Mental Training

Creating the Conditions for Success

BY CHRIS CONLON

As we were just talking I was in-formed that he is also a middleschool teacher. So even though heis working at the college level, he isbringing the information with theunderstanding of working with chil-dren, I believe, as we all know, themental training — no matter what weever do in trying to train our swim-mers physically - it is the mind thatmakes the whole difference. We aregoing to be given the privilege todayto learn. I know that we are not avery large group so you are going tohave an advantage over everybodyelse out there.

We have a little gift from ColoradoTiming and I hope if you are stillgoing back to see all the exhibits inthe exhibit hall that you will stop byand look at what they have to offer.This gift is to thank you and f want tothank you personally for stopping in.

Good morning and thank you verymuch for the opportunity to be hereto speak with you today. Like Mr.Klein said, I am a collegiate coachat Johns Hopkins University, butmy background has taken me fromdevelopmental summer league pro-grams through high school coaching,USS — both age group and seniorlevel. Masters and then finally I willbe entering my 5th year with JohnsHopkins this season, I am real excitedabout the opportunity to share thisinformation with you today, I don'tnecessarily think that I am goingto present too many ideas that aresort of revolutionary or coming outof left field. But I look forward tosharing the information with youlike all the coaches here have beenso great about sharing their informa-tion. I will share with you how we

implement it at Johns Hopkins andhow that it benefited our swimmers.Hopefully you might be able to takesome of that back home to yourprograms to share with your swim-mers and help them to achieve peakperformance which is really what weare all after anyhow.

I started thinking about the devel-opment of my ASCA FellowshipProgram just by reflecting back overthe years on some of the swimmerswhom I have had the opportunityto coach. One 'male swimmer I wascoaching back in high school was thehigh school's only swimmer. Goinginto his senior year at our confer-ence championship meet he swama 52 high in the 100 butterfly. Thiswas a really good swim for him andthe great thing was he was totallyunshaved and totally untapered. Wewere thinking hey, when we go upto our Eastern meet - which is a bigregional meet out in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania - that he was really go-ing to have some outstanding swims.All of his training was fantastic andhis taper mode was fantastic goinginto Easterns, We showed up at thismeet, which for him was on a verylarge scale, and during prelims heswam a 54,7, despite the fact that hewas shaved and he was tapered. Thatnight at finals he did squeeze into theB final. He swam a 52.1, He was out-distancing his heat and actually hadthe third fastest swim of the meet, yethe only ended up in 7'h place.

Another swimmer who gave mesome fits this past season at her firstNCAA meet again had been trainingoutstandingly throughout the entireseason. All the indicators we had interms of splits, relays, and things that

were going on as we approached themeet indicated she was going to havea breakthrough performance. Well,she spent the first two days of themeet literally shaking in her boots,and had performances that weresub-par compared to what she hadaccomplished even in mid-season.Finally, by the third day of the meet,she was able to achieve some successin the relays when she had settleddown and had some more confi-dence in herself. The most startlingthat happened at that National meetoccurred as the coaches and I weregiving a talk about relaxing, kind ofgetting into the groove, and givingher the feeling of team work. She wasso tense that while that conversationwas going she actually ripped hergoggles apart and broke her goggles.So we decided that we need to dosome things to help these swimmershave more confidence and belief inthemselves when they approach achampionship setting,

A good friend of mine, her name isHolly Kenney, is an Ironman triath-lete. As she was preparing for herfirst Ironman triathlon and she wastraining with a woman named LynnBrooks who is a 20 time Ironmanfinisher and obviously knows a greatdeal about the sport of triathlon andwhat it takes to excel on the worldstage in that sport. While they weretraining together Holly related astory about her training partner andcoach Lynn Brooks. Lynn said "youknow Holly, if you have an outstand-ing race you might go you know, 15or 16 hours. You know, if you reallynail it, you will go 15 or 16 hours,"Holly was like okay and she waspretty comfortable with that goinginto it and felt confident that she was

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going to be able to complete the chal-lenge. She werit to the Ironman tri-athlon and actually finished in a timeof, not 15 or 16 hours, but 12 hoursand 54 minutes. She was very excitedand she got up to that world stageand she was performing at very, veryhigh levels.

The most interesting part of thatstory happened when she got home.She realized that she had a postcardon her refrigerator of a previous iron-man race and on that postcard wasa man running across the finish line.He had his hands up and was veryexuberant that he had finished theironman. The time on that card was12 hours and 54 minutes. So I startedto wonder what is the connection be-tween that card that she saw five, six,seven times a day - every time shewent into the refrigerator -12 hoursand 54 minutes. Was there a relation-ship between what your mind is be-ing told and your actual performanceat the end of the day.

So, for all of these reasons I devel-oped this ASCA fellowship programto try and help my swimmers have alittle bit more confidence, a little bitmore belief in themselves and be ableto achieve peak performance in ourchampionship setting. As a coach,I looked at it as a great opportunityto help do what I call creating theconditions for success. Because, likeall of you out there, I am sure you gothrough all of your training through-out the year to make sure that theswimmers are properly preparedand ready to hit it when they needto. This is just another tool in our toolbox to do that.

Mental training is a program of goalsetting, visualization, affirmationstatements and positive self-talk. AsI go through my talk today I wouldlike to highlight how we use this ina yearlong program with our swim-mers at Johns Hopkins. We offer thisas a tool for success for the swim-mer just like you might considerdoing double practices as a tool thatis going to help benefit your swim-mers throughout the season. Perhapsweightlifting or medicine balls aregoing to help benefit your swimmers.

This is another tool that will helplead them to success at the end of theseason.

Mental training is a programof goal setting, visualization,affirmation statements andpositive self-talk.

