Swim Tip

Presented by Kurt Kirner, Camp Director
Nike Swim Camp at Hillsdale College

Nike Swim Camp Tip: Get Your Mind Set to Race

Our goal is to maximize swimming potential by helping swimmers to create a winning mindset and provide ongoing and constructive feedback in the pool to improve stroke technique.

A Simple Technique to Get Your Mind Set to Race!

“People say I have a great talent, but in my opinion excellence has nothing to do with talent. It is about what you choose to believe and how determined you are to get there. The mind is more powerful than anything else” - Michael Phelps, 2009

Think for a second – Has anyone ever told you how talented you are? How blessed you are to have speed or endurance or great “feel for the water”? Or maybe someone is always expecting you to win or go a best time? That is a lot of pressure, right? Well Michael Phelps helps us get a little better understanding of what great swims actually take. Sure, talent is great but once you step up to the blocks for that championship swim you know it takes more than just “talent” and so did Michael.

Often even before we step up to the starting block we have thoughts in our head about how we will perform. If we are in a confident situation or a positive mindset, we believe in our abilities to perform up to expectations and thus, competing successfully appears easy. However, if we are feeding our brain negative thoughts we find competing hard and often fail to meet our expectations. How often do “you” step up to the block with negative thoughts running around in your head? Maybe thinking something like, “I’m going to get beat,” “I don’t feel so fast today” or “The swimmer next to me is better than I am.” These thoughts running through our brain can be just a few of the hurdles we have to deal with from time-to-time. We can be the most talented swimmer in that event, but we know these thoughts can bring us down.

If you pay close attention your brain is always being bombarded with messages you tell yourself. This is what psychologists call “self-talk”. Self-talk can motivate you when you are confident or it can bring you down if you are not. An important thing to remember about “self-talk” is what Michael said in his second sentence. “It is about what you choose to believe and how determined you are to get there.” If you are a competitive athlete you need to be confident and thus I would hope that you always believe in your abilities to meet your expectations. A clear and uncluttered mindset is what is necessary to succeed in your event, so why think thoughts that negatively will limit your performance. In the last sentence, Michael addresses “the mind” with the key being that a competitive athlete cannot let his mindset get bogged down with clutter by way of unproductive “self-talk”.

Now remember self-talk is going to take place whether we want it to or not. Ideally, our self-talk will be positive and productive, however for those times when we are doubting our abilities, beating ourselves up over uncertainty or just not into the competitive flow we need a strategy that allows us to effectively correct our self-talk. A technique I often use with my athletes is to focus on those things we can control. For instance, “streamline to mid-pool off the dive” or “perfect technique off the walls” or really any technique or race based thought process. By building a race strategy (plan) and then verbalizing it in your mind you eliminate the need to feed the brain positive messages or self-talk. Instead you are occupying your self-talk with the rehearsal of what you plan to do to effectively while implementing your race plan. As soon as you are aware of a negative, non-helpful thought have a set of race or technique oriented self-talk phrases ready to concentrate towards and practice instead. It is important that you start building your arsenal of race productive thoughts into self-talk early in the season and practice them during visualization, tough sets, race simulation in practice and at every meet event leading up to championships. Once you start practicing this self-talk regularly, your brain re-writes those negative thought patterns that haunt undisciplined swimmers and helps build your overall confidence. As Michael points out excellence is not about talent, however it is about how that talent is grown and structured over years of persistent experience and deep practice. Take the time to stimulate your mind with the type of focus that champions like Michael practice to produce excellence.

Nike Swim Camp Director, Kurt Kirner

For more great tips like this from Coach Kirner, come join him this summer at the Nike Swim Camp at Hillsdale College, July 6-10. Through elite technique instruction and challenging in-water training, Hillsdale College's competitive swim camps in Michigan will take your performance to the next level!

Now entering his 11th season as the Hillsdale College women’s swimming and diving coach, Kurt Kirner has brought the program up to a new level of performance and competitiveness, both in the pool and in the classroom. Under Kirner’s guidance, swimmers from the Charger program have qualified for the national meet a total of nine times in the past seven seasons. In 2009, one swimmer from all four classes - Anne Verhoef, Alicia LeDuc, Linda Okonkowski and Meredith Scott - each competed at the highest level of Division II swimming. It was Hillsdale’s most significant presence at the NCAA championships since it went to Division II status in 1998, and most signified the upward direction of the program. In 2011, Okonkowski secured the program's first Division II All-American honor in nine years under Kirner's guidance. Rachel Kurtz recieved the program's latest All-American honor in the 2013 season.