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 burden 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 during the last 4 weeks. You had been arduous. Really arduous. You introduced day after day of doubles, generally with weights in between exercises. The exercises had been powerful and didn’t all the time finish properly. Injuries flared up from overuse throughout the exhausting practices.

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

Consistency in follow is simply as essential as swimming quick.

Even after I was actually sore and exhausted, I labored on being constant. Doing the identical issues again and again imply they change into behavior. This may very well be one thing easy like 4 dolphin kicks off of each wall or solely respiratory twice in a 50 free. This may 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 greatest 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 an enormous position in efficiency in addition to relationships.

We can select our angle 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 arduous occasions, however the selection of response is ours and ours alone. This is one thing simpler mentioned than carried out, however altering my angle in the direction of a specific exercise helped me get via the exercise. I’ve typically struggled with having a nasty angle in the direction of a follow when I’m drained or sore and don’t actually need to swim. This yr I realized that angle can change the result of any follow. The attitudes of the folks round me can even have an effect on my practices.

Focusing on little issues is straightforward.

I might deal with streamlining off the wall every flip and perfecting my dolphin kicks into my breakouts. I might deal with tempo in backstroke or work on my crossover turns. There are so many little issues in swimming that I might deal with each follow. For a threshold follow, I centered on the rhythm of my freestyle and the location on my respiratory throughout every stroke cycle. IM practices enable for deal with 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 past couple weeks, and I’m actually glad that you’re over. You introduced extra ache and exhaustion than I’d have preferred, however you made me higher in additional methods than one. Thank you for displaying up and doing life with me for some time. Now I say goodbye to you as you come back to your own home till subsequent December.

Sincerely,

A worn-out swimmer

aka Meaghan Raab, Swimming World