Mental training of course is not apanacea, but there are some plusesand minuses to it as well. As you cansee, and I am sure you know, someathletes are unwilling to really workon training their minds. It is just likeyou might have trouble convincingsome athletes that a track start isfaster than a grab start. Some athletesare not ready to buy into the mentaltraining program. Other athleteswere saying hey, mental training,peak performance. That means Idon't have to work as hard. That isnot true as well because mental train-ing cannot replace any of the physi-cal training, the yardage, the sprintwork, the power work that you do.It certainly cannot replace any of thetechnical training that you do in thedrill work, the turns, starts and also itcannot really increase your potentialto excel.

I didn't want my swimmers to gointo the season with a 50 and 100freestyler believing that they weregoing to win the 200 breaststroke atNCAAs. That wasn't my goal for theprogram. However, mental trainingdoes offer many benefits for swim-mers. We find that the swimmersare more controlled under pressure,that they had more confidence andthey have a consistently high level ofperformance. Their consistency is in-creased not only in meet settings, butalso in practice settings. Of coursethey perform a higher level in prac-tice and meets and the most excitingpart we found about mental train-ing and visualization is that it reallyhelped our swimmers to obtain newskills and techniques more quickly.When we are working on new turnsor we are adding a new drill in a pro-gram, the whole visualization processreally benefited swimmers in terms

of how quickly they mastered thattechnique. They were able to incorpo-rate that into their racing stroke.

Prior to the season last year GeorgeKennedy, the coach at Johns HopkinsUniversity, set out some rather loftygoals for me. He encouraged me as Iwas taking over the sprint program,that we were going to revamp thesprint program and try to establishit as one of the stronger programsin the nation. He set out some loftygoals in terms of saying that we wantto have all our sprint relays in the,top 8 at NCAAs. So I thought whew -that's pretty fast. He said that for thepast three years in the men's side wehave been 21st, 5th, and 3rd and wewant something that is going to helptake us over the top and maybe helpus get into the top -first or second atNationals. Of course on the women'sside we want to improve on our 5thplace finish of last year.

Mental preparation seemed like agreat match for us at the time and itproved to be a great match becausewe were trying to set some goalsthat had never been accomplished atJohns Hopkins University. We weretrying to overtake one of the mostpowerful swimming teams in Divi-sion III and we needed some toolsthat were going to help us to getthere. We felt we needed an edge,and mental training was definitelythat edge.

In preparing the mental trainingprogram, and the sprint program aswell, I decided it would be worth-while to make some calls to peoplewho had some success in coaching.So one of my first calls made wasto David Marsh who is the coachdown at Auburn. I said "David youknow, we are trying to get our sprintprogram going. What are some of thethings that you have done to get yourkids going fast. How can we get ourkids to go fast." The first thing thathe said was "well you could recruitfaster swimmers" So I am thinking,okay that is a good start, but then hehad some other points which I found

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really valid. He described how histraining program was broken downinto different kinds of things thatthey did with their sprinters. One ofthe points that he really highlightedwas the fact if there is anything thatyou really find very valuable and isreally worth doing and you reallybelieve it is an important part of yourprogram, you've got to do it at leasttwo times a week. You've got to doit two times a week. For example, ifyou really believe in power work orhypoxic training you've got to find away to get that in at least two timesa week and that is the only way thatit is going to be significant to yourswimmers. So, in thinking about that,I decided that mental training can'tjust be something that wee just docoming up to Nationals or a confer-ence meet and all of a sudden we sayhey, let's do some relaxation, somevisualization. It's got to be a programthat is consistently implementedthroughout the year and it's got to besomething that the kids are consis-tently exposed to that they couldpractice with throughout the year.So we had to find a way to make ittwo times per week in our practiceschedule.

This is a general sketch of what ourpractice schedule looks like. You cansee as we go through the week thatyou know, depending on whether weare doing kick or leg lifts, arm lifts orhypoxic work, each of those thingshappen twice a week. We decidedto take our mental training programwhich is our classroom work and putit in on Tuesday. This is our qualityday for the sprinters at Hopkins. To asprinter at Johns Hopkins what quali-ty means is all-out intense swimmingwith the understanding that intense,fast swimming in practice leads tofast swimming in meets and the onlyway we are going to get faster is byswimming fast. The one thing thatwe do with quality swims is a lotof active rest. Generally the sets arevery short and very intense. So wehad a nice window of opportunity tosqueeze a time in when the mentaltraining wouldn't necessarily causeus to carry over in our time schedule.We are pretty crunched in terms ofgetting the kids to the pool so they

can manage their daily lives. It alsomeshed up well because during ourquality swims we did a lot of differ-ent test sets and it would give theswimmers an opportunity to do somevisualization activities to preparethemselves for those test sets, to helpthem be more successful at that.

One other thing I would like to addabout our practice schedule that wefelt was really important. Duringthe first six weeks of the season wedid general training for the entireprogram. We didn't differentiatebetween sprinters, middle distance ordistance swimmers and we also didnot start the mental training pro-gram. We felt that we wanted to givethe kids an opportunity to get a baselevel of fitness going. We wantedto have an opportunity to evaluatethose swimmers and we wanted theswimmers to take some time to thinkabout some of their goals for theseason and to realize what some oftheir strengths and weaknesses mightbe because we wanted to use thatmental training to help aid the swim-mers in overcoming their weaknessesto help improve their performance atthe end of the season.

Yes sir - when we are doing ourweight training we divide into fourdifferent sessions. For example Mon-day morning we only have the kidsfor about an hour or an hour and ahalf so we try to get in - we can't dolike a full scale full body lift on thosedays so we just divide up and we doarms and upper body on one day andthen we do legs on another day andso we just alternate them so we don'ttotally blast them on one given day.You can see how we do two arm liftsand two leg lifts spread out throughthe week and of course, if there aremore questions about any of thosesorts of things I would he happy totake them at any time.

Basically, once we get into ourprogram in mid-October, about sixweeks into the season, we brokedown into a six week program wherethe kids met for 30 minutes a ses-sion in our sort of classroom setting.What I always had the kids do wasgo down on the pool deck, they got

their bathing suits on and got readyto go. They would just come to me inshorts and a t-shirt and had gottenone of the rooms on campus to go to.We began the whole process of learn-ing about what is mental training andwe moved basically from very easyskills and topics, things they couldeasily imagine. For example our firstvisualization was imagine you arepeeling an orange and all the differ-ent sensations that you might experi-ence while peeling an orange. Maybewe took a tour around campus in ourheads.

