by Olivier Poirier-Leroy. Join his weekly motivational newsletter for competitive swimmers by clicking here.
If you look across the wide expanse of the world wide web there’s no shortage of ways to become a faster swimmer.
There are different types of technique. There are an endless number of swim practices to try. And of course, there are the considerations of dryland and nutrition.
But while it’s easy to pinpoint the reasons why some swimmers are faster than others—talent, height, coaching—there is something else that we can all work on, regardless of how gifted we are in the water…
It’s that little something-something that keeps you grinding in the pool when you are exhausted.
It’s the same thingy that keeps you focused during that gnarly main set when you’d rather let your mind wander off.
It’s mental toughness.
Instead of getting bent out of shape about how you aren’t as talented or as tall, resolve to be the mentally toughest swimmer in the pool.
Here’s just some ideas of how you can level up your mental fortitude in the water:
Show true humility.
It can be humbling to have to swim and race against the athlete who has won not only the genetic Powerball, but also seems to have more talent than they know what to do with.
While a swimmer might mistakenly say that “I’ll never be as good as them, so forget even trying” and label that as humility, true humility is understanding what your gifts and talents are and focusing on those.
Instead of wishing they had what others possessed or could do, or feel entitled to something others have, our mentally tough swimmer is humble and grateful for what they do have and are eager to exploit their abilities to the maximum.
Have a ceaseless curiosity about their own limits.
I’m wary of swimmers who seem convinced that they know what they are capable of. That they “can’t” do something (even though they have never really tried). Of course, this conviction is usually shaken and finally broken when they do eventually break through.
Unfortunately, they also wasted a lot of time and training in “can’t” mode, making progress in the water take longer than it would if you were willing to be more curious about your self-perceived limitations in the water.
Mentally tough swimmers are curious about what they are capable of doing in the water, and as a result, are more willing to test out the outer reaches of their abilities more regularly.
As a result, there are far more opportunities for improvement along the way compared to our swimmer who is so certain they “can’t” do something.
Be ready to learn.
Similarly to the swimmer who simply “can’t”, there is the swimmer who won’t. They won’t take criticism—even when it is to their direct benefit to do so.
Being coachable is a big part of being mentally tough, and perhaps not for the reasons you might think: often we associate mental toughness with stubborness.
Being stubborn with not giving up is different from being too stubborn to learn from others, your successes and your failures.
Use negative emotions productively.
We all experience frustration, disappointment, and outright grumpiness over the course of the season.
We stub our finger on the bulkhead. Cut our finger open on a cracked blade on the lane rope. Blow a knee while in the gym.
It happens.
The emotions that follow can either hinder you further by pushing you to withdraw and give up, or you can use that surliness and upside-down-frown to propel you to bigger and better things in the pool.
A fascinating study that looked at the mindsets of super champions versus the “almosts” showed a marked difference in how the elite perceived and reacted to adversity—while the initial frustration was identical with both groups, our high achievers used that anger and frustration to double-down on their training and come back stronger than ever.
Have the patience to unstuck yourself.
Mentally tough swimmers have a patient approach with those pesky practices and sessions where things aren’t going their way.
Here’s an example.
You go to the pool, and things just feel off. Your stroke can’t get it together. Your feel for the water is floating away from you. And your legs may as well be dragging along the bottom of the pool behind you.
So, what do we do? Throw in the chlorinated towel? Get frustrated and bail?
Nah—our mentally tough swimmer slows things down, does some drills to increase their feel for the water (closed fist freestyle, FTW), and concentrates on doing one or two things really, really well (supremely tight streamlines, for instance).
This patience is eventually rewarded–rarely immediately, but with some perseverance the big breakthrough is right around the corner.
Stop waiting.
Over numerous occasions, both in the water and in my dryland life have I caught myself falling for the myth of “perfect conditions”:
I’ll really start working hard when I am in better shape. When I have access to a better facility I’ll do more work on my starts. I didn’t sleep that great last night, I should probably take today off.
