Coach’s Tips – Goal Setting

Post date: Jan 20, 2016 9:54:54 AM

I recently visited a training camp for a day and I met Richard Charlesworth, an ex-Olympian swimmer for GB. He made one point to the swimmers in front of him. Set yourself targets. He said that that was the one thing above anything else that developed his swimming and made him focus on the little things that made the difference.

If you wish to improve your swimming you need to know what it is you wish to achieve. Personally I want go under 2:10 for a 200m freestyle. The trouble with these ideas is that it is too easy to get side tracked. Deciding the goal is the easy bit. The hard part, also the important part, is working out what you need to work on to enable your aims to come to fruition. I know I am not going to be swimming 2:10 in a training session so there is no point in making that my aim in training. I know that I have a wide arm entry on my right hand side, I sometimes breathe on my breakout, that I need more work on my tumbles.

By targeting these things in sessions and getting a little fitter I managed to knock off 50 seconds from my 400m time in one year.

Focus on your weaknesses, everyone has them. For example if you needed to improve your streamlining spend 2 or 3 weeks focused on that one point until you can do it right without thinking about it. Once you can do that look at something else and keep repeating this process. SET AN OBJECTIVE FOR EVERY TRAINING SESSION THAT RELATES TO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO IMPROVE.

Start small, win big.

Josh