Preparing to Win - Part 2

Race Tips

Just as a bad stroke can get ingrained in your muscle memory if your technique is not corrected, in the same way, thought patterns also get ingrained in your brain, and either help you or hold you back.

When I run a workshop or a mentorship session with a top athlete today, a lot of what he or she shares is similar to my own experience of stress on race days. Issues range from feeling too much muscle stress just before a race, to fear of failure and sometimes even, fear of success. Swimmers often talk to me about how their focus shifts pre-race, to worrying more about what the person in the next lane is going to do, rather than on their own swim! And then of course, every once in a way, I come across an extremely talented individual, the hardest worker in the pool, who is expected to win, but ends up being the biggest let down, because he or she let a number of these negative factors overpower their natural ability.

Some of best timings even at world meets have been recorded at relay swims. Yes, you do get the advantage of a rolling start, but the biggest factor for swims that shock the world have been that the athlete’s mind is focused on just that one thought of swimming for his team with little or no attention to what others are doing in the pool, and less stress. On a more personal level, there have been times when I have looked at the touch pad display and been shocked with the timings I clocked on relay times. It felt so easy! And that was because my mind was excited enough to ignore pain and negative thoughts that otherwise cloud focus.

Developing race-day equilibrium needs you to recognise the patterns you’ve unconsciously allowed yourself to develop and perhaps even nurtured unknowingly.

Preparing to Win

When I was 9 years old, racing In Mumbai, my coach told me that I would never get over the nervousness I felt on the starting blocks, no matter how many times I raced. I didn’t believe him at the time, but looking back over twenty years of competitive swimming, I think, I have to agree with him. I was as nervous for my first race at 7 as I was for my last one at 27!

Many swimmers do better in training, where there is little pressure, and end up clocking slower times at meets when it matters most. The best athletes in the world, however, figure out how to be at their physical and, more importantly, mental best when it really matters. Through my competitive career in the pool, though the nerves never left, I got consistently better at dealing with the stress of competition, the excitement, and the pressure that inevitably comes with it.

There are only two ways you are ever going to approach a competition. One is stressed and scared, and the other is excited and waiting to get up there and win! I tell swimmers that I train, that you have to consciously develop the skill, just as I did over a period of time, to recognize the nervousness, excitement and all the pressure of expectation that exists, and use that energy to drive you to do your very best on race-day. This is as important as the hours of physical training you put in to be your best.

I often joke with swimmers about how we train several kilometers through a training week, and come race-day, swim so little! So, we must love racing because it is so much less work. Most laugh and agree, and there are a few who admit that race prep and race-days are what they hate the most !

So to start the year, I’m going to share some thoughts on how you can prepare and deal with stress leading up to race-day to race better. My advice comes from what I’ve learnt through training with some of the best coaches in the world, observing what the world’s best did at big swim meets, as well as figuring out for myself, little ways and means of distracting from what isn’t good for my focus, and paying attention to what really is!