Then as the season progressed wetaught them more skills about howthey could use that visualization tonot only picture very specific things,(great turns or a super butterflytechnique) but to go through theentire visualization process fromthe git-go. Starting with entering thebuilding the night of finals for the 100meter butterfly, then visualizing theentire process - preparation process- getting up onto the blocks and thenactually the execution of the race.So we started out with very simpletopics and moved into topics thatwere much harder. We also startedfocusing on immediate goals in thebeginning of the season. For example,I really need to get my breaststroketurns down, or I am having a lot oftrouble maintaining good race pacingin my freestyle. Then, different typesof visualization that were more long-term, for example - trying to see whatthe peak performance at champion-ships might be many months away.So we went from easy to the hard.

I am going to go through each of thesix weeks of our program. The basicstructure was an introduction muchlike I am giving you today. I had toexplain to the swimmers what mentaltraining was, what the benefits tothem were going to be because, ofcourse, they want to know what isgoing to help them out the most.Then we took our second week- we looked at imagery and how itwould help us in a training settingand then imagery that could help us

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in a competitive setting. We talkedabout affirmation statements whichare trigger tools that benefit us inmaking our imagery. Then we wouldtalk about how we can make thoseaffirmations really stick and have aneffective impact on their mind. Thenfinally, what I think was the mostimportant topic and I am definitelygoing to stress it more highly withthem this year - is positive self-talkduring the competitive season. Thewonderful thing about the swimmersthat I work with at Johns Hopkinsis that they are very cerebral. Theyreally are thinkers and they like toknow like why are we doing this andhow is this going to help me. But,they also tend to be a little bit cyni-cal. I feel like this year it would beimportant to stress that positive selftalk because they are wonderful athelping other swimmers who havehad a bad swim. They say "hey youare going to be fine," but they havea very difficult time doing that forthemselves. I think that is an impor-tant skill that when they don't have agreat swim, whether they got beatenby somebody they thought theyshouldn't have, they need to be ableto rebound and have a good swim intheir future swims.

As I said, the first week is just anoverview of mental skills and as I gothrough the program I close out thefirst week with a worksheet called"what will it take." It is actually veryprovocative, and if you ask the swim-mers, probably a little bit too lengthy,the questionnaire that they answerfor me. What that questionnaire doesis let me know where they are com-ing from. As you can imagine, thekids on your team, you have a verybroad makeup of swimmers withdifferent personalities, different life-styles, different family backgrounds.They are all probably doing whatthey do and doing what they love forvery different reasons. So if I am go-ing to be able to help them as a coachand as a mental training coach aswell, I need to know what motivatesthem, what gets them excited aboutswimming, and what they want toachieve. Where do they want to be.Are they happy being a conferencelevel swimmer or do they have goals

to be up at the National level. So itreally gives me a good perspective ofwhere they are coming from. So I wasable to use that as I go throughoutthe year to work with the individualkids and tailor our talks to their per-sonalities. I found that very helpful.A couple of points we highlight onthat first week about mental skills- (1) they can be learned and (2) theywill ultimately lead to your personalpeak performance.

Mental skills are not an easy tool tolearn. You've got to work at it. Youare going to have times when you failand you are not successful at creatingthe image that you want and you arenot successful at positively affectingyour mind and it is something thathas to be practiced consistently. Ifound my swimmers as energetic andenthusiastic as they are about beingsuccessful; they are also a little bitlazy sometimes and they don't wantto necessarily work that hard unlessthey have a belief that this is reallygoing to benefit them in the end. Ireally wanted to stress the point tothem that they've to work at this.This is going to be hard for you.

During our second week we are try-ing to improve their ability to visual-ize. We are going from those basics- peeling the orange as I describedand the tour around campus visual-ization to - visualizations where weare trying to correct specific technicalflaws that they may have. Perhaps abutterfiyer who never maintains herbreathing pattern on her fourth 25 oran IMer who still does a really slowopen turn going from backstroke tobreaststroke or to somebody who wewant to get faster in their flip turns.So during the second week we tryto take some individual skills - someindividual aspects of their swimmingand have them do that visualization.

In my next couple of slides, I am go-ing to go through the ten steps that Ifeel are really important to preparingyourself for visualization and reallyhaving some beneficial visualizationduring practice.

When you are doing visualizationyou need to be calm, comfortable and

relaxed. You and I think we couldprobably get relaxed, but you canimagine that for college level swim-mers, that means lying down onthe floor with your eyes closed andthat is okay. I think I had a big fearin the beginning of the season thatgosh - my swimmer is going to sleepthrough my talk and I am used tothat with my middle school students,but with the swimmers I am thinkingwow, I want this to be really effec-tive. I found they did a great job withit and we lost a few over the courseof the season, but that was okay.

When you are doing the visualizationyou want to view it from differentperspectives. The two perspectivesthat I talk about are the internalperspective and the external perspec-tive and I encourage the swimmersto use whatever is best for them.The internal perspective would bevisualizing and experience exactlyas you would experience it in thewater. Imagine yourself and you cansee out of your goggles, you can seeyour hands entering the water, youcan feel the water rushing past yourbody just as you might experienceit as you are swimming - that is theinternal. The external perspective isvisualizing yourself swimming, butfrom the perspective of a televisioncamera. Maybe that television camerais under the water, maybe its yourcoach filming you from the side orthere is an overhead shot like you seeon ESPN. I encourage the swimmersto use the perspective that works bestfor them.

When visualizing you don't want tojust see yourself swimming throughthe water. It is really important thatyou pay attention to other sensorydetails. What does it smell like. Whatdoes it feel like as the water rushespast your body. What level of excite-ment do you have as you are acceler-ating down the pool and blasting intoyour first turn. So pay attention toall of those details to help make thatimagery more realistic. The imagehas to be played as you want it to beseen.

