Right now swimmers across the country are looking back and reflecting on the season that was. The triumphs, the disappointments and what could have been. Emotions are high, enthusiastic planning is afoot and like the previous years, nothing will significantly change.
Why? Because their reflection process sucks. I can attest to this from my experience working with over 200 national-level swimmers. Every year I talk to swimmers that are trying to wade through their thoughts, neglecting their emotions and trying to come up with solutions to what they have identified as improvement areas.
These areas are most often a lot of technical ideas for problems that weren’t their most value-for-money actions. Things like increasing their underwater work, getting stronger and becoming fitter appear year after year and even though they would improve, they would still end up at the end of the season not being able to truly identify where they could make the easiest and most significant improvements. Why? Because they do not emotionally debrief after the nationals event. Good, bad or ugly not allowing themselves to process the event but rather treating everything as a “learning experience” meant that they would only be focused on the end result (the event) and not allow themselves to reflect on the process as a whole. (the season) If they were able to take a step back and truly process their immediate emotions after nationals, it would allow them to gain insight into the season as a whole and identify the bigger issues that were truly hampering them year after year. This is why most athletes look to improve surface-level issues and do not look consistently to improve on the more macro issues. And as a result, swimmers across the country will be focusing on improving individual aspects like underwater work, getting stronger in the gym, and turning speed and pace control. While our athletes using our Swim Central Emotional Debriefing Process will be looking back on the season as a whole, emotionally giving themselves the opportunity to process the season and finding deep and meaningful aspects of their training and competition process that will compound over the year and result in huge improvements at the end of next season.
If your looking to make significant improvement next season or you know someone that is you have 2 options,
One subscribe to the Swimming Strong Mail list and you’ll receive the same comprehensive guide I use with my athletes.
Or for those that value not being a month behind the rest of the field book a call to join our Swimming Strength & Performance Program.