Four Talks Every Coach Should Give Their Team
It Doesn't Matter How You Feel, Nerves Are Waves, Unleash Your Power, Lions & Gazelles
How you train matters. What you eat matters. Rest Matters. Your skill level matters.
In the moment, though, how you think matters the most.
Over the years I developed a few simple “talks” that helped swimmers frame big moments the right way.
Here are four of them.
IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW YOU FEEL
“How do you feel?”
It may be the phrase most uttered by swim coaches this March. Well, maybe second behind, “go warm down.”
Swimmers and coaches can worry too much about how swimmers feel in the water.
I remember doing it as a swimmer.
After a taper and a shave, I could not wait to get in the water the next day to see how I felt. Looking back it was as if how I felt when I first jumped in was the litmus test.
Usually I felt incredible. My range of motion was fantastic. I slipped through the water effortlessly. I could create velocity like never before.
Then there was Junior Nationals.
I got in the water and I felt good, but not great. I was worried.
My 100 breaststroke was terrible.
A few days later I dove in for the 200 breaststroke and felt amazing again. But by then my brain was disengaged. It had taken a road trip along with my confidence. I had given up on that race little by little over the week because of how I felt in practice and in the 100.
That taught me a lesson I later passed on to my swimmers.
The Talk
“It truly does not matter how you feel.
Have you ever started a week feeling terrible and ended the week feeling great?
Have you ever started a day feeling terrible and ended the day feeling great?
Have you ever started a practice feeling terrible and ended the practice feeling great?
Have you ever started a set feeling terrible and ended the set feeling great?
Have you ever started a single repeat feeling terrible and finished it feeling great?
Every swimmer I have ever coached has answered yes to every one of those questions.
Let’s go a step further. Every one of you is hoping to swim faster than you’ve ever swum. How do you know how that’s supposed to feel?
Which begs one final question.
Does it matter how you feel?
No.
What matters is what you have prepared to do and what you have decided you will do in this moment.
NERVES ARE WAVES
If you have coached long enough you have agonized over swimmers who struggle in big moments. How swimmers interpret pressure determines whether they harness energy or get overwhelmed by it.
The Talk
Waves are just energy moving through water.
Some people are oblivious. They stand at the shoreline taking pictures and suddenly a wave knocks them head over heels.
Other people recognize what waves are.
They put on wetsuits and jump on surfboards.
They paddle out.
They wait for the right wave.
And then they ride it.Nerves are just energy moving through the body.
Some swimmers feel their heart start to race and immediately think something is wrong. Their thoughts turn into worry and the wave knocks them over.
Other swimmers recognize what that energy is.
They put on their tech suits.
They paddle through warmup.
They wait for the right moment.And when the energy builds into the right wave, they ride it.
UNLEASH YOUR POWER
A swimmer’s source of power is fundamental.
Every swimmer knows what a rat tail is.
You twist the towel up and snap it. The goal is to make that cracking sound.
Understanding why that crack happens reveals a powerful and pivotal lesson.
The Talk
When I first heard this I did not believe it.
The cracking sound happens because the tip of the towel breaks the sound barrier. You can fact check me on that. Use google, use ChatGPT.
Think about that.
A human being holding a towel can create motion fast enough to break the sound barrier.
Now imagine I soaked the towel in water and put it in the freezer overnight.
Would it still break the sound barrier?
No.
The power comes from the looseness of the towel. The way it bends and flows.
Replace thoughts and actions that tighten you up with thoughts and actions that loosen you.
When people try to produce power, they often tense up, but great swimmers stay loose so that they retain their power.
LIONS & GAZELLES
I often used this talk on the final day of a meet when the goal was to frame their thinking into a mindset to capitalize on the pervasive negativity on-deck in the final prelims session.
More often than not, we were the best team on the deck in prelims on the last day. Perspective had a lot to do with it.
The Talk
When a lion hunts a herd of gazelles, they do not chase the strongest one.
They look for the easiest meal.
The hunt costs energy. The chase costs energy. The kill costs energy.
So lions look for the young, the injured, the isolated, or the distracted.
Their ears perk up listening for whining and whimpering.
They watch for limping, slow strides, and hesitation.
Today when you walk onto the pool deck you will hear a lot of whining.
I am so tired.
I am so sore.
I cannot wait for this meet to be over.Those whimpers will not come from you.
We will walk onto this deck like hungry lions.
We will feed off the negativity around us.
Because where there is weakness, there is opportunity.
And we are a team that capitalizes on opportunity.
If you try these mindset-framing talks with your swimmers, I’d love to hear how they resonate.
Good luck to your teams and your swimmers in this championship season.
Swimpler