If you want to get better at swimming front crawl figuring out how to practice effectively so you make the most use of your time in the water is going to really help.
It’s really common for swimmers to be swimming mindlessly up and down, or to be thinking about the wrong things. Where your brain is focussed and your mental mindset can make a massive difference to your progress.
Outcome Goals vs Process Goals
Swimming is 95% technique. So most of the time its helpful to be focussed on your movements in water rather than how fast you’re swimming.
This is the difference between outcome goals and process goals. An outcome goal is what you want to achieve at the end. For example;
- swimming 100m in 2minutes
- swimming 1 mile non stop
- getting to the other end of the length
- getting a breath instead of swallowing water.
A process goal is what you need to actually do. Examples are;
- To swim 100m in 2minutes I need to think about keeping the timing of my arms in the right place.
- Swimming 1 mile non stop might require you to think about your posture
- Getting a breath maybe you need to focus on your rotation so you’re in the right place to get air.
In stead of thinking I want to swim fast put your focus on what you actually need to do in order to swim fast.
Mistakes I made
A few years ago I went to see my swim coach. They made a massive difference to my swimming in just one 60minute lesson. Afterwards I went back to the Masters Swim session and moved up. I went from the back of one lane to the front of the next lane. You can imagine I was totally thrilled as I was swimming times I thought I’d never be able to do.
Six weeks later, I was at the back of the more slow lane again. I went back to see my coach, and we went through all the same things again to put my stroke back together. For the six weeks I’d mainly been focussing on how fast I was swimming. I was only focussed on trying to hit numbers on the clock for particular sets. I was outcome focussed rather than process focussed.
Time Trial Focus
Another example is that I turn up to the triathlon club swim session and it’s 400m time trial night. So I get ready for an all out effort knowing it’s going to be hard and it’s meant to be hard. I swim as hard as I can and am disappointed with my time.
The following week I go back and we do 4 x 400m repeats. Every single one of my 400m repeats is faster than the one I did in the Time Trial – because I’m thinking about the process with my stroke focal points rather than only focussing on working hard for a particular time and outcome goal.
Whenever I want to swim faster I always check in with what do I need to focus on in order to swim faster.
Let the speed come to you
A phrase we also often use in swimming is “let the speed come to you” rather than chasing it. By this we mean if you focus on your stroke and being efficient you will get faster.
Next time you go to the swimming pool see what happens if you change your focus. Do you speed up or slow down? Have a go and let me know what happens!
Improve your front crawl swimming with me
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