Monday, December 21, 2020
7 Ways You Can Set a Personal Best in Your Next Meet
Liam Custer couldn’t believe what he saw.
The Sarasota Sharks member entered his club’s intrasquad meet in July with what he called an unrealistic goal time of 1:38 in the 200-yard freestyle. In his first competition in four months, he readily admits, he “had no clue what I was doing” and “went out way too fast.”
Still, Custer went a 1:37.43, a personal best by six seconds and a time that shocked him when he saw it on the scoreboard.
“I was really surprised,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’”
A short time later, Custer dropped five seconds in his 400-yard IM and then set personal bests in the long course version of both of those events later that day. His fast swimming continued, so much so that he’s lost count how many personal bests he’s set. He estimates it’s about 20.
Custer is just one of many USA Swimming members who are setting personal bests despite the pool shutdowns that occurred in the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and then the resulting social distancing rules that limited training time and reduced the size of meets.
Setting a personal best is much easier with your coach and teammates cheering for you alongside the pool, your parents yelling for you from the bleachers and the pool filled with tons of speedy swimmers from all over your LSC or the country.
Here’s how four USA Swimming members set a personal best despite the pandemic's interference in their training, and what you can learn from them to achieve this difficult feat at your next meet.
1: It’s Been a While (and That’s Good for Multiple Reasons)
Custer felt confident he would set a personal best in his 200-yard freestyle because he hadn’t swum the event in several months. The only question in his mind was how much he’d break it by. (He broke the time again with a 1:36.22 in December.)
If you haven’t swum in a meet in a while, you’re probably going to drop time if you’ve been training hard and swimming with good technique, pandemic or no pandemic. That’s just part of continuing to develop throughout your club swimming career.
There’s something else you should keep in mind.
The forced break caused by the pandemic has also made many swimmers realize they shouldn’t take their sport for granted. Every practice and meet is an opportunity.
“I felt like I gave more effort in training after [the pandemic] than I did before, just because before, you train every day, ‘What’s one [bad] practice,’ you have a bad set, whatever,” Custer said. “But I think coming back you realize that taking time off was a good thing. You have a clean slate and a fresh mindset and can attack every practice more than you would’ve before.”
You might also feel nervous getting behind the blocks again because it’s been so long since you’ve swum in a meet, but that’s actually good. You can use that nervous energy to your benefit.
If you’re unable to push away your nerves, Schroeder YMCA member Alana Berlin has found something that’s worked for her: shifting her thoughts to the hard work she’s done.
“I think, ‘This is going to pay off,’” Berlin said. “It really helps because right after we got back in the pool, we worked really, really hard.”
2: Try Something Different
After aging up to the 13-14 age group, Berlin couldn’t swim the 50 backstroke in individual events anymore, which led her to shift her focus to the 100 backstroke.
She set a personal best of 57.86 in that event in February and then went a 55.78 in August and a 54.53 in September. Berlin credits her coach for helping her with the three-second drop.
The two talked about pacing her 100 better by taking the first 50 out faster. She went from a near even split of 28-29 in February to a more conventional 25-28 in September.
Berlin recommends trying something new if you want to set a personal best, whether it’s focusing on an event that’s not your best or trying a new pacing plan. What you try might work wonders, as it did for Berlin, or you can always go back to what you were doing.
3: Focus on Your Technique
Technique is an important part of swimming fast, so if you want to set a personal best, you need to focus on improving yours, something you can do regardless of how much you’re swimming.
If you’re not able to swim, you can watch video of yourself swimming to see what you could improve upon or video of top-level swimmers to see what makes them great. When your club is able to practice, you can focus on the little things to make yourself faster.
Patriot Aquatic Club member Colin Zhang spent his first month of training back in the water on improving his underwaters, especially his breaststroke pullouts. He increased how far he could go, which has allowed him to take fewer strokes in his races, improving his endurance.
He dropped four seconds in his 100-yard breaststroke, going from the 1:00.99 he recorded in January to a 56.84 in October. He also set personal bests in his 200-yard breaststroke and 200-yard IM.
“The first month [back in the water], we completely focused on technique,” Zhang said. “We barely did any yards, and it was mostly just drills and body position. I think that was a very important part of getting faster.”
4: Get Your Rest
Zhang describes himself as lazier now—in a good way.
Before the pandemic, he was sleeping seven hours each night. Now he’s sleeping eight hours a night and taking an hour nap during the day between his remote classes.
