Aim and fire, strange to be talking about shooting on a swimming club's blog but nothing could be more appropriate after this morning's session. When shooting you take aim first then fire at your target, if you don't you might as well point your gun into the sky and see what happens, wishing for the best, shooting aimlessly without purpose or direction and just seeing what happens. The same is in swimming, you must have a target to aim for.
With the clubs philosophy of intensity rather than just yardage, a lot of the work we do has to be at certain target times. These are not at your personal best pace but faster,and are normally County, Regional, National or Bristish Championship qualifying times. Intensive training has been proven to be more succesful than yardage based training with less injuries and greater focus on holding technique and skills at pace that is then reflected in races.
This morning I was suprised to say the least at the number of swimmers who had no idea what their own personal best time was or what their target times should be. These are basic requirements of training particularly if we are going to persist with intensive training rather than yardage based training. This is where log books and crib sheets come into place. Crib sheets are a laminated piece of paper or card that you can write your pbs down on and your target times, to keep at hand on poolside during training sessions and record times you do in sets straight away (a 2B pencil will work). Log books are used to record the times you have done each session and when the session is repeated measure your improvement.
There are lots of areas which will improve you as a swimmer, the 4 I like to focus on are :-
Training Correctly - ensuring you train the skills and the correct pace.
Nutrition - eating and drinking right to fuel the body and help it recover.
Pyschology - being of the right mind set to succeed.
Admin - recording data and monitoring your own improvement through goals and targets.
If you do what you have always done you will get what you always have got!
