outs (and how to use them to your advantage!!). Part One.

“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it but what they become by it.” John ruskin

How many times do you hear a football player or baseballer or basketballer say something like “It was tough out there today. The other team really psyched us out”.

Sportspeople talk about the psyche out as something someone else did to them – that someone somehow did something mystical or magical that impacted on their performance.

Lots of people talk about psyching out…………..so what is it?

What is a psyche out? Read more

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• About this Blog

  Expert advice, ideas, innovation and inspiration for all sports coaches and team managers - from 'grass roots' through to elite and high performance levels. All posts are written by Wayne Goldsmith, AKA the "Sports Coaching Brain". If you have a question or comment about any post, please add it to the comments section.

• Recent Posts

  • Talent ID in Swimming: the Talent Pool!
  • Complementary Carnivals: Why Swim Meets Fail.
  • Multi-Eventing in Swimming: How being a M.E.S.S. makes swimming a lot more fun.
  • The Last Race
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