I talked earlier about the cynicismof my swimmers at some times and

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often found out early in the seasonthat they were visualizing with theend in mind. They would visualizethemselves, for example, the womenwould go 24 flat in a 50 freestyle.They would start with that end inmind and could see it happening andthey could see themselves doing it;but, as they would get to the end ofthe race something would go wrong.Their goggles would leak, their suitswould fall off, or they would lookup and say "holy cowl, I just went27." So it is really important that theypractice visualizing it as they wantit to be seen. Some kids have a hardtime doing that because they havethat self-image that, no, they can-not achieve at that level. The mentaltraining is all about changing thatself-image to help them become moresuccessful. Allow no negative imagesto come to mind during your visual-izing. It is kind of the one time inyour day when everything turns outexactly the way you want it to be. Yessir - not necessarily.

What I really want during theirvisualization is for the swimmers tonot compare themselves to somebodyelse or to worry about things theycan't control. Okay, let's get to thereal race situation and they are nextto that swimmer. All of a sudden thatswimmer is ahead of them and theythink, "Oh no! - there I go again" andall that work is lost. So when they dotheir visualization, it is really impor-tant that that they stay focused onthemselves and the things that theypersonally can control.

Now one of the great images - im-ages I guess is a good word - waysto help them understand about howyou don't let negative images cometo mind. Anytime you are doing yourvisualization, if that negative imagedoes come to mind, stop what youare doing. I tell the kids to imaginethat they have a computer disk or aCD burner where they are recordingthese images for playback at a laterdate. Take that CD out, pitch it, puta new one in and start all over again.I want them to continue doing thatprocess until they have successfullyvisualized what they want. Thenonce they have that image recorded

as they like it. they will be able toplay it over and over again and theimage will be repetitive and perfectand be beneficial to them, instead ofalways seeing that negative outcome.

As I described earlier, begin withshort easy images. We don't wantthe kids trying to picture everythingthat is going to happen in the race.Start with very basic things. As theswimmers get more proficient atit, I want them to introduce move-ment. We will use this a lot with ourbackstrokers as we are teaching themto dolphin kick under water. We tryto use that to their benefit in competi-tion. Imagine during their visualiza-tion that they might have their eyesclosed, holding a streamline position,actually feeling that action happen-ing, and then taking their first coupleof strokes in the air as if they wereactually performing in a meet.

Yes — I don't do music, but some otherpeople have done that.

Before I do the visualizations, I havea mental relaxation routine that I takethem through and I use the sameroutine every week so that they canhopefully use that routine and useit on their own. just so they get usedto the repetitive nature of it, but Idon't use music or anything like that.I just try to have the lights dimmedin a quiet room and go through therelaxation technique and then dothe visualization. We encourage theswimmers to practice visualizing ontheir own. Like I say, anything that isimportant you have got to do at leasttwo times a week. The more that theydo it the more beneficial it will be forthem.

This is where I come in line and Ihave to figure out opportunities tointegrate that mental training into apractice setting. If you think back toour practice outline that I highlightedon the screen a few minutes ago,there was only one mental trainingsession built into our weekly calen-dar. What we do for the other mentaltraining session is we do it duringa practice setting and it could hap-pen in a variety of ways. It could be,okay we are going to take the next

five or ten minutes to visualize whatis going to happen in our test set.Or it could be a one-on-one sort ofconversation between the swimmersand me saying okay, you know whatare some of the things you are goingto work on. Describe to me whatyour visualization is like. Let's talkabout where we are now and whatwe need to do to get where you arepicturing and # 10 is just do it, do it,do it. You've got to visualize and themore you do it the more effective it isgoing to be, the more confidence thekids will have that this will be benefi-cial to their swimming performance.

During our third week we try tomove on to imagery in a competi-tive setting. What is it going to belike when you get to the big show.We try to help set them up so wecan improve their belief in self andtheir confidence once they show upat a meet, and they are not going tobe surprised by any of the situationsthat they might encounter. Duringthis section we focus on the role ofthe subconscious mind in creating theself-image that the swimmers have.I like to compare the subconsciousmind to a TV camera because youcan imagine the TV camera is roll-ing on the nightly news and that TVcamera is going to record whateverhappens, no matter what. The thingabout the subconscious mind is thatit doesn't really differentiate betweenwhether you are up on stage actingout something or you are actuallyexperiencing it. So the subconsciousnund is going to record all of thoseimages and it doesn't differentiatebetween whether those images weresomething that you have imagined,or created in your mind, or you haveactually experienced it. The subcon-scious mind doesn't know if you justbroke through that barrier and set anew personal best - whether that isactually happening or something youare visualizing. The subconsciousmind collects that information and iswhere the belief in self is created, inyour self-image. We want to improvethat self-image. It gives them moreconfidence, leading to more success.

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and again, of course the subconsciousmind records all of those images as ifwe have actually experienced it.

During our pre-competitive visual-ization — this is just a good analogyhere which highlights the importanceof incorporating the sensory detailsinto your visualization. You takeyour imagination and you multiplythat by the vividness of your im-agery. This would include how itfeels, how it smells, how excited youwere, and what were people goingto say after you have completed thatlifetime best swim - that makes itmore realistic to the swimmer. Themore that you can get them focusedon the things they might experi-ence in the competitive setting themore effective that is going to be inaltering your self-image and alter-ing the picture the way they picturehow their performance might be atthe end of the year. Our imagery forcompetition is something that needsto be positive. We don't need toreinforce any of those negative issuesas I talked about earlier. It needs tobe personal. It's got to be about whatthe swimmer wants - what they wantto accomplish and what they believethey can do.

