Want to improve your swimming? Then get better at hiding your feelings!

I know, I know, it’s not a very fashionable statement these days. I understand it’s all about being able to express your feelings and not bottle them up if we want any chance of living a happier life; however, when it comes to swimming, it could be very advantageous to not let our feelings show. 

Let’s elaborate on the attention-grabbing title and run through what we really mean here. Feelings and emotions that we might experience before or during a swim should, of course, be recognised and not ignored. With acknowledgement, we are more likely to accept them; however, the really important point to mention here is that we should not always allow these feelings and emotions to control the outcome of your swim - especially if the outcome isn’t positive. 

I guess the process I’m suggesting here is that we should try to: experience the feeling, recognise and acknowledge it before then deciding on what we may or may not wish to do about it. Remembering that we don’t want these feelings to show up in our stroke. 

That’s correct - we decide. It’s a choice. No matter the scenario, we always have a choice!

It’s often when we feel that we don’t have a choice, which is when panic is most likely to take hold.  Just because you might be feeling tired, it doesn’t have to result in you stopping - not if you don’t want it to. The reason we sometimes do stop is because we’ve allowed that feeling of tiredness to manifest into something greater. Reaction, or panic, or both. We chose to let it have that effect on us and to respond this way. We chose to stop because we didn’t necessarily believe there was another way around the challenge. 

All strokes have intensity options. We shouldn’t feel as though it’s one pace all the time. If this is the case, then we’re not in control of our stroke, but instead, your stroke is controlling you. Learning the correct technique and timing of the stroke in question will give you the confidence to trust the stroke and make your intensity choice. 

So hide these feelings away from the physical delivery of your swimming. You may be tired, but it shouldn’t change the timing and technique of your stroke. Think back to watching any Olympic swimming race final. We know that every swimmer in the pool will be at their intensity limit, yet you don’t really see any signs of this, and you certainly don’t see their stroke falling apart. This is because they’ve trained to this effect. We have a better insight as to how intense the race has been for them when they are still struggling to string a full sentence together with the poolside interviewer quite some time after the race has finished. Agreed, we may not be training for the next Olympics, but we can still achieve this same outcome relative to our own level of swimming. 

It’s about being able to manage and regulate the situation. Not falling victim to panic and fear. Let’s put this into a swimming context. The situation might be that you’re happily swimming along and you begin to feel tired. Initially, things don’t feel too desperate, but you know you’ll need to do something about this feeling of tiredness; otherwise, you might be in a spot of trouble soon. It’s right now, at this point, that your swimming knowledge of available options, your swimming experience, and your swimming confidence can help you to acknowledge and process this feeling, make a good choice to manage the situation, and continue with your swimming. 

Often the outcome ends up being a little different: You feel tired, which causes a negative psychological and physical reaction leading to feeling more stress and tension. This further exacerbates your situation, and now you’re in an even more challenging position to be able to turn this situation around. It’s a learned behaviour and a very well-engrained process that has been repeated many times over the years. 

In order to change this process, we need some tools and tricks up our sleeve. Here’s where coaching and guidance can show you the ropes. Not only in how to swim effectively and efficiently, but also giving you strategies in dealing with adversity while swimming. 

You can alter your stroke rate (speed) and/or your pull force underwater (strength); however, you do not want to alter stroke timing or technique. Speed and strength both contribute to power output, and more power equals more intensity. It’s like bringing a sprint run to a steady run, or a steady run to a jog, or even a jog right down to a walk.  If we don’t feel as though we have a walking equivalent with our swimming stroke, then it’s this goal that we must work on. We’ve all heard it before: slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. Besides, why would we expect to run if we’re yet to master walking?  Mastering the art of swimming is to master excellent timing and technique with implicit trust when swimming slowly (slow stroke rate with a steady, fluid travel speed). 

Once we have these strategies, we must practice with this intention of changing the previous described engrained go-to outcome. Swimming is an exercise, so it doesn’t matter how effective and efficient your stroke is; you will always reach a point where adversity is going to happen. What makes us better at dealing with these moments and making the correct choices? Embracing and encouraging more adversity while practising! The answers can be found in the struggle, and we shouldn’t be afraid to go there. Embrace adversity, welcome it even. Having the confidence to work through these situations can’t be built if we constantly avoid them. 

If you were doing any other form of exercise, it’s likely you’d encourage pushing the intensity in order to achieve discomfort and a positive overload. It makes us feel as though we’ve made a difference and progressed. The result being, our bodies adapt while resting in order to be better prepared for the next workload you’re likely to give it, and hence the health and fitness improvement cycle takes place. 

This should be no different when swimming. Whether it’s one length or hundreds of lengths required to provoke this adversity, we should encourage it in order to trigger our good choices and strategies, build confidence in our swimming, and improve our swimming fitness and endurance. 

CreateFit Swim Coach: Mark Durnford

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