Who Owes Whom, and What?

Saturday we were doing a kick set before we got rolling on a set of 200’s. We did a simple 4x150/2:30 kick with lap 3 being a buildup lap and lap 6 being a fast lap. On the fast lap we did our standard deal which is to kick all the way to the touch pad, no arm pull into the wall. We do this for the obvious reasons but primarily to get them accustomed to kicking all the way into the wall. When they get in a race they will do what they do in training so – kick to the touch pad.

Zev on #2 pulled the last stroke on lap 6. We reminded him of the “kick to the wall” goal/requirement. On # 3 he did the same thing. We said, “Ok Zev you can make that one up after workout. On # 4 he was fine, kicking all the wall in on lap #6.

After workout was over he reminded us, “I owe you a 150 kick”. We said go for it and he did, kicking all the way to the wall.

Case closed…but not exactly. Today we were thinking about that exchange and realized that Zev didn’t “owe us anything”. Zev owed himself another 150 kick. And this made it even clearer to us that Zev owes Zev, not us the coaches. And that is because Zev is in charge of his own bank account of skills, conditioning – the list is endless. He doesn’t kick FOR us. He kicks FOR HIMSELF…because it is his race, his training, his commitment…the list goes on – maybe forever.

So when we see Zev tomorrow we will reinforce that he is kicking for himself, not for us, and that he doesn’t actually owe us anything. However, he owes himself the very best that he can muster on any given day, on every given race, on every given set, on every given repeat.

What do you want? What are you willing to do to get it? The choice ultimately is yours and yours alone…very powerful concept if you can grasp it. The coach’s task is to get the swimmer/person to grasp that.

Have an awesome day at the pool – make a difference to someone (or two) today!