{"id":590375,"date":"2024-07-01T06:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T13:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=590375"},"modified":"2024-07-01T08:52:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T15:52:06","slug":"meet-christen-shefchunas-the-confidence-coach-behind-some-of-team-usas-biggest-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/meet-christen-shefchunas-the-confidence-coach-behind-some-of-team-usas-biggest-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Christen Shefchunas, the Confidence Coach Behind Some of Team USA’s Biggest Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meet Christen Shefchunas, the Confidence Coach Behind Some of Team USA’s Biggest Stars<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christen Shefchunas<\/strong> isn\u2019t bashful about the emotions that a meet like U.S. Olympic Trials conjures. Sitting at her Atlanta home, seeing dozens of swimmers she\u2019s worked with compete on a notoriously unforgiving stage, Shefchunas cried right along with them, in joy and in dejection. She cheered from her couch and turned herself into \u201ca basket case\u201d in shared mourning with her swimmers.<\/p>\n

To do otherwise would betray the central tenet of her work. Shefchunas labels herself a professional confidence coach. After an All-American career in the pool and more than a decade as a college coach, Shefchunas works one-on-one<\/a> with some of American swimming\u2019s biggest stars, work so influential that her pupils cited it time and again from the podium at Lucas Oil Stadium.<\/p>\n

The first step, Shefchunas said, is zeroing in on the emotions \u2013 what scares a swimmer, what occupies their minds, what keeps them from performing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first place I go immediately when I start working with somebody is we dive right into fear,\u201d Shefchunas said by phone. \u201cThese elite athletes that have so much talent and work so hard and it\u2019s not translating, mostly it\u2019s the mental piece of it. I\u2019m a very big believer that a big way of us trying to find control in a really scary situation is to try to figure out what\u2019s going to happen. And unfortunately, when we try to predict what\u2019s going to happen, often we end up in some worst-case scenarios and you almost start preparing yourself for those worst-case scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shefchunas\u2019 website reflects the core<\/a> of the U.S. women\u2019s national team the last two Olympic cycles. New world record holder Gretchen Walsh<\/strong> has worked with Shefchunas, as did sister Alex Walsh<\/strong> when they were in high school. Katharine Berkoff<\/strong> and Emma Weber<\/strong> both sung her praises in Indy. Shefchunas has worked with U.S. open water Olympian Mariah Denigan,<\/strong> and 2021 Olympians Natalie Hinds, Hali Flickinger<\/strong> and Catie DeLoof.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a sport where discussing the mental side of competition has been normalized, Shefchunas is one of the go-to names in the mental skills game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would just say, it\u2019s totally changed my career,\u201d Gretchen Walsh said. \u201cI\u2019m going to do it as long as I swim.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the Deck to Zoom<\/h4>\n

Shefchunas\u2019 practice is unique in her deep connection to swimming. She approaches it not from a generalized mental skills performance perspective but with an intimate knowledge of the life of a swimmer.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Coach Christen Shefchunas, center, with Gretchen Walsh, left, ad Alex Walsh; Photo Courtesy: Christen Shefchunas<\/p><\/div>\n

Shefchunas grew up in Western Pennsylvania and swam at the University of Tennessee, where she was a four-time relay All-American, graduating in 1997. She served as an assistant coach at Michigan State and SMU before a stint as the head coach<\/a> at the University of Miami, Florida, a career spanning 16 years. She was hired in Coral Gables in the spring of 2006 and resigned in 2013 to embark on personal coaching. It\u2019s been a decade in that practice, around a one-year hiatus to work with Team Elite ahead of the Rio Olympics. After those Games, she dove headlong into her Coach Christen business \u2013 one of her early clients was Missy Franklin<\/strong>, recovering from an injury-plagued Rio Games before retiring in 2018.<\/p>\n

From both sides of the swimmer\/coach divide, Shefchunas has seen how stress and the weight of expectations affect performance. The magnitude of the problem inspired her to chip away at it from the oblique angle of a third party.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe minute I got somewhat good in swimming, the pressure took me down,\u201d she said. \u201cI have no doubt, and that\u2019s probably one of the reasons why I\u2019m so passionate about what I do. Because when you\u2019re sitting there dealing with these fears and dealing with the pressure and you have nowhere to go with them and nobody\u2019s teaching you how to handle it and you just have to go on and just pretend you\u2019re fine, it just completely ruins careers. I get that from so many people that are former athletes, they\u2019re like, Man, I wish I would have had somebody like you back in the day just to have a safe space to talk this stuff out and learn how to handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shefchunas has found her niche in the liminal space between coaching and teaching. She\u2019s emphatic that she has \u201czero interest\u201d in coaching again in a team setting, though she does speak to teams. In 2021, she published a book<\/a>, 30 Days to Confident \u2013 a 30 Day Confidence Challenge for Female Athletes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The one-on-one focus and the ability to drill down into the particular challenges of each swimmer is what drives her.<\/p>\n

\u201cSwimming is a different sport, and if you weren\u2019t in it, I\u2019m not sure if you can fully understand what\u2019s going on,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a huge advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining Team Christen<\/h4>\n

