5 Places Swimmers Find Confidence

By Emma Foster, Swimming World College Intern

“We’re starting taper!” This phrase is sure to incite levels of excitement in swimmers that are rarely reached outside of the offer of free food. Taper represents the promise of fast swimming, along with the thrilling chance to back off the pounding you’ve been giving your body all season.

But just as rest begins to hit, you start the rollercoaster ride that makes up a taper. Sometimes during this process your confidence can begin to plummet. When the beginning of taper makes you feel slow and sluggish, it’s easy to lose some of your normal swagger. But before you let the panic take over, take a deep breath and refocus on finding the confidence that will lead you to a blazing fast end of your season. Here are five place we swimmers find confidence:

1.  Your Teammates

teammates

When you’re not feeling fully confident, there’s no better place to turn than to your teammates. Sure, you might be worrying about your races, but you KNOW that they’re going to swim fast right? Tapers can be brutal, and they tend to affect everyone differently.

Whether it seems like it or not, everyone has some similar moments of worry. That teammate that seems to be hitting their taper perfectly probably has some doubts too. When you step up and support those around you it has an added benefit of making you feel confident in your own swimming, and you can bet that they’re going to turn around and do the same for you.

2. Your Coaches

Swimming coach Sheila Taormina instructs U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. David Chirinos during a practice Feb. 18, 2012, in the 2012 Marine Corps Trials at Camp Pendleton, Calif. The Trials were part of the Wounded Warrior Regiment?s Warrior Athlete Reconditioning Program and hosted 300 wounded Marines, veterans and international service members. The participants competed for a spot on a roster of 50 athletes who advanced to the Wounded Warrior Games, a competition of all service branches scheduled for May 2012 in Colorado Springs, Colo. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Michael Guinto/Released)

There is no better feeling than having your coach look at you and tell you you’re going to swim fast. While there were probably times in the season you thought they got a sick sense of satisfaction out of your pain, when it comes down to it your coaches want you to succeed. Taper is the time to trust them. They’re going to do everything in their power to set you up to swim fast, and believing is crucial to the process.

3. Your Past Workouts

workouts-phelps

If you’re feeling particularly sluggish one day, it’s normal to feel some doubt. Some swimmers even worry that they’ve “gotten out of shape” since they’ve began their taper. If you’re feeling this way, take a second and reflect on all of the work you’ve done this past season. Remember those practices where you came in and absolutely killed it. You know you’ve done the work, and now it’s time to reap the rewards, even if that means being a little patient.

4. Your Stroke

Unknown Australian swimmer starting dive at the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games

At some point during taper, you’re going to start feeling good. It isn’t going to happen immediately, but one day you’ll be swimming along and your stroke will click. There’s no other kind of confidence boost better than this, and when it happens go with it. It’s your body trying to tell you “Yes, you are going to swim fast!”

5. The Water

pool-water

When it comes down to it, no matter how big the meet, or how intense the competition, the water you’re going to be racing in is the same sort of water in which you’ve logged hundreds of miles throughout the season. Embrace that. You’ve already proved yourself throughout the thousands of yards you’ve done this season. Now all you have to do is race!

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Teri Deaton Taylor
9 years ago

I enjoyed reading that Mike.

Lauren Cavanaugh
9 years ago

so true

Mary Beth Bonner Ryan
9 years ago

Brendan Phillip Ryan, Shane Ryan, Tara Ryan

Connie DeLessio Lawrey

Dan Lawrey

Dorina Szekeres
9 years ago

Szilágyi Lilu

Christos Constantinides

Anais

Tea Kadić
9 years ago

Josipa Nekic 🙂

Josipa Nekic
9 years ago
Reply to  Tea Kadić

Believe!:))

Kyle Lippiatt
9 years ago

Mike Salpeter

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