Practice Doesn't Make Perfect, This Does
Practice Doesn't Make Perfect, This Does
Practice makes perfect.
Practice makes permanent.
Practice makes me eat bowls of pasta until I’m full…of shame.
We’ve heard these lines before from coaches, parents, and tallish swimmer-authors who write about mental training and stuff on their website. (That’s me, in case there was confusion.)
Practice is a lot of things to us swimmers: it’s where we go to get all wrinkle-fingered. Where we social kick with our friends. And where our coaches throw main sets at us that leave us so stunned that all we can do is laugh.
Most of us work hard. We huff and puff through the test sets. And we grit our teeth and struggle through the struggley moments in training.
But beyond effort, how focused and deliberate is the swimming you are doing each day?
Is your training slowly being escalated each week, with small measurements of improvement being the goal?
Are you doing those “I can’t feel my shoulders anymore” sets with the best possible technique and attention to crushing your walls, flip-turns, and streamlines?
Working hard is awesome—but if you want that high grade, AAA-rated performance on race day at the end of the season, you need to inject deliberate focus into that effort.
Which should make you wonder…
Is the swimming you are doing in practice each day reflecting what you want to accomplish during championship season?
Are you being all that deliberate in your training, or are you going in to the pool, swimming through the sets and kinda hoping that you automagically unlock some new level of speed on race day?
