Welcome to the Effortless Swimming podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

Welcome to the Effortless Swimming podcast. This is episode number 266. I’ve got a recurring guest on today. I got Dr. Jim Taylor, Jim. Welcome to the podcast. Great to be back, Brenton. Always fun. Got to be one of the most favorite guests on the podcast. I get a lot of comments when you when you are on and I see people in the change rooms at the pool I go to, they said, oh, that, you know, that podcast you had recently was really good. And I’ve had a lot of comments about the times that you’ve been on. So on today’s episode, I want to talk about pain and motivation and not motivation in a rah-rah sense where talk about you got to be dedicated. You got to be committed. I mean, that’s everyone knows that stuff. But what are some actual strategies to increase your motivation to have more success in your swimming or triathlon to get yourself to the pool more often and and just to feed that motivation. So we’re going to talk about those

topics. But before we jump into that, you recently came back from the world championships, competing in the super sprint and Olympic distance triathlon there and had some really good success with a third in the super sprint and a ninth in the Olympic for your age group. So what was that experience like? Was that your first world champs that you’ve been to? It was my second I did Montreal, which is the sprint in mixed team relay events, June. So this is but it’s still pretty new to me. And this was an Abu Dhabi, which caused a lot of anxiety for Team USA in terms of just, you know, what’s allowed and and a lot, you know, sort of the cultural political differences, which turned out to be quite negligible. It’s very westernized there. But it was the challenge. It was very hot. And so everybody had to sort of figure out how to deal with the heat, you know, we were racing in the middle of the day. And it was about 90

degrees out Fahrenheit. So it was it was it was warm. And the water was warm, although relatively pleasant, very salty, no wetsuits. And so that always presents a challenge for those of us who are swimming challenged, which is swimming is not one of my strengths. But thanks to you, I’ve improved a lot. I’ve been working on it. But two of my goals when I race is one to execute my plan well. And except for in each race, one small thing, actually one small thing cost me second place in the super sprint, but I blew my flying mount. But and but overall executed really well. And then after the race, regardless of the result to just look back and go, you know, I left it all out. And, you know, we always think we can go faster, but I did the best I could. And I was really happy with the result. The end of the podium was super exciting. And it just gets me fired up more for next year and see what I can do next year by improving in this in my swim and in my

bike, especially because I’m a runner. Fantastic. Well, that that leads pretty well into our first topic of pain. Because the super sprint, it’s just all out from the get go. There’s no real real pacing yourself. It’s just an all out sprint. And it’s hard work. And I mean, I’ve done some some sprint events in my brief triathlon career. And they were painful. Look at those and go, my God, it’s just your heart rate is almost at max for the entire duration of the race. And it’s something that can be very painful. So I want to talk about some strategies for dealing with pain and how you interpret it. Because I think it’s all about how you view it. Because I see people who have done sport for a long time, and they’re fit, they’re reasonably healthy. Majority of those people seem to interpret physical pain training pain as this is a good thing. This is something I actually look forward to, because it means that I’m working hard, I’m getting fit and

I’m actually get a little bit addicted to that physical pain of exertion in training, whereas somebody who’s been on the couch for five years and they’re trying to get fit, they’re trying to lose weight and develop this habit of exercise, they see it in a very different way. So I think that goes to show that you can interpret it differently, first of all, but the mental the way that you view it, and that mental sort of training that you put yourself can actually help you look forwards to that pain that you’re going to encounter in training. So with your background, the people you work with, what are some of the things that you’ve seen that have helped people make that transition to looking forward the pain that they’ll experience in training? Sure. Before we get to strategies, I think it’s really helpful to understand what pain is and why we feel it. And that even though it’s, even though it doesn’t feel good, it’s actually really important. One of the