It is not my job as a swim coach ora mental training coach to say hey,you know what, you really need tostart picturing yourself going 48.5 ina hundred backstroke this year. I re-ally think you need to start thinkingabout that because, if the swimmerdoesn't have any belief in that, it isnot going to be effective for them. Iwant it to be effective and the visu-alization also needs to be presenttense. When the swimmers are doingtheir visualization they need to act- excuse me, they need to visualizeas if they are already there and theydon't want to be like, well, it wouldbe really cool if I could do this. Theyneed to do the visualization as if theyhave experienced it because that isthe only way they are going to breakthrough those barriers.

Affirmations I have found to beperhaps the most powerful tool thatcame out of this program this past

winter. Affirmations are very briefstatements that help elicit an image,help bring it to mind and help clarifyit. The way that they help elicit thatimage it and clarify it is by beingvery specific and using very direc-tive action words. If we can use theright words, which is the affirmation,it will automatically lead to the rightimage in the mind. This will lead tothe right emotions which will bringback that vividness that we talkedabout earlier. Affirmations are thetrigger tool for us. I'll give you a littleexample of how to write some af-firmations and what some good andbad affirmations might be so you cancompare and contrast the differences.You will notice some themes arereappearing here.

When they are writing an affirma-tion and I have them do it on a 3 x 5note card that some of the kids carryaround with them. Some of the kidsjust leave it on their night stand ormaybe tape it to the mirror wherethey brush their teeth in the morning,and some of them put affirmations intheir lockers. I encourage the swim-mers to do whatever is going to workfor them. Their affirmations need tobe personal and about what they areinterested in accomplishing. Theyneed to be positive and notice thetheme, and they need to be there as ifit has already happened. When theyare writing affirmations you don'twant them to compare themselves toanother swimmer. "Gosh it would begreat, if I beat Mary in the 50 back-stroke at sectionals this year." That isnot what we are trying to do becausewe don't have any control over whatMary does.

Yes, right — well some of your visu-alization could be centered around ifyou are seeded second or third youare going to be not in lane 4 so maybesome of the visualization is aboutwhen you spend time visualizingyourself in lane 3 or lane 5 and howyou might execute your swim fromthere. All we are trying to do is to geta consistent level of performance, soyou could visualize even from endlanes and see if that might be effec-tive for your swimmer. I would take

it from that angle, okay. Also withnot comparing - it is okay for them toadmire qualities in other swimmers.I love going to senior level meetsand just watching the best swimmersswim. You look at them and likewow - look at those - you know hereally gets in and out of his walls fastor look at that stroke technique. Thatis amazing; or, he held his breathingpattern through the entire length ofthat 200 fly. It is okay to admire thosequalities but you need to picturethose qualities within yourself andnot within someone else.

When you write your affirmationsyou need to use action words - explo-sive, smooth, confidently, fast, pow-erfully. Your affirmations need to bevery specific. I actually encouragemy athletes to write several differentaffirmations, and I encourage themto write — if they are really focusedon their start and turn - separate af-firmations for each aspect. Don't say"I had really good starts and turns."Use terms like "I am explosive offthe blocks" and "I enter the watersmoothly and carry my speed off thewall." Your affirmations need to cre-ate powerful emotions. It is excitingto swim fast. It is exciting to do welland nail your swims. We want toelicit those emotions. Your affirma-tions need to have balance. What thatmeans is that as I go throughout thisentire program with the kids, one ofthe things I remind them of is that allthis mental training, all the differentskills that we are learning are not justabout swimming. What I don't wantto do is create an environment wherethe kids come to morning practiceand they think about swimming.They go home during the day. Theyvisualize swimming, visualize swim-ming, visualize swimming and theycome back to do practice and theyvisualize swimming before they go tobed and they do it when they wakeup in the morning. Now we do notwant to create that necessarily. So Iencourage them when they are doingaffirmations to write some affirma-tions about some other things in theirlife that they may want to change and

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Creating the Conditions for Success

to set' that tht'so techniques nnild beheTieficial in other areas, other thanjust --wimmiiig.

Your iiffirmaiions need to be realistic.Now thai I am a lormer svvininier, 1am very re<ilislic ahout mv potentialt'lir success cind the tilings that I couldacv'ompiish. So \ Lsiializini; m\'selfjumping into the water ani.1 i.i(>ing aivally fast 20(1 IM right now wouldnot be verv reali.stic aniJ would in>the ver\ believable. Your affirmationsneed to be pri\ ate. I do encouragesome of the s\\ immer'^, \\ iien theyare ready, to share their aftirmaUcMiswiih meonlv hecatise I idn hi'lpthem better. I! i know the\' iirv doingaH'irmati(>ns about their hutterflv tobackstroke transitions \A'e .ire goingto bv \\'t>rking on tbat anti we canshare feedback with them that Is go-ing to he beni'Hcial t(> them.

AKti, as I talkei.1 about, ha\'ing bal-iime and doing some affirmations forother things in voiir life, II there areaffirmations that kids are workingon that are personal, ma\ be aW'ut arelationship, how their academics aregoing, hov\' their stud\'ing is going,you know they tloii't want to he ad-vertising this sort of thing thev needto he personal, cynd the\' neeil to bepri\ ate. "Ihe final tiling about affirma-tioiT^ is tiiat vou don't want lo writeaii\ "iiave-to" goals. Mental trainingis not about setting an ultimatum likeit I don't di-t m\' best I am a failure, hI don't win the national champion-ship then I am no gtmd. I hal is notwhaE this is al! about. We don't wantto have it be a "have-to."