Sleep is super important to athletes, especially swimmers. You should be getting at least eight hours per night, but more could be helpful because you’re working out so much. The stress caused by the pandemic can also wear you down, meaning more rest is even better now.
“I think before [the pandemic] I didn’t get enough sleep,” he said. “I think it’s helped me become more focused and train harder at practices, and I think that’s really important to improving.”
5: Connect With Your Community …
Austin Swim Club member Jillian Cox attended a national select camp and zone select camp last year, which connected her with many of her fellow swimmers across the country.
They’ve been a valuable resource during the pandemic.
“I still talk to my friends, and they helped motivate me,” Cox said. “Knowing that other people were experiencing the same thing and wanting to work hard, it just made everything a lot easier, it made everything go by a lot nicer by having friends that were going through the same thing.”
Having friends you met at a swim meet or camp can be very valuable. You can speak with them about what you’re struggling with or help them through something.
6: … and Race Your Community
When she was at the 2019 Dolfin Fran Crippen Memorial Swim Meet of Champions, Cox decided to race aggressively and take her 400-meter freestyle out quickly.
It worked. She went a 1:02.58 in her first 100—one hundredth of a second faster than four-time Olympic gold medalist Allison Schmitt, who was in the lane next to her—and recorded her first U.S. Olympic Team Trials qualifying time at the age of 13.
But because there aren’t many in-person meets drawing top swimmers from all over the country going on now, you might not be swimming against the fastest competitors out there.
But that just means you need to race them virtually.
“I’ve just been working on really focusing on who I can race and thinking about what other people around the country are doing if other people are racing,” Cox said. “I’m focusing on what someone in Nevada is racing fast. I want to make sure I’m racing just as fast because we’re still competing against each other, even if we aren’t in the same pool. Our times are still going to be compared to each other.”
7: Focus on What You Can Control
Like many people, Cox has had a challenging 2020.
After being hospitalized with what she said her doctors believe was COVID-19, she returned for a swim meet in March and promptly broke both of her feet when she jumped in for warm-ups. She entered the lockdown period of the pandemic in a wheelchair.
Rather than worrying about everything out of her control—her injuries, the pandemic—she focused on what she could control. She did dryland workouts in her bedroom and swam in her backyard using a bungee cord, working on things she needed to in order to pursue her goals.
“I couldn’t control what was happening in the world, but I could control what I needed to work on,” she said. “That was my main goal during everything.”
The Sarasota Sharks member entered his club’s intrasquad meet in July with what he called an unrealistic goal time of 1:38 in the 200-yard freestyle. In his first competition in four months, he readily admits, he “had no clue what I was doing” and “went out way too fast.”
Still, Custer went a 1:37.43, a personal best by six seconds and a time that shocked him when he saw it on the scoreboard.
“I was really surprised,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’”
A short time later, Custer dropped five seconds in his 400-yard IM and then set personal bests in the long course version of both of those events later that day. His fast swimming continued, so much so that he’s lost count how many personal bests he’s set. He estimates it’s about 20.
Custer is just one of many USA Swimming members who are setting personal bests despite the pool shutdowns that occurred in the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and then the resulting social distancing rules that limited training time and reduced the size of meets.
Setting a personal best is much easier with your coach and teammates cheering for you alongside the pool, your parents yelling for you from the bleachers and the pool filled with tons of speedy swimmers from all over your LSC or the country.
Here’s how four USA Swimming members set a personal best despite the pandemic's interference in their training, and what you can learn from them to achieve this difficult feat at your next meet.
1: It’s Been a While (and That’s Good for Multiple Reasons)
Custer felt confident he would set a personal best in his 200-yard freestyle because he hadn’t swum the event in several months. The only question in his mind was how much he’d break it by. (He broke the time again with a 1:36.22 in December.)
If you haven’t swum in a meet in a while, you’re probably going to drop time if you’ve been training hard and swimming with good technique, pandemic or no pandemic. That’s just part of continuing to develop throughout your club swimming career.
There’s something else you should keep in mind.
The forced break caused by the pandemic has also made many swimmers realize they shouldn’t take their sport for granted. Every practice and meet is an opportunity.
“I felt like I gave more effort in training after [the pandemic] than I did before, just because before, you train every day, ‘What’s one [bad] practice,’ you have a bad set, whatever,” Custer said. “But I think coming back you realize that taking time off was a good thing. You have a clean slate and a fresh mindset and can attack every practice more than you would’ve before.”
You might also feel nervous getting behind the blocks again because it’s been so long since you’ve swum in a meet, but that’s actually good. You can use that nervous energy to your benefit.
