Having a strong mind is usually the difference between winning and losing. In Andre Agassi’s book ‘Open‘ he tells the story of what he was thinking and feeling when he won each of his 8 grand slams. Despite his body aching from years of tennis during each tournament, it was his thoughts that mattered most when playing.

Developing your mind muscle is just like building any other muscle. It’s repeated, consistent practice. It’s just like a swimmer who goes to the gym three times a week and lifts weights will increase their strength (if done with correct technique, reps and weights). A swimmer who visualises their main race three times a week will increase confidence, improve muscle memory and stretch their belief system of what is possible for them.

I recently asked World Championship swimmer Sam Ashby how much of swimming is physical and how much is mental. His answer: 60% mental. 40% physical.

Your ability to control your thoughts determines:

• Effort levels in training
• How many training sessions you attend
• Your speed and pacing in a race
• Ability to improve on personal best times

I interviewed sports mindset coach Stephan Ladd from the Renegade Mindset system and asked him what the some of the best techniques for working on mindset are. These are three things which can be implemented into a training program to improve mental toughness and get an important edge over your competitors.

1. Race visualisation
2. Hypnosis
3. Set Anchors

Race Visualisation

Choose your main race for the season and your target time. Find a quiet place where you can lie down. Close your eyes and run through the race in your head. From walking out behind the blocks to hitting the wall at the finish. Once you get really good, you’ll find that the race takes the same time in visualisation and when your race in real life.

Hypnosis

This is the most ‘out there’ of the three ways to grow your mind muscle. It works to the extent that you allow it to work (eg. if you think it’s B.S it won’t work). In Stephen’s mindset program he has 5 audio’s that are designed to restructure your thinking to make you a better triathlete. Similar to visualisation, find a quiet place to lie down and close your eyes and listen to the audio’s. It can be effective for the right person.

Set Anchors

Anchors are things you can intentionally do to trigger a response. Just like the smell of McDonalds triggers most people to salivate, you can use a word, sound, smell, or action to trigger a feeling or confidence or readiness to race.

Stephen Ladd goes into more detail in his Renegade Triathlon program with audios that makes mindset training easy. I have been through the program and would recommend it for triathletes who have competed before and would benefit by having a stronger mindset in training and racing.

Bonus For The Renegade Triathlon Program

I recently interviewed Sam Ashby (World Championship swimmer) and asked him dozens of the 82 questions submitted by Effortless Swimming members. It covers mindset, diet, training, technique, recovery, competition and much more. This interview goes for 64 minutes. To get this interview simply buy Stephen’s Triathlon mindset training program and send your receipt details to me by submitting a ticket at our help desk here: www.EffortlessSupport.com

Kas is a beautiful city on the Turkish coast

The Swim Trek went for 7 days which was a perfect amount of time. After a few days of 5-6km of swimming you start to feel fit and the swimming becomes easy. The water temp was 25-27 degrees and the outside temp was 35 on average. We had a group of 16 swimmers and with two Swim Trek guides, Mia and Sean. They make sure the trip runs smoothly and organise everything.

Waiting to start: We had three different 'speed' groups so you could swim at your own pace

Unlike most holidays where you arrive home and feel like you’ve eaten and slept too much…a Swim Trek holiday will leaving you feeling refreshed and fit.

The typical day would consist of buffet breakfast overlooking the ocean…jumping on a boat and heading to part of the coastline…swimming for 90 minutes…a massive lunch of fresh fish and salads on the boat…reading a book and a short nap in the sun and then another 60-90 mins in the water.

The view from breakfast at Nur Beach Hotel

We were split up into three separate ’speed’ groups so you swum with people your own speed. This meant that no one was too fast or too slow.

The cost of most swim treks is under £1,000 British Pounds and generally includes accommodation, breakfast and lunch…and of course the boat trips to the coast.

My sister Courtney and I before swimming from Greece to Turkey

The good thing about Swim Trek is they use trusted hotels and boats providers and their safety record is perfect. Copy cat companies have recently started up which I have heard nightmare stories about. Swim Trek is the original ‘swimming holiday’ company. Swim Trek also run tours in Greece, Egypt, Sicily, Croatia, Mexico, Scotland and Finland. If you’ve been on a SwimTrek holiday before let me know in the comments section below!

If you’re interested in doing a Swim Trek you can contact them through their website at www.swimtrek.com. If you want improve your freestyle technique before you go check out the Mastering Freestyle program.

Learning correct technique and teaching it to others
You must “re-learn” freestyle in order to understand how to teach it. He taught himself how swimmers progress through each of the phases in freestyle. From learning to float and balance to moving through the water, he mastered each level so that anybody could learn smooth freestyle. he began teaching what he had discovered. You can’t do it in 1 or 2 lessons, it takes at least 4-6 lessons to get the hang of it.

