The best swimmers in the world have the best details on race day. The secret to their success is understanding that execution under the physical and mental stress of competition is the result of daily habit building and accountability. This in-water camp will focus on important details of practicing and racing that your swimmer already knows about, but may not “execute regularly”. As they swim, athletes will learn the value of building positive habits that are similar to the best athletes in the world… and how to enlist those around them to hold them accountable during training.

DAY 1 (Friday, Dec 29): HABIT BUILDING

How a swimmer practices directly impacts how they compete. This session will focus on athletes using their best technique and details throughout an entire workout. Your swimmer will learn the skill of building good habits and taking advantage of opportunities to execute during the routine and stress of practice.

• PUTTING IT IN PRACTICE: The majority of the teaching will be done in the context of a pool workout. There is no better way to learn than putting things into practice. We will focus this session on 5 details where we can build great habits in a workout that will translate directly to meets. - STREAMLINE - BREATH DISCIPLINE - TURNING - FINISHES - BREAKOUTS
• HABIT FORMATION: It takes between two and three weeks of continual use to establish a new habit. This can seem like a monumental task to a swimmer until they think about it in the context of a season or even a swimming career. If you do a great streamline off of every single wall in practice for a few short weeks, then you are set up to have a lifetime of great streamlines just like the most elite swimmers in the world.
• HABIT CONSISTENCY: To build great habits, swimmers have to use proper technique at every single opportunity. Letting go of technique during the hardest set of the week or even the easy swimming during warm up can set them back in their progress. The science of nerve myelination teaches us that the more often we do something the easier and quicker we are able to do it. Many people refer to this as “muscle memory.” This is both why repeated practice of good technique leads to good technique, but also why it is so difficult to change bad habits.
• HABIT COUPLING: Habits are most easily adopted by coupling them with already established habits. We can use this knowledge in two ways. The first is to couple the newly desired habit with a pre-existing habit. If the last item in a swimmer’s pre-race routine is to clap their hands, we can couple this clap with visualization and execution of a powerful start. The second is to change the routine before a bad habit to stop the cycle. For example, we can trigger a better streamline by changing the motion of pushing off the wall to start a swim.
• VISUALIZATION: Visualizing desired movements is a great and low effort way to make improvements. Vivid visualization has the same effect on the brain and body as physically executing the skill correctly. Watching a video of desired movements increases their likelihood in the future. Watching a video of errors similarly increases the likelihood of errors.
• COMMITMENT TO GOOD HABITS: Your swimmer will leave the camp committing to themselves to continue to work their new good habits every single chance they have - just like the best swimmers in the world do!

DAY 2 (Saturday, Dec 30): COMMITMENT TO ACCOUNTABILITY

Success is a choice made repeatedly each day in practice. Great swimmers hold themselves accountable every single day. This accountability can range from broad areas such as effort and attitude to details like streamline and breathing. This session is designed to help swimmers learn tools to hold themselves accountable and get the most out of every single workout. We will reinforce the habits from session one and expand the scope in the midst of a rigorous practice.

• PUTTING IT IN PRACTICE: The majority of the teaching will be done in the context of a pool workout. There is no better learning than putting things into practice. GOOD HABITS: We will start by having teammates hold themselves and each other accountable for the great habits we built in the first session of the camp. PEER COACHING: The workout will then involve new technical skills and engage the swimmers in giving feedback on the execution of drills to one another. Swimmers will work on staying focused on and reminding one another to follow the intent of the workout such as consistent kicking and negative splitting. EFFORT ACCOUNTABILITY AND THE POWER OF TEAM: The workout will conclude with a challenging set and provide opportunities for the swimmers to encourage one another and feel the power of a team working together to achieve greatness. They can take this special feeling home to their club or school.
• MINDFULNESS: Mindfulness is being aware of and intentional in your actions at all times. We will work to help swimmers understand why they are doing what they are doing and be aware of it consistently. What is your purpose? How do your actions reflect your purpose? How do your actions impact those around you? We will tackle all of these questions.
• CORRECTION WITHOUT SHAME: Strong negative emotions associated with errors only serve to either reinforce the error (similar to reviewing video of poor technique) or lead to feelings of hopelessness and further errors. The key is for the swimmer to allow themselves to be corrected without feeling shame. Successful people take note of corrections and make the corrections without shaming themselves.
• ENLISTING YOUR COACH: The purpose of a coach is to help swimmers achieve their goals. This partnership is easy to lose sight of in the day to day. Listening and acting on a coach’s advice at practice will not only help a swimmer be better, but will also increase the amount of feedback they receive in the future. We will teach athletes the skill of accepting feedback and how to get the most out of the coach-athlete relationship.
• ENLISTING YOUR TEAMMATES: Did your swimmer forget to put their head down at the finish? Are they having a difficult day and feeling checked-out at practice? A teammate can be the first line of accountability back to engagement. We will teach your swimmer how to empower their teammates to help hold them accountable. We will also teach them how to help hold others accountable in a productive and positive way.
• THE POWER OF TEAM: The gold standard in accountability is a full team invested in one another's success and holding one another accountable. Our training session will build and demonstrate the power of a team.
• COMMITMENT TO ACCOUNTABILITY: Your swimmer will leave the camp committing to hold themselves accountable in practice each and every day. They will also be committing to helping those around them who make that choice also.