I would like to gi\ e you exampk'sol some affirmations that are prett\gttod. i alvva\'s try to siiare a little bitabout mvsell witii the swimmers,kind ot what i" g'-'i'"'g on in m\' life.It helps them undeistand that thisis something ri'al and elfLvtive. Lastyear I was training for the Balti-more marathon, so my affirmationsI shared with them were - I am astrong runner i.Mid can maintain 7:30miles wMth a relaxed and comfortahlepace, Verv spet itic and wry directed.This is one i am still working on. Iam .}]! excellent golfer who ciri\,'esihe ball straiiiht into the middle o\

the fairway oiT the toe. Otlier affir-mations that ! like to encourage thesuinimers to consider are - "I am astrtmg leader and moti\'ate my team-mates in practice and meets," F,achof these trigger tools bring ti> mind a\'ery specific picture and once we getthat picture in place, the emotions aregoing to come along with it as well."I lia\'e a super last dolphin kick andexplode to the surtace with brilliantspeed." - tbose are action words.

i lere are some bad ones, I \\ onder if Icould ha \ea litlle bit of audience par-ticipation here- maybe vou can helpme figure luit what is wrong withthese affirmations. "I am impro\'-ing in my turns." Why is that a badatfii'mation statement for the kids iowrile di,H\"n? Yes ma'am, exceilent- excellent. "I am faster than Sallyin the 50 freest\'ie." - that would becomparison - \er\ good. "Breakingrecords is nice." Yes, \'ery good, and"1 w ill take down Tom Dolan in the4t)ti IM this season" - besides heingcomparison -- lor the kids that I was\\ orking v\ ith, w hich were sprinters- was not \"eiA- realistic. Another poc!i"one, one wliich is a little hit too higis "I have good starts" -maybe theybelieve that they have good starts butIhat is not the image that we are trv-ing to create. V\'e are trying to createan environmetit in which thev aregoing to excel.

()ka\', now the trick is taking all thiswork, taking the visualization,, takingtlu' attirmation statements and mak-ing them stick. When they write theiralfirmations I encourage them to steptwo months ahead to picture wherethey are going to be. Yes, ma'am, iv\ ill mo\'e the microphone for \ ou aswell to see it that wil! help - is that.\n\' better^ A little bit - I will work onit tor you.

With preparing their goals I wanttluMii to step aheail two months andpicture where they are so that thev\ ill he most effective. I liave a sctnv\ ho is 1 1/2, or a little bit more than1 now. and ! thought this was kind ofinteresting. When he was I year (»ldwe always taught him all thesi' differ-ent party tricks, like the cool thingshe could sa\' to kind of sho\\' off a

littk' hit for the in-laws. We alwaysask him, "Joshua how <)ld are you"and he would say "one," \'ov\' all ota -sudden one day he started sa\ ing"two" and iie would say "I am two."I thought - wait a minute - you arenot one, but we needed to change hisimage. So I said "Joshua, vou kriow\'ou uue only oni', vou are not two."^ ou know he wasn't buying that one,so instead we said "liev, let's teachhim to say that he is 2t) montbs old."So now e\-erv time hesays how oldhi' i , instead of sa\ Ing two, he sa\ s20 months. V\e eilecti\'ely changei.1the image that he had in his mmdol himself and where he is. So soi)n,he v\'ili actually be tv\o and he v\'asjust looking ahe.ui. As mt>st of u^ i.iow hen WL' ai'e \ oung, but LIS we g».'toldi'r we like ti> look hack a little bitmi>re.

On the - \ 3 card v\e talked al'OLiti-iescribing w here \ ou w ant to bv.I think one of the nio^t importantthings ahout tioing, our allirmal ionsand making them stick is not to lone\(un- atlirmafions [o happen. Hon'tsit there anvl OJK\' \ OU write the al-tirmation sa\' "I've got to he <i greatstarter so it 1 tlon'l ha\'e a great startthen I ani a failure. ! am no good."You ha\ e got to ju'-t go through it,keep that picture in \ our miiKl, i. on-tinue to v\ork on achieving that goal,v\'htiteviT it is on vour atlirmalioncard and let the process happen natu-raiiv. ^\^u cannt>l lorce that fo hap-pen. When \ou have that "> x ^Ciiid,w hether it is in \"our k>cker, on \'ourluirror, or on your bedside, \i'u lunegot to read the v\ortls and hopetulKthat trigger tool is going to cause \ outo think about, picture in your mintl,the image or the \ i->uali/ation thatyou want to ha\'i' and vou nvvd tolet.'l the emotions. What is it goingto tei'l like whc'n \ou touch that wallond vou ha\ e that explosix e finishinlo the w al! w lu're \ou don't breathefor th<' last ten \ards in treest\ le.What is it going to (eel like when all\'our buddies come up to you andNti\-, he\, YOU know that's a gi'e.it job.C'ongratulations -- thanks foi- liel[iingthe team out. What is that going toleel like and you have got io ri'peat it,vou ha\'e to do if o\ er c\ud o\-er and(Her again on a dail\ basis.

A c'luiple ol .iliirni.Uions help bringit hoHK' in l>.M"ins i>t tho feeling, thepiekirinij; ol how ii will leel. Hope-\u\\v, uonv ot nn ^w ininier^ have aprt>[ik'nt witli tiii'- but I thought itu oiiid he .1 good OIK' io ^hare here. IL'njoN" L'tMiig a, non-snutker as CMI af-firniation. So,, it that was somebody'sattirmalion, I u oiild encourage them\o picture themselves in a setting- nia\ ho at a part), iiias'he at a workhreak or something where Hie)v\()Li!Li norniall\' be smoking and IfYOU have them picture themselves inthat setting v\ illnuit a cigarette, i'iov\'gooil doe'^ tluit teei? I iiat's wherethat i'akmce conu'-- in. For swimmersthi.'\' m.n s.n "I am i\n f\pUisi\"ebackstroke slarti 'r ..w\d carr\' m\speed easik to nn breakout at 13meters^" I io\\' i'- it going to fee! as\ oil ^licc through the water and vouare expliniing oM the blocks^ As Inu-ntionL-Li, tiii' is one of tbe topicsthat I loimd the kids struggled witbthe mo'^t. Although some did benefit,we are going lo work on this duringthe upcoming tM- on.

