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orlando sports, athletics, swim club, Swimming, mental training Bess Auer orlando sports, athletics, swim club, Swimming, mental training Bess Auer

Hard Training and Why We Do it

Hard Training and Why We Do it

Great article from former Canadian swimmer, Olivier Poirier-Leroy

Training is meant to prepare you for competition. 

Physically.

Mentally.

To inure yourself to pressure, adversity, and the physical demands of swimming your best exactly when you need it most. 

The approach of making training hard so that competition is “easy” is not novel. It’s something high performers across a variety of fields use to build authentic, legitimate confidence.

Here’s an example.

Been reading an excellent book titled SAS: Rogue Heroes, by Ben Macintyre, that chronicles the formation of Britain’s Special Air Service, an elite commando unit, during the early days of World War 2. Selection and training for this new unit was brutal. Recruits worked their way up to completing 100-mile treks in the baking sand-blown desert in Egypt carrying a full load of water and stones (to simulate the weight of explosives they’d carry for nighttime raids). 

The goal?

"…to instill supreme physical stamina and self-confidence, to make the men so inured to hardship that the reality, when it came, would feel almost easy. 'The confident man will win,' said commanding officer, Lieutenant John Steel 'Jock' Lewes." Lewes, a born leader, didn’t just ask his prospective warriors to do these marches on his own…He first tested the marches himself in the hot desert, pockets full of rocks and stones.

The point?

Make practice so challenging and full of hardship that when it comes to stepping up on the block, you can look down the length of the lane and know that you’ve put in more work and conquered more challenges than the swimmer next to you and the PB in the psych sheet.

Crank up the pressure by racing your teammates, tracking performance, and aiming to beat metrics from distance-per-stroke to average pace.

Use test sets to challenge yourself mid-season and sharpen your competitive mindset.  Set audacious goals in training to expand your mindset of what is possible.  Swim with a mindset that embraces difficult challenges instead of shrinking away from them. 

Chase hardship in training and you will find excellence and an impossible-to-fake confidence on race day.

See you in the pool,

Olivier

___________________________

Blue Dolfins have been teaching swim lessons, conducting a year-round USA Swimming Club, and competing in national & international competitions for over 50 years in Winter Park and greater Orlando.

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2021 Blue Dolfins Winter Park  Accomplishments

2021 Blue Dolfins Winter Park Accomplishments

Cady Way Pool and Winter Park High School, Winter Park, FL

One of the best coaching staffs in Florida (8 coaches on deck) - Multiple coaches with Olympic Trials, GREAT MENTORS, and NCAA Division 1 swimming experience 

  • 28 Team Branch Records broken

  • 3 Olympic Trials Qualifiers (1 US, 1 British, 1 Polish)

  • 1 European Juniors qualifier/participant

  • 2 World’s best times for Down’s Syndrome Swimming

  • 4 United States Open / Senior Nationals Qualifiers

  • 5 Junior Nationals Qualifiers

  • 10 USA Swimming’s “Futures” Qualifiers

4 Top 10 Age-Groupers in the State

  • Caitlin Bartle

  • Isaac Tindall

  • Emmy Maguire

  • Ben Rines

Nine swimmers achieved 2021 High School All-American status

  • Caroline Chasser

  • Lockett Bowley

  • Erika Hirschmann

  • Cambria Semmen

  • Bella Lojewski

  • Adrianna Lojewski

  • Peyton Powell

  • Sydnie Hart

  • Gabby Puryear-Lynch

Three swimmers achieved Academic All-American Status 

  • Lockett Bowley

  • Caroline Chasser

  • Cambria Semmen

  • Bella Lojewski

Multiple High School State Champions

Multiple athletes #1 in the state in their event

8 athletes ranked top 20 nationally in their events

  • Lockett Bowley

  • Caroline Chasser

  • Bella Lojewski

  • Cambria Semmen

4 athletes committed to swimming NCAA Division 1 at the next level in college in the year 2021 (so far)

  • Alabama (Bowley)

  • Northeastern (Semmen)

  • IUPUI (Puryear-Lynch)

  • Tulane (B Lojewski)

11 College Swimmers

  • Brady Estrada (Nova Southeastern)

  • Reese Gawronski (Colorado College)

  • Sophie Hampson (Florida International)

  • Chloe Hampson (Florida International)

  • Jessica Harris (Eastern Illinois)

  • Madison Harris (Wheaton College)

  • Lucy Jahn (Arkansas Little Rock)

  • Cristian Jardine (St Leo)

  • Arianna Koerner (Marymount)

  • Lizzy Linartas (University of Arkansas)

  • Hector Rodriguez (University of Florida, manager - scholarship position)

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