Thanks for the Difficult Work

As vacation coaching prepares to ramp up, Swimming World is working this piece from the archive that emphasizes the connection between an athlete and the grueling nature of vacation work within the water and the load room. The piece stresses the significance of this time of yr, so get your self prepared to present your all.

Dear Holiday Training,

You and I’ve spent some high quality time collectively over the past 4 weeks. You had been exhausting. Really exhausting. You introduced day after day of doubles, typically with weights in between exercises. The exercises had been robust and didn’t all the time finish properly. Injuries flared up from overuse through the exhausting practices.

But our time collectively wasn’t all dangerous; there have been a whole lot of good issues too. Here are a pair issues that I realized whereas we shared life for a pair weeks:

Consistency in apply is simply as essential as swimming quick.

Even after I was actually sore and exhausted, I labored on being constant. Doing the identical issues time and again imply they develop into behavior. This might be one thing easy like 4 dolphin kicks off of each wall or solely respiration twice in a 50 free. This will be difficult as a result of consistency requires a way of dedication to the small issues and the large issues. But on this vacation coaching and swimmer relationship, I had already dedicated to giving my finest effort each time I hit the water. Race preparation is essential for when the large occasion comes round. Consistency on this space is useful to racing at any stage of a coaching cycle.

Attitude performs a giant function in efficiency in addition to relationships.

We can select our perspective on a regular basis: self-encouragement and self-motivation or self-defeat and self-pity. The energy belongs to every one among us. We have all skilled bodily and emotional ache and exhausting instances, however the selection of response is ours and ours alone. This is one thing simpler stated than accomplished, however altering my perspective in direction of a selected exercise helped me get by the exercise. I’ve usually struggled with having a nasty perspective in direction of a apply when I’m drained or sore and don’t actually need to swim. This yr I realized that perspective can change the result of any apply. The attitudes of the individuals round me can even have an effect on my practices.

Focusing on little issues is straightforward.

I might concentrate on streamlining off the wall every flip and perfecting my dolphin kicks into my breakouts. I might concentrate on tempo in backstroke or work on my crossover turns. There are so many little issues in swimming that I might concentrate on each apply. For a threshold apply, I targeted on the rhythm of my freestyle and the position on my respiration throughout every stroke cycle. IM practices permit for concentrate on the transition turns between every stroke. And I did. I did all of it sooner or later throughout your time with me.

Holiday coaching, I’m grateful for all that I realized from you over the last couple weeks, and I’m actually glad that you’re over. You introduced extra ache and exhaustion than I might have appreciated, however you made me higher in additional methods than one. Thank you for exhibiting up and doing life with me for some time. Now I say goodbye to you as you come back to your private home till subsequent December.

Sincerely,

A worn-out swimmer

aka Meaghan Raab, Swimming World