I ihiiik it Wii kinti ()l interesting thatI ri,-placed a nutrition talk todav hc-cau'^e i think tberc' are a lot of paral-lels between the iood that you putin \tun- bod\ a- a tuel and the foodtliat you put in \ our mind as tuelthat creates wnw ^elf-image. It vouha\'e constant negati\e self-image'^or constant images that are negatiwcoming to mind, \(>u are going tocreate a bad protliict. It is not goingto be a posiiive outcome. So if youwant a positive oulcome vou've gotti.1 put posili\i.' images ci>nsistentlyinto voiu" miiiLl even though the con-ditions mighl be eontrary to it. Youneed to not dv\'el! npon \our v\eak-nes-^e'-. Doti't get up ,^nd sa\ "Oh Iknin\, it's Teifruarx and it is cold out-side .Mid \\ hen it IS cold outside L getreaiK tigiit, \\ ben i am tigbt; 1 cantgi» last." ^ ou LIIMI'I w.mt to dwell onthat. ^\ui nei.'tl io tl\\eii on all of tliepositi\'e aspt'cis ot \ itur swimming.You want lo tocus on what \-ou cancontrol personalK, and you wantto locus on \'our performance andthe art ol racing. When vou get to ameet yoLi do not vwint tt) be worriedaboLit all ol tbe tbings that are going(ill around vou. IbaE is wliv we use

tbe process to picture what mightbe happening ahead ot time. Pictuiewhat it is going lo sound like. Whatare the noises going to be like com-ing trom \<>ur parents in the stands.\\ hat is it going to smeii like w henyou stt.'p i>iit on the deck at finals atnight tor \'our iirst e\'ent?

it \'ini do bave negati\'e tboiiglifs ata meet, there aw three simple tbingsto do: you ni'ed to notice the negativetboLigbts. Recognition is an impor-tant tiling. It \'ou are kind oi down,tbe kitis might go up to a friend andsa\', "1 just alv\avs choke on tiie last30 o\ tbe 200 backstroke, it kills me."\our iriend sa\s vou bave heen train-ing so hard, you are doing a greatjob ,\nd \ ou are going to be oka\ -But it i" up t<t the swimmers at that]e\ ei oi meets to be able to do tbat forthem--eh'es. I he\' need to notice thefact that the\' are li.iv ing those nega-ti\ e Uiougbts and lhv\ need to trv toeliminate them. They need to erasetiiose messages. Take that CD writerout ot there, pitch it, put a new ciiskin and then replace those negati\'ethoughts w ith positive thoughts. Weare \\'orking all year on our \ isualiza-tion- It is a great opportunity' again,pictLuv the outcome exactk' as youwant it to liappen and tocus on theaffirmations. The affirmations aretheie so that when there are timesoi stress, wlu'n tbe kids are ha\ ingsome sell-diHibi, perhaps those affir-mations will trigger the positix'e emo-tions. "I am an explosi\'e backstrokestarler and I get off the wall fast.

.Are tbere anv Ljuestions that I cananswer about tbe training program^Yes, sir - I tbink you biUidled it excel-ieiilK : you know wliere vou alwa\sv\'ant to point out the positi\ es inwhat tlie\ dill, in addition to tbenegati\'es. Because if \ i>u don't e\'erpoint out tlie negaii\'es the\' arc notgt^ing to learn. \\ hat I tr\' to do \\ ithswimmers ot all levels is ha\"e tliemexplain to me what the\' did incor-rectl\' and Hu-n v\iiat ba\e we heenworking t)n in pr.ictice? You knowwbat vou did tefi tiiiies \"esterday,last night at practice, it's gettingthem to talk about it and tbey start todevelop thai picture in tbeir mindsatraiu of v\ bat it looks like. So it is

just !vall\- exposing Slu'm again, nothiding them Irom the tad - " \eah,\OL! know \ou blew i! tlu're." ^ouknow th<it kind ot >lutt, hut it gi\'esthem an opporiunit\ to think ahtuit- Yeab, i,oach \iui ^aid I sbmild realivu'ork i^n not br(.vitbing nu' last tbreesti'okesaiitJ nn tirsi tbi*ee str(ske^oL!t and i realb- bli'\\' it on that (>ne.I bal's tbe way I \\ ouid do it. I woulddefinilel\' not liiLli' the truth. But let'ssa\ it is a trials/fin.ils situation, awoiulerlul oppoi1iuiit\ to belp tbemdo soine \ i'-uaii/ation, \Mi\' don't\-ou go dow n in tin' v\\\rm-dov\'n pooland w bile \ ou .ire s\\ iniming vio\\'npracti>.'e a lew turn'-tiie \\ a\ \oi.iwant to d<Mt. C ;ei \\ hat ){ \~- going toteel like and tben as vou ave relax-ing tbi-- attemoon ^-pend ^mnc timethinking about ihat and doing vour\"isLiali/ation aiui ma\ he w rite st)inenew aftii iihitioris, that's tiie w a\' Iwould do it, \essir-, Wonderful ques-tion,

I hat was mv (losing sti I will get tciit neiw\ V\ hat w e tounLl, L'speci.ills"and obv iousiv with thi.' swimmerswbo bought iiiti> it more, wa- nun'epositi\e benefits, | \\ i|| speak h>i'-i-calK ot our men's team because thatu as w bere the biggest challenge la\in term-- ot tle\ eloping the sprinter^and tr\-ing to build a teatii concept.We ttHini.i tliat the team, lia\ ing gonethrough the process, the sprinters, YC-a\\\ had an opporUmit\ to bond andmake a coniu'ction. and ii thev wentinio the meet, tbe NCA.A meet andwv actuaib' bad a couple ol freshmenv\'ho it was realb' tlu'ir Iirst nationallevel competition. We loutid thatv\e periornuxi at \eiA high levels,and not onh did tlie\' sta\ positi\'etor theuiNeiNcs, but th,e\ were realt\"great tor tbe itther gu\ ••, So it bad alot (if po'^itiws [or Us, \ i \ ' next step asI go tbrougb tbe program next \ earis going t*> be lo quantil), |-A"er\'hod\'sa\ s "well pio\ I' io me it w orks,"It is kind ot like "pro\'i' !o mi' (hatdoing l(i reps iriNtead ot 12 reps andweight-lilting was \\ bat made vourhW immer go Lister than mine," Thatis going to be tbe trick, tii figure (Hitbow ilo \\'e LiuantiK results. 1 iow