Shefchunas\u2019 name came up often in Indianapolis. She\u2019s not the only practitioner working with athletes \u2013 many big programs have performance coaches attached, and a number of swimmers detangle aspects of performance and emotions with their personal therapists. But Shefchunas is among the most cited.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s really kind of made me view swimming in a different way and a really positive way,\u201d Weber said. \u201cI just get a lot of confidence. We work on strategies and skills, using our mind before races to look at practices differently, kind of just pick the best out of the work we\u2019re doing and stay positive and content with everything. It\u2019s definitely helped a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s been super helpful,\u201d Berkoff said. \u201cAnd my therapist from home, I talked to her a lot about similar things. \u2026 Just trying to remember that I swim because I love it, and I\u2019ve had these Olympic dreams since I was born. So just trying to do it because I want to and not because anyone else wants me to and just staying true to myself along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shefchunas was at the center of some of Trials\u2019 most triumphant stories on the women\u2019s side. Berkoff was \u201cdevastated\u201d not to make the Olympics in 2021<\/a>. The NC State swimmer has done it all in the pool \u2013 individual medals at World Championships both long- and short-course, American records, NCAA marks. But falling short of the Olympics would\u2019ve forever made her resume incomplete, perhaps in her eyes above all. Berkoff shouldered that pressure in Indianapolis and still performed beautifully, the clear second-place finisher in her signature 100 backstroke<\/a> behind Regan Smith\u2019s<\/strong> world record.<\/p>\n

Gretchen Walsh had a similar journey, as one of the most decorated NCAA swimmers in history. But the knock against her was as a short-course specialist. Seeing Alex Walsh make the 2021 Olympics without her, then falling short at 2022 International Team Trials convinced her to start working with Shefchunas again, after both sisters had used her services in high school.<\/p>\n

The change Shefchunas sees in Gretchen Walsh is massive, as Walsh is poised to be one of the faces of the American team in Paris after her Trials world record in the 100 fly.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it has just been getting her to believe that she\u2019s a fast swimmer, regardless if it\u2019s short-course or long-course,\u201d Shefchunas said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s taken a lot of work of her finally being honest about those thoughts, because she had had so much failure in long course. There was so much fear there. So a lot of the work has been just dealing with those fears. When she finally got honest with me, we realized that she was just kind of preparing herself for disappointment before she even stepped up on the blocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shefchunas\u2019 work sounds simple, but its ramifications are career-altering. Once she and a client delve into the underlying emotions \u2013 fear, pressure, sadness \u2013 they develop coping strategies. Fears leads to panic, which leads to wasted fight-or-flight energy, which hampers performance, which raises fear. Shefchunas helps clients recognize ways to interrupt that cycle, whether it\u2019s simply saying the fear out loud to rob it of power or implementing strategies on race days to diminish variabilities in performance. Some of that is merely pointing out, for someone like Gretchen Walsh, just how much success she\u2019s had on the way to the failure point and realizing the relative weight of each from an objective, outside observer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned that athletes are really, really bad at giving themselves credit,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s the old saying that they could do 99 things right and one thing wrong and they\u2019re always walking out beating themselves up over that one thing. And so really learning to give themselves credit daily to make sure they\u2019re paying attention to the good stuff that they\u2019re doing because that I think is what gives us confidence that you\u2019re prepared for the big moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shefchunas estimates that the breakdown of time spent is about 50-50: Half of the time on the day-to-day routine of training and putting in work, half the time on getting ready for the big moments where that work has to shine through.<\/p>\n

Celebrating Success, Grieving Failure<\/h4>\n

Not every story is a success, and Shefchunas\u2019 process requires creating space for grief. For plenty of her swimmers, Trials won\u2019t bring a silver lining. It will force a reset of their goals and a reevaluation of their careers. Those emotions must be embraced, too.<\/p>\n

Shefchunas has seen the swimming landscape change in that regard. She swam and coached through era where the ethos was \u201csuck it up.\u201d Talking about struggles, it was thought, invited more. Being open was a sign of weakness, not an avenue to renew strength.<\/p>\n

\"\"

From left, Emma Weber, Emma Weyant and Katharine Berkoff; Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick<\/p><\/div>\n

There\u2019s still more progress to seek on that front. Many of her top clients are female athletes, as are all of the athletes willing to put their faces and names to website testimonials. More male athletes are willing to open up about their mental and emotional struggles \u2013 Caeleb Dressel<\/strong> is the avatar for that, while Carson Foster<\/strong> discussed his work with a confidence coach<\/a> and Jack Alexy<\/strong> described the value of journaling to quell nerves as his profile in swimming has risen. Shefchunas estimates her clientele runs about 80 percent female, though the male proportion is growing.<\/p>\n

Shefchunas\u2019 coaching requires a certain level of vulnerability in clients. The first step is to open up, admit where problems may exist and embark on the often messy and uncomfortable process of exploration. In her experience, that step has been easier with female athletes \u2014 her book title aimed at female athletes indicates that as an area of focus \u2014 but those trends are shifting.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason is a general acceptance of mental health in society. Swimmers being able to separate their identity as swimmers vs. people who swim, once rare and revolutionary, has grown common. So many young people are realizing that it\u2019s easier to confront emotional challenges in the short term than to let them fester with more onerous long-term repercussions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this generation is absolutely way more willing to be honest with themselves about stuff,\u201d Shefchunas said. \u201cThey\u2019re way more willing to talk about the scary stuff and the fears, way more willing than in the past. The past generation had a \u2018suck it up\u2019 type of thinking, This generation just doesn\u2019t seem to be that way. They very much want to be honest about it and vulnerable and come up with a solution instead of just continuing to suck it up and keep doing the same thing with the same result.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shefchunas recognizes the touch of irony in it all. As she\u2019s trying to help clients put off the emotions of a race day, she\u2019s prone to getting caught up in. Feeling those emotions, for better and for worse, are part of the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh yeah, I\u2019ve cried with everybody who\u2019s made the team so far,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you work one on one with somebody, they\u2019re like your kid. So I\u2019m so joyful to the point of tears for them, and I\u2019m also a basket case. I can handle my own pressures well, but you know handling other people and having to watch them, I\u2019m not great at it. I\u2019m very nervous for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet Christen Shefchunas, the Confidence Coach Behind Some of Team USA’s Biggest Stars Christen Shefchunas isn\u2019t bashful about the emotions that a meet like U.S. Olympic Trials conjures. 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