The Diamond Mindset is the secret to improving your swimming. Just as a diamond in the rough needs to be shaped and polished to shine with magnificence, a swimmer who wants to improve needs to refine their technique and polish up their skills in order to shine.
For many adults, exercise is an escape from the fast-paced busy life; a time to unwind and not have to think or concentrate. It’s one of the things so many people love about running. It’s also a time when many people can allow their minds to work out problems and/or spark creativity. This would not be the case if while we were running we were thinking about the position of our hands, the angle of our elbows, the degree of bend in our knees, our cadence, where/how our foot is landing, position of our head, and so many more running form cues that can help us run more efficiently. If we had to do this every time we ran, we probably wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much.
The great new is that we don’t need to think about these running cues in order to improve as a runner. That is because the improvement we see is in the physiological systems in our bodies. Unlike running, swimming has a much higher degree of skill involved. It’s a bit like playing a musical instrument. I could play the piano for several hours each week for many months and improve very little because playing a musical instrument is a skill. To play an instrument one must make specific actions and in particular sequences in order to make music. The same is true for swimming. You need to take specific actions in a specific sequence in order to move your body through water more efficiently.
Because swimming is a skill, and like all skills, it requires focus and attention. This means that if you want to improve your swimming you need to focus on what you are doing while swimming. Does one have to focus while swimming? No, they can simply swim; but they also must accept that they will not improve. The best and fastest way to improve your swimming, to become a faster, stronger swimmer is to work on your technique. And this means concentrating when you swim. Very different that the disengaging we like to do when we run and bike.
Accepting that you need to focus and concentrate while swimming in order to improve is the first step and a critical part of the Diamond Mindset. But there’s more to it than that. To explain the Diamond Mindset, take out a piece of paper and pen and draw a diamond.
Write the word, “What” on one side of the diamond. In order to improve your swimming you need to know what specifically you need to improve. For example like myself, it would have been completely useless for the coach to talk to me about my catch when I couldn’t breathe while swimming. There is an order to working on swim technique. Some things need to be corrected before others.
On the next side of the diamond write the word, “How”. Once you know what you need to improve, you’ll need to also know how to fix your technique. Knowing what to do is important but if you also don’t know how, it won’t do you any good.
On the next side of the diamond write the word, “Intention”. You may also write the word Practice though I prefer intention because intention sharpens the mind to the task at hand. It’s too easy to mindlessly practice without focusing. Churning out the yards with poor technique will not improve your swimming. Now that you know what to do and how to change your stroke, you need to swim with intention . Just as you’ve most likely swam hundreds of laps with a flaw in your stroke, it’s going to take some time focusing on swimming with better form to correct it. It’s likely going to take more than one swim session to improve a specific part of your technique.
Finally, on the last side of the diamond write the word, “Evaluate”. After practicing you will need to evaluate your new stroke and see if you’ve been effective in making an improvement. One of the ways I like to evaluate the focus on my swim technique is to pay attention to my swim times. When I focus on maintaining a high elbow through my catch and I see that I am swimming 1 second faster over 100 yards, then I know it’s made a difference. You can also evaluate your form based on how it feels or if working with a coach ask for their feedback. Recording yourself and watching video is also an excellent tool you can use for evaluation as well.
As you can see with the Diamond Mindset, there is a natural continuation of moving around all sides of the Diamond. Much like ocean waves are continually forming, cresting, breaking on the shore and then being pulled back into the sea all to start again it’s hard to say where one wave truly begins and ends. Maybe there is no set beginning or end, but just a cycle. I think of the Diamond Mindset the same way - as a continuous cycle.
For those of you who don’t want to think about your swim stroke while swimming this is likely disappointing news. For those people who do want to improve at swimming, it’s the secret you’ve been waiting for.
The Diamond Mindset has been the single thing which took me from a person who could barely swim 25 yards (with his head out of the water), to a person who can swim under 1 hour in an Ironman swim, under 30 min in a 70.3, and hold 1:20/100 yard pace in the pool. Like most athletes, I tend to compare myself to others who are faster and as such, I don’t consider myself to be a fast swimmer. Compared to triathletes, however, I am a fast swimmer as I typically come out of the water in the top 5% of the field.
The main point I want you to take away is this, you too can dramatically improve your swimming if you are willing to put in the mental focus and attention.
For the rest of this week, the blog is going to focus on Body Position for the Freestyle Stroke. Body position is impacted by Head Position and Kicking, so we’ll discuss those aspects as part of Body Position. We will also need to discuss proper breathing because without being able to comfortably exhale while your face is in the water, you won’t be able to improve the rest of your swimming.
If you have a fellow swimmer or triathlete you think would benefit from this 6 Week Swim Challenge, I would be very grateful if you would forward on the blog to them.
Tomorrow, I will be giving away a pair of Blueseventy goggles. If you’ve not signed up to win free prizes, you can do so with the following link: https://forms.gle/AC19ieASE2ouTGHo9