Who can learn freestyle
Beginners are the easiest to work with because they begin with a ‘blank’ slate. All new swimmers will experience the ‘uh huh!’ moments when things start to fit together. Experienced swimmers sometimes take a bit longer to change habits in their technique.

Triathlon pacing strategies
Start on the outside so you have clean water and your not fighting with the pack. Find a rhythm as quickly as you can. Build into your race, so you’re getting faster as you go and you avoid burning out at halfway. Kick more at the end of the race to warm up your legs for the bike leg.

Wetsuits
Kevin prefers no wetsuit because of the warm Californian water, but if wearing a wetsuit he recommends a sleeved wetsuit for extra buoyancy. It does take a little bit of getting used to so be sure to practice with it.

Using fins in workouts
The Zoomer Z2′s are the best fins for swimming. The purpose of fins are to improve your balance in the water and to assist with drills. You won’t become reliant fins on them if you only use them for drills and kicking. Avoid the big, long diving fins. They’re not going to help you.

Common mistakes
Training harder and longer for swimming doesn’t work. It can work for running and cycling, but that type of training will send you backwards in the pool. Once you change your stroke and get the foundations in place, you can start training more and working harder.

Tri Swim Secrets
A membership site Kevin created for people which like more feedback, regular videos, advice and and new ways to improve their swimming to get ahead of their friends in triathlons.

How To Claim Your Bonus For Tri Swim Secrets

If you order Tri Swim Secrets and stay a member for 60 days or more, I will send you a copy of my new product ‘Its Not About Swimming Harder‘ for FREE as a bonus. All you have to do is order through my link here, and then send an email with your receipt/order number to bonus@effortless-swimming.com. It’s that easy!

Click here to order Tri Swim Secrets

Burning through the water

With only two ways to increase your speed in the water, we often complicate things when trying to go faster. We can increase our stroke rate (move our arms and legs faster) or we can increase our efficiency (reduce the resistance our body creates in the water). This isn’t as easy as it sounds though.

Faster strokes (important to do, but there’s a catch)

Most swimmers (including myself) find the easiest way to increase swim speed is to increase our stroke rate. There’s nothing wrong with that, in fact it’s vital if you’re swimming with speed. The only problem is it’s energy consuming, particularly if your kick increases with your arm speed. It’s possible to swim freestyle and backstroke with a high stroke rate and not use too much energy if your kicking remains relaxed and small, but in general stroking faster isn’t the way to break through a plateau in swimming.

What does efficiency do?

Efficiency in swimming means to get further from each stroke taken by increasing your propulsion and reducing your resistance. Put simply, if you get a better ‘catch’ of the water with your stroke and you reduce the amount of drag your body creates in the water, you’ll get faster. This can be difficult to do on your own. If you’re not aware of the common technique errors and how to fix them, your swimming will likely be the same in two years as it is now, even if your train your heart out.

Swimming technique the right way

There are 3 ways to improve your technique. In no particular order:

1. Visualize yourself swimming with the right technique – Some people might pass this off as airy fairy, pie in the sky way of improving. Don’t. You’ll be rewarded for using this.The premise of it is to watch a swimmer with good technique, commit their technique to memory and when you are in the water swimming, visualise your self swimming as they do. Watch videos of Michael Phelps, Sam Ashby, Ian Thorpe or whoever you feel best suits your own technique.I used this technique in my most recent 200 Individual Medley race. The result? I swam a PB, my technique was controlled throughout the race and I wasn’t spent at the end.
2. Drills – This is one of the best known tactics for fixing technique. It not only works tremendously well but it improves your technique automatically if you do the drills correctly. A good example of this my Mastering Freestyle Program which runs through the exact step-by-step formula I use to improve the freestyle technique of all the swimmers I coach.
3. Learning what not to do – Coaches find the same errors repeated again and again. If you were to attend a swimming class and you watched the freestyle of 10 different swimmers, you’d find that the same errors would pop up in each swimmer.I realised that if swimmers knew what they were doing wrong, they could identify what was slowing them down and begin to work on it.This lead to It’s Not About Swimming Harder, a new product where I teach you what NOT to do, so you can see the most common errors which plague swimmers, so you can avoid these mistakes and create a breakthrough in your swimming.

If you’re ready to hear the ‘down and dirty’ of why most swimmers never have a breakthrough in their speed and endurance, check out It’s Not About Swimming Harder. This program will show you the exact strategies I’ve used to help swimmers take their speed and technique to a new level. I think it’s the best product on the market that cuts straight to the point, giving you what you need to hear about how to become a better swimmer (even if you do the sport solely because it’s fun!).

