Getting Your Mind Right For Competition
When you get to the competition situation, there are a number of things that can affect your performance in the water. One of these things is the mental approach you have to the race. It is not difficult to see that some people cope with the mental side of competition better than others do. A good thing for swimmers to be able to do is to control the mental state in the time before competition. If you can manage to do this well then the race probably has a better chance of going the way you would like it to.
It is difficult to say what the correct frame of mind before competition would be, as this is a very individual thing, but the following examples of things you can do might help you to develop your own way of getting to the perfect mental state.
The skills have been split into two sections to help to give you some idea of what to use when. The two sections are the last twenty minutes and the last two minutes.
DEVELOPING THE CORRECT FRAME OF MIND
20 MINUTES T0 GO
This period of time is one that can be used to control the mental state so that when the pressure really comes on (eg when you stand by the blocks) all you have to do is to "tweak" or "fine tune" how you are mentally. Therefore what you do to prepare mentally in the last twenty minutes will set up a mental platform or base. If you do not do this then it is quite likely that when you stand by the blocks you will have too much to do mentally in the time available to you.
POSITIVE STATEMENTS - use these to help yourself to focus on the good aspects of your swimming and to create a confident feel.
RELAXATION - using short relaxation methods can help you to keep your cool and can also help as preparation for using imagery in a slightly relaxed state.
GOAL FOCUS - thinking clearly about what you are trying to achieve can help to focus your mind and to increase the feelings of control over your race.
RACE PLAN - using imagery to run through your race plan in your mind can help you to see success and develop confidence and also help to focus your mind on what you want to do in the race.
TWO MINUTES TO GO
At this point in time your mental preparation is almost complete and it is now a question of maintaining what you have got. This can be done by trying some of the following techniques to keep what you have already got or to alter and fine tune so that you can be in an ideal mental state as you are on the blocks.
FOCUS ON YOURSELF - at this point in the mental preparation it is crucial to focus on you and you alone. Using the following techniques will help you to avoid distractions and maintain your focus on what you are going to do.
KEY THOUGHTS - using key thoughts and phrases can help you to think about the right thing at the right time and could be related to any goals you have about how you want to swim the race.
IMAGE - using images of yourself swimming well could be useful as well as images used to help you to get a good start such as a powerful, explosive action.
CENTRING - this is a breathing technique that you could use as you are standing ready to get onto the blocks or even whilst on the blocks themselves.
The process of centring itself is a very simple one and involves two steps:
1) Whilst standing with feet shoulder-width apart and knees slightly bent you focus in on breathing from the stomach. Concentrating on this brings you away from any distractions.
2) With one breath you should, on breathing out, feel yourself solidly balanced. This will happen at the same time as your centre of gravity drops a slight amount as your knees bend further as you breathe out. It is at the end of this breath that you will be ready to redirect your attention to, for example, a key thought.
It is important that whatever mental preparation you find most useful before a race should be practised during training and in smaller competitions so that you can automatically go through your individual mental skills without having to think about it when it really matters. This will only happen as a result of practice.