Mentally tough swimmers don’t just do things when things are easy, or when they are convenient, or when they feel like it. They understand opportunities and time are limited, and act with a sense of urgency.
Build routines that support your goals.
The stop-and-go athlete is a common sight on pool decks: they are the swimmer that shows up, fired up and ready to lay waste to some workouts…for about three days.
And then? Bye-bye.
You don’t see ’em until they are motivated again. Till they “feel like it.” Forever waiting for that deep and unyielding motivational wildfire to seize upon them.
For the mentally tough swimmer, motivation hardly comes into the picture. Sure, it’s there, but it’s not the mitigating factor in what kind of effort they are going to put in at the pool.
Their routines, their process are what dictate whether or not they are going to show up, not how motivated they are (or aren’t).
The Takeaway
Mental toughness is something that is talked about at length with our sport. It’s frequently cited as a major factor in how successful a chlorinated athlete will become over the course of their swimming career.
It’s something you can and should be working on with regularity in your training.
Seize upon the daily opportunities and challenges that present a chance to harden your mindset (and confidence). Open up your mindset so that you aren’t limited by what you “feel like” doing from moment to moment. And show up on deck with an optimistic and challenge-oriented mindset at your next practice.
ABOUT OLIVIER POIRIER-LEROY
Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer. He’s the publisher of YourSwimBook, a ten-month log book for competitive swimmers.
He’s also the author of the recently published mental training workbook for competitive swimmers, Conquer the Pool: The Swimmer’s Ultimate Guide to a High Performance Mindset.
It combines sport psychology research, worksheets, and anecdotes and examples of Olympians past and present to give swimmers everything they need to conquer the mental side of the sport.
Ready to take your mindset to the next level?
Click here to learn more about Conquer the Pool.
COACHES: Yuppers–we do team orders of “Conquer the Pool” which include a team discount as well as complimentary branding (your club logo on the cover of the book) at no additional charge.
Want more details? Click here for a free estimate on a team order of CTP.
Simply astounding how many people in the comments missed the point. Yes, talent is a factor, but I guarantee you there has been a swimmer more talented than Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky, or Caeleb Dressel who never materialized as a serious contender due to poor habits and mindsets. What Olivier is trying to say is that, regardless of talent, if you want to reach your full potential, you have to have these habits or you’re always going to wonder what could have been.
But, there’s never been a swimmer more talented than Dean Farris.
I don’t know man. Michael is a genetic freak and was a child prodigy. Bowman knew it from the beginning. The reason Michael did what he did in 2004 and 2008 was because he was the most talented swimmer alive and the hardest working. No way you can beat that
What about swimmers with higher lactate thresholds than others? Constantly telling the kid with “talent” to work harder like the olympians who can comfortably walk around at a lactate level that leaves us mere mortals throwing up. Can i work hard enough to change my genetic make up?
You can absolutely work hard/work smart
to change your physiology.
I always hate to hear this word…Talent. Can someone here please define it? Precisely…what is it? I’ve yet to hear a good explanation.
To me, the word talent is a cop out. A cop out used by people to describe something they don’t understand.
For example:
Let’s say there two 16 year olds racing…Timmy goes to 5 practices a week, Johnny goes to 9. Johnny repeatedly gets beat by Timmy in the meets while Johnny swims faster at practice. Enter this excuse: “Timmy doesn’t work hard, he only wins cause he’s talented.”
Why does Timmy win? Talent? NO! We don’t know why Timmy wins, because we don’t have all the information. We just assume that because Johnny is… Read more »
What? Do you know the story of Phelps? Lebron James? Tiger Woods? Michael Jackson? Beethoven? Some people are absolutely gifted and talented at specific things.