continued from page 33 Creating the Conditions for Success

do we say this works for us, and thiswill work for you too. We actually,you know we had been third the yearbefore. In terms of, I told you they setthe lofty goal of baving all our sprintrelays make wbat we call the big 8or the top 8, and actually all five ofthe relays qualified first in prelimsand set scbool records in every relay.We were rocking — we bad a goodmeet, so it was fun. You know it wasone of tbose meets wbere everytbingcomes togetber and I do believe tbatmental training played a part. Youknow aside from all tbe training andtbe bard work tbe kids bad put intoit, tbat tbey were confident going intotbe meet and tbey bad a clear pictureof wbere tbey wanted to be. Now tbeinteresting thing is tbat tbey bad pic-tured tbemselves coming in secondbecause tbat was a far-reacbing goal.I wisb tbey bad pictured tbemselvescoming in first. Tbat's always for nextyear I guess.

Any otber questions?Yes, - in tbe back - Rigbt. Well I alsocoacb summer league wbicb is age-groupisb and you know wbat I findworks best for me in tbat setting is amore of a one-on-one kind of tbing. Ifind kids tbat are ready for it and sortof looking to take tbe next step. Youknow tbat it is a good tool to help,one-on-one to start talking about andlet's you know tbe picture of wbereyou want to go. Tell me about wbereyou want to go and tben teacb tbemsome of tbe skills of visualization andaffirmations. I guess we could asktbat question at any of tbe talks tbatare given bere tbis week. I tbink tbatknowledge is power and it prob-ably would be wortb your time tobave eitber a general meeting witbtbe parents or one on one meetingwitb some of tbe parents and explaintbe tbings you are trying to do. Andyes I tbink it is effective and yes tbisis going to belp your kid so maybeyou could support me by askingtbem about tbeir visualizations andbelping tbem write affirmation state-ments.

Yes - Great question.Eacb of tbe classroom sessions werwabout a balf bour and tbey includedteacbing tbem tbe new skills we

talked about. We would do somevisualization. We would work ontbat tecbnique and kind of talk aboutbow tbis could be belpful to us. Westarted tbe program in mid to earlyOctober and we carry tbis reallytbrougb about Tbanksgiving wbicbis our first taper sbave meet, wbicbwas tbe first of December. Tben wbatwe did after tbat was we bad regularmental rebearsal sessions wbere wewould do our relaxation like maybeonce a week or once every otberweek depending on tbe scbedule.So tbey stayed witb it and I wouldalso just make regular efforts to talkto tbe kids about tbeir affirmations- wbat are you working on so I canbave tbat connection witb tbem. Itbelps to know wbat tbey are tryingto get better at so I can help tbem getbetter at tbose tbings. After six weeksit was just kind of a maintenanceprogram from tbere on out. We wentswimming but actually we would usetbat. I said we would do tbe mentalrebearsal, we would use 15-20 min-utes before practice to do tbat anddo some visualization and bop in tbepool.

Yes sir.You know it is almost bard to forgetwbat you can't forget, but tbe wboleidea is to bave tbe kids go into a meetand don't bave tbem be surprised - interms of not comparing tbemselvesto anybody else or wbat bappens ifsomebody gets in tbere and is blow-ing your doors off? You migbt still bebaving a personal best swim and youmigbt be acbieving your goals. So interms of tbe visualization, lets try tojust get tbem focusing on tbe tbingstbey can control and know tbat tbeyare going to be able to do wbat tbeywant to do regardless of wbat is bap-pening around tbem - regardless ofwbetber tbe ligbts go out at finals orwbatever. But I don't really say okaytbink of sometbing bad and tbenpicture bow you would bandle tbatsituation. I bave not applied tbat intbat way.

Any furtber questions?So to go back to addressing tbequestion of did it work? In termsof giving up tbat balf an bour oftime, tbis is sometbing tbat we, and

especially our bead coacb, wereconcerned about. You've only gota certain amount of time wbere tbekids are yours and you know youdon't want to waste any of tbat time.We found tbat it was very effectiveand no negative effects in terms oftbeir training. Like I said earlier, webad increased confidence and tbeywere really relaxed at wbatever theircbampionsbip setting was, wbetberit was nationals or conference. Tbeywere going in and were very focusedon tbeir swims. It actually madecoacbing at tbose meets a lot easierbecause tbey bad already tbougbttbrougb wbat it was going to be like,wbat tbeir pacing strategy was goingto be, and were tbey going to go outfast in tbe first 25. We bad an excel-lent team bonding experience, a greatconnection for all tbe kids, and webad faster times for everybody wbicbwas cool. I found tbat even tbe se-niors wbo bad accomplisbed at verybigb levels and went tbrougb tbeprogram witb us still performed atvery bigb levels and improved tbeirbest times.

Here are some tbings tbat I would dodifferently or I talk about doing dif-ferently in tbe upcoming season. Tbisseason we are not going to just focuson tbe sprinters, we are going to tryto incorporate tbe program witb allof our Jobns Hopkins swimmers, allsprint, middle distance and distance.We are going to develop a quantifi-able means of saying, "Yeab tbisreally works, tbis is wortb it." Tbis isgood for us and we are going to focusmore on self-talk and really try toempbasize tbat point so tbat will beof more benefit to our swimmers.

I want to just say one final tbankyou to Mr. Jobn Leonard and Mr.Tim Welsb wbo work witb ASCAand sponsor tbe ASCA Fellowsbipprogram, Mr. Murray Stepbens ofNortb Baltimore and George Ken-nedy at Jobns Hopkins Universityand I appreciate all of you takingyour time witb me. If you bave anyotber questions I would be bappy toanswer tbose. Tbank you. a

34 American Swimming Magazine - 2008 Issue 1