Keeping the Mind Quiet

小臭贝

This week’s Speedo Tip of the Week is an excerpt from the July-August 2004 issue of Splash, in which special correspondent Bonnie Moss writes about improving your mental strategies for peak performance. Moss reports on what sports psychologist Dr. Jim Bauman has to say about keeping the mind quiet.

The Tip:
How many times have you heard that the race is 90 percent mental? Not true, says Bauman. Your race should really be 80 to 90 percent physical, technical and tactical, and only 10 to 20 percent mental. “Anything more, you’ll be in trouble,” says Bauman. “It should be a physical effort, while mentally going along for the ride.”

Think back to a disappointing race. You can probably recall what you were thinking and can describe it using lots of “feeling” words (felt good, strong and loose).

Now recall your best race. What were you thinking about? Possibly nothing, if you were on auto-pilot. You stopped thinking and just let it happen.

Bauman suggests that the best race swum is mentally quiet because all the effort goes into being technically and tactically proficient. You can think – which can make you nervous and steal precious energy from the body – or you can perform.

Stay mentally quiet and just let it happen automatically. Says Bauman, “Don’t try to do it. Just do it.”