In triathlon and Open water swimming you need commit to training in order to get the best out of your performance. That very commitment is a mental strength.
The purpose of today’s blog is to use an athlete I coach as a real life example to highlight how the mental approach to training could be used to help you to excel. My aim is to expose a growth mindset (Dweck, 2015) and a widely-utilised goal-setting model GROW (whitemore, J. (2002). This blog demonstrates how the mental approach to open water swim training helped my athlete to excel. I will also explain how I have helped my athlete continue his progression.
Let me first define the GROW Model which I became interested in after reading the book called Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore. The acronym GROW stands for: goal, realistic, opportunity & will. As I apply this model to my athlete you will see how you could apply this to most things in life.
The Growth Mindset is when an athlete understands that their abilities can be developed. As I belatedly mature and slowly, so slowly, begin to develop an inclining of self awareness, I embrace this ‘growth mindset’, intent to improve myself and my work as a coach. I have become interested in the growth mindset after researching the work of Carol Dweck, who first coined the phrase. This mindset defines the cheerleaders and excited parents or family supporters from the hard but true, up front and honest coach. If an athlete doesn’t do well, I’ll tell them and I won’t pretend. By doing this we open a dialogue on how to ‘grow’, improve, be better. I encourage everyone I coach to practice a growth mindset. For the purpose of this blog I will highlight how my case study athlete, used these approaches to move forward with his quest.
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Meet John; 47 years old; not an athlete but generally fit and healthy; average height and build.
In the summer of 2014 John took up swimming lessons with me in a private lane at Teignmouth Lido. Tentatively he described to me the barriers placed in front of him which, had so far in life, stopped his swimming. John had been totally put off swimming by his school teacher who stood on poolside yelling instructions at him when he was younger. He really wanted to learn front crawl. His solution to the fear barrier was to find a coach who would do tuition in a private lane so he could learn at his own speed.
John had a goal to learn to swim front crawl. He had hired me as his coach to give him a realistic chance. He was willing to give it a really good try. After just a couple of lessons the fear of old was a distant memory and a new passion was born. John started to get it.
He found the stroke became more and more comfortable. The opportunity was to swim further and further each time he practiced. He began to set himself new, realistic goals. At first just a length, then 10 lengths, then 50. When John reached 100 lengths he realised he could go on much further if he wanted.
The goal had changed from learning the core skills of balancing horizontal, exhaling into the water, rhythmically breathing to the side as the arms swung over. The challenge now was to be fitter from the swimming, to be faster, and test himself, to be better. John had already worked through a GROW model with an initial goal, made realistic by navigating barriers and hiring me to coach him. The opportunity to swim and the will power to keep trying, had helped John become a swimmer.
I presented John with the opportunity to adapt his new found passion to the open water. Spring of 2015 John joined the PeteWilbyTriathlOn beginner open water swimming group. He took to the additional challenges that beginner open water swimmers face like a duck would to water (pardon the pun). John was on his quest to be better. Now, in addition to the timing of the strokes with the rhythm of the breaths, he was glancing up ahead to sight the next buoy. He was corkscrew turning. He would adjust his position in the group to make best progress. He was conquering his fears. He was becoming aware of the things going on around him as he swam. John was getting good. John was being better and he felt better than ever before.
The thing John displayed throughout his progression was a great commitment to his training. John had the will to embrace mistakes and search for feedback from me as the coach as well as his peers. If he did not at first succeed, he’d keep trying.
During that winter, after open water had come to a close, John continued to work on his technique in the pool, always challenging himself, setting realistic goals and progressing. The next spring he joined the PeteWilbyTriathlOn experienced open water swimming group and started to plan goals to do in open water. As a dedicated PeteWilbyTriathlOn athlete he started doing adventure swims, each one further than the last. The new goal became the next adventure swim. The realistic distance always increasing an achievable amount . The opportunity for John to see the coastline, connect with nature and be a long distance athlete. The initial will, John used to re-expose himself to swimming, had motivated him to explore new places, enhance his fitness and to excel as a beginner swimmer, by becoming, a long distance athlete.
John started looking outside of PeteWilbyTriathlOn, entered open water events and challenged himself more and more. He embraced what he failed in as well as what he achieved. He reflected on the reality with a vision to be better next time. John displayed a growth mindset. He would critic what went well and what didn’t and strived to accomplish any barriers that got in his way.
So let’s summarise Johns progress so far-
1st summer, learn to swim in the pool
2nd summer, adapt to swimming in the sea with the beginner group
3rd summer, swim in the sea with the experienced group and complete long adventure swims
4th summer, enter open water events and marathon swims
At this point John had come along way from that first nervous swim lesson with me, when his only goal was to learn front crawl. Now John has completed several 10km swims. He even completed a 10 mile marathon swim, albeit very slowly and being completely shattered by the end. But, after a week or so to recover, John felt like he could swim forever given the opportunity.
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I hope that by reading this you too can see how the grow model was used multiple times in various orders during Johns career to date. You might also see how John could visualise that next, realistic goal, because he didn’t take the pat on the backs, the “well done you are great”. Instead, John kept it real. When there was a barrier, he recognised it and planned ways over, or around. The opportunities for John have always been endless but the realistic ones are always changing. By setting the right goal and having enough will to commit, each goal leads to the next and the next and the next.
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