This is the second article in our three part series following 3 of our swimmers and how they made 2014 their most successful year in the water to date. We hope their top tips will inspire you to your most successful year too! The first part can be viewed here
Our second swimmer, Emily, is a long distance fly swimmer is kind of fits into two categories, fitness (when she started the year) and performance (how many people do you know who could swim a mile of fly), but for this we’re using her as an example of one our fitness swimmers.
As you can see from the article we wrote for H2Open (click on the links page 1-2 and page 3) about Emily that, she has been inspirational to a lot of people (including Lucy). How did someone keep going when met with a challenge that she herself likened to a similar magnitude of challenge as to learning to swim?
Emily takes over from here:
“I certainly had low motivation at some points especially when the butterfly training was quite intense – 4/5 times a week. This level of training whilst intense gave me good form. However, during school holidays I was unable to swim as much because I had the kids to look after and this put a big dent in my training so going back to it after a 2-3 week break was usually the hardest point for me.
It sounds almost ironic, but what kept me going was going swimming (even when reluctant) and just having a swim. Sometimes not timing myself e.g. ‘just focussing on a technique or something small helped me to get through the session. The biggest factor was having Lucy to give me something to work on and break it down into easier more manageable sets for me – she knew when to lighten up for me. After a couple of weeks something would ‘click’ and I’d be eager to get back in and do some serious (and enjoyable) training.
Seeing results -even small improvements is what kept me going. I feel there is always going to be something I can work on whether that’s timing, technique or something new to learn (I still can’t do tumble turns – yet)!
Looking back I would say to myself:
- don’t pressurise yourself motivation is low. Look for something fun or different to work on
- Working with a swim partner or coach will keep you going
- Always have a goal in mind, whether that is a session aim/goal or the overall aim – you’ll be surprised how quickly you get there!”