Check it out here

1. Freestyle snorkel

This is my favourite toy for the pool. I first bought a freestyle snorkel 4 years ago and since then I haven’t looked back. It took a couple of tries to get used to breathing with your mouth in the water (believe me it goes against everything your body wants to do!) but once I got around the learning curve they are really fun to use. To start out I had to use the snorkel with a nose clip so that I didn’t get water up my nose. Depending on how well you can control your breathing you might not need to use a nose clip at all. I’ve now got to the stage where I can use the snorkel by itself.

What it’s best used for: Kicking with a board, some freestyle drills and long slow freestyle.

Why: The snorkel is designed so you can keep your eyes looking to the bottom of the pool without moving your head and throwing your body out of line. It’s really good for people who don’t have a great technique because it can get them to practice what it’s like to swim with a straight body line. I love using the snorkel when doing kicking with a kickboard. It allows you to keep the head down and work your legs harder because your not always coming up for breath. I know most elite swimming clubs use a snorkel when doing kicking with a board.

2. Kickboards

I must admit, I used to hate kickboards! They were awkward, they slowed me down and they were plain uncomfortable! When I was growing up we would always do kick on the side without a board. This served me well as I was still able to develop a strong kick but it was only 3 months ago which I learned why the best swimmers use a kickboard. I had always ignored the fact that swimmers like Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps used a kickboard in training. I didn’t want to believe that it was the best way to kick! Finally after 17 years of swimming I’ve come to my senses…

My father who is also a coach was speaking to Rohan Taylor, the coach of a number of Australian Olympic swimmers such as Leisl Jones and Shane Reese and he learned why kickboards are used. It’s to strengthen the core muscles (the stomach muscles) because thats where a lot of power is generated in swimming. Since I’ve found that out, I ‘ve been using a kickboard every session and it’s starting to become an enjoyable part of training.

What it’s best used for: Freestyle, breasktroke and fly kick. Strengthening your stomach muscles (guys who want a six pack and girls who want a flat stomach then eat your heart out!).

Why: Working on the fundamentals is crucial and it doesn’t get much more fundamental than kicking. Kicking is like the propellor on a boat, it’s where your speed will come from. It may not be much fun to work on at the start but after 2-3 weeks of solid training, you’ll find you might start to enjoy it…

3. Swim Paddles

Warning: only use if you’re a strong swimmer.

All the time I hear “I just bought a new pair of paddles! I can’t wait to use them!”. This is great if the swimmer is experienced and has strong shoulders and a good pull through in freestyle, but too often than not it’s a new swimmer who has gone out and bought a set of paddles because they look like a fun toy to use. I don’t blame them, I’d be exactly the same. Paddles look like fun to use but unless you can control them in the water they aren’t much use.

What it’s best used for: Strengthening your shoulders and developing a freestyle catch.

Why: Paddles are like a double-edged sword. They are great for working your shoulders and feeling a good catch in the water, but used incorrectly they can trigger a shoulder injury and send your swimming backwards. For beginners I recommend finger paddles.

4. Finger paddles

These paddles are my favourite. Beginners can use them and they force you to focus more on catching with the entire forearm and not just the hand. These paddles are used a lot with sculling drills. I’ve even seen some swimmers wear these paddles without hand straps and perform sculling drills, and the pressure of the water allows them to keep the paddles on their hands. Very cool.

What it’s best used for: Adding a little bit of power to your stroke. Sculling drills. An introduction to paddles for beginners.

Why: Finger paddles help you focus on pulling through with the entire forearm with the added power of a paddle on your fingers. For sculling drills it forces you to think about putting pressure on the water in the right position.

5. Pull buoys

Just like the name suggests, these bad boys are used for improving pull. They should only be used for freestyle and in some rare cases, breastroke drills. Pull buoys are popular among triathletes because it gets them to work on their pulling while conserving energy in their legs wich they need for the bike and run leg. For swimmers, pull buoys are a good toy to use but not too often. Some swimmers use a pull buoy for 2/3rds of a session and become reliant on a pull buoy. You don’t want to become reliant on a pull buoy. Used too often, they make you mentally switch of your abs and hips which are crucial to body rotation.

What it’s best used for: Raising your hips if they sink or are too low. Working on freestyle pull. Sculling drills. Triathletes.

Why: Pull buoys assist in having a good body position. They raise the hips which reduces drag and can help even the most average of swimmers achieve a correct body position. If you’re wanting to work on your freestyle pull in a particular set or session, pull buoys are a good way to single out your arms and a get you working on just your pull.

Hopefully that’s helped a bit with explaining some of the dozens of training aids out there. If you have any questions about any of the aids or if you’d like to know more about an aid I haven’t mentioned yet don’t hesitate to post a question in the comments box below. Happy swimming!