The Simple and Sneaky Mental Trick That Will Help You Swim Faster
The Simple and Sneaky Mental Trick That Will Help You Swim Faster
One of my favorite and most legit ways of toughening up mentally and improving your mindset is managing your self-talk.
After all, the self-talk we use in the pool infects every emotion, decision and action you take:
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When you feel lousy in the water, your self-talk piles on: “I feel like crap in the water today, obviously I am not going to be able to have a good workout.”
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When a teammate is swimming lights-out and is crushing you in the main set: “Rachel is beating me so bad, obviously I am never going to be as fast as her.”
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When a set is crushing you mentally, and you can’t believe how much is still left: “I still have nine more reps to go? Ugh, I am already so tired, how can I possibly do this?”
The typical result of negative self-talk is that it leads us to withdrawing from the sets or swim workouts. We quit. We ease our effort. And we end up squandering what could have otherwise been a juicy opportunity to improve our swimming.
Once in a while this might not be a huge deal, but if your workouts are imploding regularly because you are unable to keep a lid on your self-talk it’s going to become a problem for your swimming and your goals.
