Sportsister looks at how sports performance coaching can help you to achieve your athletic goals. This brief case study looks at how it helped a cross-channel swimmer to achieve her dream.
Coaching comes in many forms, ranging from life coaching, where results are often more emotional and less tangible, through to business and sports performance coaching, where results tend to be more immediate and measurable. Sports performance coaching is not to be confused with conventional sports coaching, where the coach is an expert in the specific sport.
This brief case study looks at how sports performance coaching helped a cross-channel swimmer to achieve her dream. And even if you have little desire to emulate this amazing lady, you can apply the principles in whatever field of endeavour you choose. The name of the swimmer has been changed for the purposes of this case study.
Gemma had attempted to swim the Channel unsuccessfully the previous year, and wanted some help to succeed this time. I saw her for just two sessions, and during that time there were some clear mental blocks that became apparent. In all walks of life having the right sort of attitude is essential for success, and this is particularly true in sport, where the mind plays such a key role, and even more so in endurance sports. Gemma’s key mental blocks were:
- She saw her non-success the previous year as mean that she was a failure, which in turn caused her to put intense pressure on herself
- She was unable to see herself going beyond the 18 mile mark at which she had stopped the previous year
- She was unable to see herself successfully completing the swim.
Through persuasive and focussed questioning, Gemma realised that:
- Non-success did not mean she personally was a failure
- There is no failure, only feedback on what needs to be changed
- If you can learn from non-successes, even if they feel very upsetting at the time, you can do things differently and therefore improve your chances of success
- Visualising yourself overcoming the barriers will significantly increase your chances of success
- Seeing things from other perspectives often provides insights into ways forward
- It is essential to be clear on why you are doing something - what is the goal beyond the goal?
- It is essential to set goals for each training session/task, so that you know whether you are on track
The result of these insights meant that Gemma was able to swim the Channel. What’s more she did it in a time of around 18 hours (the world record is about 7 hours), and the final hundred yards or so took around one hour due to changing tides and deteriorating weather conditions. The motivation and determination to succeed against the barriers of extreme fatigue and poor weather are an inspiration to me, and to anyone else who knows her story. What a woman!
Jeremy Lazarus, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine
The Author
Jeremy Lazarus is a Business and Sports Performance Coach, and one of only about 50 Master Trainers of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) in the world. He has coached and trained thousands of people, and is the author of the Amazon UK number 1 best-selling sports psychology book ‘Ahead of the Game: How to Use Your Mind to Win in Sport’. He can be contacted via his websites www.thelazarus.com and www.WinningAtSport.com, a new website full of resources especially for athletes and sports coaches, or on [email protected].
