Want better workouts? A bullet-proof race plan? Less anxiety behind the blocks? Yup—the simple act of journaling can help. Big time. Here’s how.

Okay, so some of you might be frowning a little—“Journaling? You mean, like, a diary? Pffft.”

Journaling is more than just about gossiping about your crush at school. Or complaining about your parents. Or recounting the day you had.

Journaling is a weapon that can be called into use to significantly improve your swim practices, help better plan and execute your goal race, and even help you to squash anxiety before you step up on the blocks.

Here’s three ways to use journaling to become a superior swimmer and put a whipping on your personal best times.

JOURNAL OUT YOUR IDEAL WORKOUT.

Swimmers have a tendency to be exclusively in react-mode to their swim practices. They walk out on deck and only react to whatever kind of horror and hilarity that coach writes out on the whiteboard.

For a moment ignore the surprise test set or the last minute timed 500 freestyle kick, or the bubbling cauldron of flying arms and legs that typically comprises your lane at practice, and imagine what your perfect workout would look like.

Better yet, spend ten minutes writing about it.

Everything from the mental approach you take to the practice. How you react mentally to that tough set. The way you encourage your teammates in moments of adversity. Don’t focus on results necessarily, but how you are going about the practice, how you feel in the water, and the things you are focusing on while training.

This is a type of visualization tool, but I would argue that it is even better.

Mainly because visualization can be tricky for swimmers who are new to it; it requires patience and practice to get good at it, and it’s hard not to slide into thinking about the crappy things that might happen in practice.

Not feeling fast. Not swimming fast. Getting lapped by a teammate. And so on.

Writing down the process of a killer practice gives you full control, and provides a clear script to follow when you step out on deck.

JOURNAL OUT YOUR PERFECT RACE.

One of my favorite things to ask of swimmers is to write out their perfect race.

It can be as detailed and as lengthy as you like, and it never ceases to impress me the detail that can be employed when performing this exercise. In one case, a swimmer detailed from the last swim practice before taper starts to the car ride home after the meet is over…

Continue reading…