The late great George Haines once said that (paraphrasing as it was a convo we had almost 10 years ago) today's kids are end result-driven, where they think that all they have to do is call out a time and it will just magically appear at the end of the season. They need to understand and appreciate the journey of the process to get to where they want to go if they ever truly want to know what success in this sport is.
I was reminded of this recently as we were preparing for WAG Champs. I asked one of my swimmers to remind me of what she wanted to go in the 100 backstroke by JO's. Her response was 57 in the 100 when her best time was 1:02 at last year's JO's. I then asked her if she had any idea of what she would need to go out at the 50 mark in order to to have a chance at her goal. It took her awhile to figure it out, but eventually she remembered and came up with 27-high, 28-low, which I agreed with. Her best time in the 50 back was 28.4, so she would need to go faster then her fastest 50 in order to achieve this.
It is easy for swimmers to pick a time out of the air but do they truly understand that there are steps A, B, C, and D that need to be taken in order to get to the end result? I preach realistic goal setting and understanding the process. With each goal, I ask my swimmers to pick a set, either a test set we do regularly or any other we have done in the past, in order to explain to me what kind of work they think would help them get to their goals. I also ask them to break down their splits according to what they feel they should be going. From there, I give them feedback and I either ask them to adjust their goals or keep them as is.
It's ok to shoot for the stars.....just have a plan of HOW you want to get there!
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