Sports Psychology Tips for Swimmers - Table of Contents
Swimmers, Learn To Bounce Back
One of the toughest times in swimming is when you physically and mentally prepare yourself for a big meet, only to find that you don't achieve your goals there. (Or even worse, having a meet where you didn't even go close to achieving your dreams).More »Swimmers, Do You Need The Killer Instinct?
How important is the 'killer instinct' in swimming? Do you need to be 'highly competitive' in your attitude to make it big in swimming? Is it bad to feel sorry for other competitors at times? These are common questions I hear from swimmers and also parents of swimmers, and the fact is, the answers are different for each swimmer - it all depends upon the swimmer's individual personality.More »Don't Fall Into The Swimming Excuse Trap
One of the biggest and easiest traps to fall into, right before a big race or event is to allow your mind to create excuses for you. This is a very common trap, where your mind basically gives you'permission' to swim a mediocre race. For instance, you might find yourself thinking thoughts such as: "I was sick a few weeks ago, so if I don't swim well, that will be why", or "my coach told me to taper incorrectly, and so if I lose badly, THAT will be to blame".More »Swimmers, Don't Allow Stress To Ruin Your Swim Strategy
Do you ever find that you train brilliantly for weeks before a meet, only to find that you cannot pace yourself in the races during meets? A swimmer wrote to me this week saying that if he swam anything above a 200m event, he would "die on in the first 100" and have nothing left for the rest of the race. This is actually a few problems all rolled into one, but which luckily can be overcome with one easy 'cure-all' technique.More »Swimmers, Plan Your Daily Mental Training
The most important thing about mental training is to DO it. Yet as time goes on most people begin to find excuses for being too busy to do their daily visualization, and this is the attitude which separates most regular swimmers from the champions. Champions MAKE time for the important things, and this is definitely one of them. If we had to REMEMBER to breathe each day (in order to stay alive), we most probably wouldn't forget, would we?! Yet for a swimmer who wishes to make it to the very top, visualization IS just as important as breathing, and nothing must get in your way from making the time to do it if you are serious about improving.More »The Awesome Power Of The Quiet Swimming Achiever
Are you a swimmer who lets your swimming do your talking for you? Do others seem to get more attention because they are louder, whereas you prefer to concentrate on your swimming? Then you share the same attitude with most of the illustrious champions!More »Dealing With Blatant Intimidation in Swimming
How do you respond if a swimmer tells you just before a race that "you're going down!"? This seems to be quite a common occurrence from what I hear! Well, how you respond verbally to them is really up to you, but the most important thing is not to let comments from other swimmers stop you from swimming a brilliant race. In fact, some swimmers manage to swim an even BETTER race because of negative comments such as these! So let me explain the two ways you can respond in a race to intimidation tactics such as these.More »How Much Confidence Should a Swimmer Show?
A swimmer wrote to me this week with one of the best 'problems' you can have! She felt highly confident of her ability, and when people asked her about her swimming, she told them she was swimming very fast and doing very well. However, she was unsure if this was a good thing - and it's is a very important question. This inner confidence she possesses is something we should all work towards acquiring.However, displaying this attitude to others (through what we say) may occasionally cause problems in the form of unwanted criticism.More »Use Mind Power In Your Swim Training
Every day you train at the pool determines the results you will receive in the future. This is because each day you are conditioning your mind and body to perform with a specific attitude or approach, which eventually becomes your automatic attitude in the meets. Sure, there are occasional freaks who train badly but bring out the goods when it counts, but for every one of these, there's another million who don't. So number one is to work at your attitude to training each and every day, which includes trying to develop a powerful attitude to training sets which you know will bring pain.More »Training Great, But Terrible In Swim Meets?
Often I hear about swimmers who 'train the house down' for months, only to swim terribly in the meet they had been gearing up for all that time. These problems can create a 'downward spiral' that can be difficult to get out of, and so I thought I would create an Action Plan for swimmers who may be experiencing this widespread problem.More »
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