Write It Down

In the never ending quest to figure out what works and what doesn’t, what has value in our preparation and what doesn’t, what leads us forward or holds us back from making the progress we long for, it is worth noting that we humans are not very capable of remembering all the small stuff…and the small stuff makes a huge difference, especially over the long haul.

That’s why it is vital for us to write things down. Get a log book…any notebook will do. Put it in your back pack and take it to meets. Write down your warmup, your races, what was going through your mind, what emotions were working for or against you. Write down your splits or your tempo or your stroke counts. All the information that is provided to you by your coaches and meet mobile etc. is valuable feedback.

No feedback; no progress. You can work your tail off and go pretty much nowhere unless you understand what and how you are doing.

Coaches…if you don’t write down your workouts – and then evaluate them – you simply will not remember them. There is no way to evaluate and alter the course of future sessions if you do not have feedback written down based upon your observations of today’s session.

Bob Bowman – and countless others – records every workout. Some have the luxury of being able to record the main sets and the times achieved. At the very least you can record your observations, things you want to alter or tweak for the next time around.

For instance, today we did a set of 6x175/4…number 1 = 80%, #2 = 85%, number #3 was to be 4% faster. We have the chart poolside… (If you want one just email us). Observing the athletes in action we could tell who was fresh enough to succeed and who could use some more rest, maybe take tomorrow morning off. Then we can adjust the coming week’s stress sessions accordingly.

I know on our team we have at least one swimmer who records meet swims. It is no surprise that this swimmer is one of the highest level performers on our team.

The little stuff matters and if you don’t write down your observations they will be “lost” in the daily clutter of life…guaranteed.