Here's a great video on psychological development in youth swimmers. The speaker is Dr. Dan Gould at the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University.
I think the discussion of maintaining consistency after races is something that swimming coaches and researchers need to explore. There is always a reason to celebrate a good performance, and it's important to acknowledge that a string of good races creates a sense of positive momentum in a swimmer's mind (it can also contribute positive momentum to others by inspiring teammates). However, each race is a separate entity in a swim meet, and swimmers who are able to compartmentalize past performances (both good and bad) seem to be the most consistent performers, especially in pressure situations.
Showing posts with label race preparation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race preparation. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Rebuilding Team Confidence (Video)
At the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State, we have assembled a few videos regarding building team confidence. This video features Dr. Larry Lauer providing some practical advice for ice hockey coaches seeking to improve team and player confidence.
More videos will follow later this week, which I will post at this site.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Thoughts on Race-Preparation for Swimming
After spending ten years as a swimming coach, I find it hard to come to mid-February without standing on a pool deck somewhere. I got a question about "tapering" and I thought I would post up some of my thoughts on the process. For those unfamiliar with a taper, it is the gradual reduction of training volume and intensity in order to help induce a super-compensation effect (the body outperforms previous best performances). It is interesting that in other sports, this process is called peaking; the language has a strong, positive connotation, it implies peak performance. In swimming, the word "taper" suggests cutting back; not really a positive or negative connotation, it implies "just take it easy, and everything will fall into place." If that's your approach, why even bother holding practice?
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