If you’re unable to push away your nerves, Schroeder YMCA member Alana Berlin has found something that’s worked for her: shifting her thoughts to the hard work she’s done.
“I think, ‘This is going to pay off,’” Berlin said. “It really helps because right after we got back in the pool, we worked really, really hard.”
2: Try Something Different
After aging up to the 13-14 age group, Berlin couldn’t swim the 50 backstroke in individual events anymore, which led her to shift her focus to the 100 backstroke.
She set a personal best of 57.86 in that event in February and then went a 55.78 in August and a 54.53 in September. Berlin credits her coach for helping her with the three-second drop.
The two talked about pacing her 100 better by taking the first 50 out faster. She went from a near even split of 28-29 in February to a more conventional 25-28 in September.
Berlin recommends trying something new if you want to set a personal best, whether it’s focusing on an event that’s not your best or trying a new pacing plan. What you try might work wonders, as it did for Berlin, or you can always go back to what you were doing.
3: Focus on Your Technique
Technique is an important part of swimming fast, so if you want to set a personal best, you need to focus on improving yours, something you can do regardless of how much you’re swimming.
If you’re not able to swim, you can watch video of yourself swimming to see what you could improve upon or video of top-level swimmers to see what makes them great. When your club is able to practice, you can focus on the little things to make yourself faster.
Patriot Aquatic Club member Colin Zhang spent his first month of training back in the water on improving his underwaters, especially his breaststroke pullouts. He increased how far he could go, which has allowed him to take fewer strokes in his races, improving his endurance.
He dropped four seconds in his 100-yard breaststroke, going from the 1:00.99 he recorded in January to a 56.84 in October. He also set personal bests in his 200-yard breaststroke and 200-yard IM.
“The first month [back in the water], we completely focused on technique,” Zhang said. “We barely did any yards, and it was mostly just drills and body position. I think that was a very important part of getting faster.”
4: Get Your Rest
Zhang describes himself as lazier now—in a good way.
Before the pandemic, he was sleeping seven hours each night. Now he’s sleeping eight hours a night and taking an hour nap during the day between his remote classes.
Sleep is super important to athletes, especially swimmers. You should be getting at least eight hours per night, but more could be helpful because you’re working out so much. The stress caused by the pandemic can also wear you down, meaning more rest is even better now.
“I think before [the pandemic] I didn’t get enough sleep,” he said. “I think it’s helped me become more focused and train harder at practices, and I think that’s really important to improving.”
5: Connect With Your Community …
Austin Swim Club member Jillian Cox attended a national select camp and zone select camp last year, which connected her with many of her fellow swimmers across the country.
They’ve been a valuable resource during the pandemic.
“I still talk to my friends, and they helped motivate me,” Cox said. “Knowing that other people were experiencing the same thing and wanting to work hard, it just made everything a lot easier, it made everything go by a lot nicer by having friends that were going through the same thing.”
Having friends you met at a swim meet or camp can be very valuable. You can speak with them about what you’re struggling with or help them through something.
6: … and Race Your Community
When she was at the 2019 Dolfin Fran Crippen Memorial Swim Meet of Champions, Cox decided to race aggressively and take her 400-meter freestyle out quickly.
It worked. She went a 1:02.58 in her first 100—one hundredth of a second faster than four-time Olympic gold medalist Allison Schmitt, who was in the lane next to her—and recorded her first U.S. Olympic Team Trials qualifying time at the age of 13.
But because there aren’t many in-person meets drawing top swimmers from all over the country going on now, you might not be swimming against the fastest competitors out there.
But that just means you need to race them virtually.
“I’ve just been working on really focusing on who I can race and thinking about what other people around the country are doing if other people are racing,” Cox said. “I’m focusing on what someone in Nevada is racing fast. I want to make sure I’m racing just as fast because we’re still competing against each other, even if we aren’t in the same pool. Our times are still going to be compared to each other.”
7: Focus on What You Can Control
Like many people, Cox has had a challenging 2020.
After being hospitalized with what she said her doctors believe was COVID-19, she returned for a swim meet in March and promptly broke both of her feet when she jumped in for warm-ups. She entered the lockdown period of the pandemic in a wheelchair.
Rather than worrying about everything out of her control—her injuries, the pandemic—she focused on what she could control. She did dryland workouts in her bedroom and swam in her backyard using a bungee cord, working on things she needed to in order to pursue her goals.
“I couldn’t control what was happening in the world, but I could control what I needed to work on,” she said. “That was my main goal during everything.”