I had a friend who literally never swam before he was 16. First time he hopped in the pool – 58 100 yard fly. Not the fastest time ever, but crazy impressive for never swimming a length of butterfly in his life. Later went 46 100 fly at 20. If you asked him to do 10×100 @ 1:15 there is no way he would have been able to do it. Some people are just incredibly talented but don’t work that hard. And there is no shame in losing to those people.
I had a parent… Read more »
Talent has to do with different kinds of muscle fibers, faster neurological response rates, the body’s adaptability, nutrition and proper care given to infants, etc, etc. There is plenty of research out there that can define talent, but you are correct that we don’t completely understand it. There have been studies where scientists put different untrained people on the exact same cycling training regimen, and measured their progress over the course of many weeks. Some of the participants had giant % increases in their performance while others stayed the same.
This makes intuitive sense to anyone who has worked with developing swimmers and watched different swimmers progress at different rates.
The hard work always prevails comment is dumb. We’ve all gotten destroyed by somebody who doesn’t work hard. That’s life.
Why do people constantly discount Caeleb Dressel’s Hard work, Dedication and persistence in swimming smart and training hard by saying he is Genetically superior. I do not agree or feel that is fair to him and limits everyone else. The man works on a different scale than everyone else meaning his 100% effort and focus is on a different level to yours. You cannot wrap your head around how hard he tries. That is why he is faster. That is not a knock on you. It is a reality that if you can believe you can try harder then you can still get faster. Did Phelps train every day for 5 years before Beijing because he was more genetically superior… Read more »
I don’t think anyone’s saying Dressel or the other elite names you mentioned don’t work. They’re saying that to achieve at those kinds of levels you have to have a rare combination of talent and hard work. All of the habits the author listed are great, but if your goals are set World Record-level high, you’ll need some talent, too.
No one is discounting any of their work, they’re just pointing out genetics play a role. I’ve swim with people who work hard and focus on their technique and do everything right, but they just don’t have that natural ability and it puts a low ceiling on them. The reason these top swimmers can do these crazy absurd things is because they are genetically blessed with a high ceiling and then they work hard to reach that ceiling. Everyone can work hard but not everyone can go 17.6.
I get what you are saying but to correct your last sentence. Everyone can work hard but not everyone can understand how to push their body to train hard enough and smart enough to go 17.6. I would hate to think a doctor could test my blood when i’m born and tell my parents maybe the most I am going to get out of sports is some life long friends (which is not a bad thing by itself).
But that’s incorrect, you have plenty of people who understand how to train and they push themselves to the limit, they just aren’t capable of 17.6. That’s why no one else has gone under 18.4, not because no one else works hard or understands how to do so, but because they aren’t blessed with his natural talent. And for the second portion, that’s completely irrelevant because that’s not how this works. There’s no “talent test” to see how good a kid will be at a sport. It’s a combination of so many different factors, it’s noticed rather than tested.
Not to drag on the conversation too much longer but I am not saying people do not believe they are training at 100% effort or as hard as they can. I am just saying that is by definition a relative term.
The second part was referring to genetic testing not a blood test for talent. I know there is not a currently a test that will tell you if you have genes specific to swimming but by saying some people are genetically better than others would mean that could be possible.
I do not remember anyone saying that they won a race because they are genetically superior to their competition (ok not since ww2 at least). But you… Read more »
I get the point of this article but swimming is one of those sports where talent is not underrated.
Hard Work Beats, Talent When Talent Does Not Work Hard!
Of course their are genetic “freaks” but that is not a habit. Dressel etc. likely have these habits. Maybe their genetics separate them from us regular folks but their habits separate them from other genetic “freaks”. To me that is where these ideas come into play, when you are looking at the kid in the next lane during practice, not when you compare yourself to some of the best in the world. Control the controllables (attitude, work ethic, nutrition, hydration, recovery, etc), focus on the process and the results will speak for themselves.
But only when talent doesn’t work hard. More often than not in a tough sport like swimming, talent does work hard or they would have moved on to an easier sport.
Talent is not overrated.