best quotes I’ve heard came from Greg LeMond, the Tour de France, three times Tour de France, France winner said, the more fit you get, the it doesn’t hurt less, you just you just go faster. And so there’s sort of a little more rewarding. But let’s keep in mind that pain evolved for a purpose. Then it was it was basically occurred to help us survive. So when we felt pain, that was a warning that our life was in danger. So we should get away from whatever we were doing. And so that worked on the Serengeti 250,000 years ago, when we first became home with sapiens, human beings. These are we felt pain. It’s like, okay, I need to get away from this thing that’s causing the pain, because I want to survive. The problem is, is that evolutionary response that worked back then really well, doesn’t work so well now, because we want to feel pain. And so when we experience pain and we push through pain, we’re actually resisting

billions of years of evolution, telling us to stop. And that’s not an easy thing, because it’s very deeply ingrained in us. Another thing, key thing to keep in mind, and this goes again to what you suggested about attitude, is that that we if it didn’t hurt, we wouldn’t do it. So part of the satisfaction of swimming events and triathlons is that it hurts. And as a general rule, the more it hurts to a point, the more satisfying it is because it means we’re working harder. And also, of course, when we’re hurting, we feel heroic. And I was thinking like Lionel Sanders, he’s one of the top triathletes in the world, he’s known for suffering. And the problem is, he uses that almost everybody thinks he’s super heroic, which he is because he can suffer so much. But he also suffers so much that it actually hurts his performances. He overtrees. He pushes too hard. And so there’s a balance of wanting to feel pain and also but too much is bad. Another thing

is distinguished between exertion pain and injury pain. And so it’s really important that to be able to tell the difference, because if we’re experiencing injury pain, we want to make sure that we stop. And so I went for my first run after Abu Dhabi the other day on Friday, and my Achilles started hurting. And it wasn’t exertion pain. And so I stopped. And so I listened to my body and that was a good thing. It prevented me from maybe sustained in a serious Achilles injury. At the same time, there is quite a bit of difference between exertion pain and injury pain. So injury pain tends to be very acute, very, very powerful. And it doesn’t stop when you stop. Exertion pain, it hurts, but it’s not like it’s not like getting stabbed in the eye or something. Not that I’ve ever been stabbed in the eye, but I assume it hurts really badly. And exertion pain when you stop, it goes away. And simply the fact that you know how to

control it, here’s a really good strategy is just being aware that I can stop my pain. That makes it more manageable. There’s been a lot of research on that. It’s simply the perception of control over your pain helps you experience more pain, which is in training what we need to be able to do. And so if you realize that, you know, if it gets really, really bad, I can stop. That sense of control enables us to basically sort of ratchets the pain down. It doesn’t remove the pain, but it ratchets it down. So that that is one very simple tool is just knowing and reminding yourself that, hey, this is within my control. Keep going. So another thing about pain is that we think of pain is physical, but we actually filter it through our mind. And that’s exactly what you were referring to and how we perceive the pain. And so if we perceive the pain as you know, this mighty effort as we pursue our goals, that pain feels really good. But if, for example,

you know, you’re doing Kona, or you’re in a race, and you’re just dying out there and you’re getting slower, that totally changes the dynamic where then it’s like, I’m getting beat here. And then all of a sudden, the pain hurts a whole lot more. And the natural reaction, of course, is to want to stop because you’re not getting anything out of it. So so that attitude and that approach to why you’re experiencing pain, having a reason for the pain is really, really important. Part of it for me, I think because competing wise, I do a few races here and there, but right now with where I currently am, I’m not working towards a big race or a big event right now. But I love training and I love to work hard. And part of that for me, I think is I see it as part of my identity with how I want to be viewed by others, how I want to feel about myself and having that identity as being a swimmer, of being someone who’s generally quite

fit. To me, that’s important. And that’s why I find it difficult to stop swimming. If I go a day or two without exercise, I’m itching to get to get back at it, not only because of how it makes me feel, but I think because of how I view myself and how I want to be perceived as well. What role does identity have in that as well? Yeah, a huge one. Because if you perceive yourself as an athlete and that if you’re not experiencing that which is associated with being an athlete, let’s a swimmer, triathlete, then you just don’t feel as good about yourself. And it becomes a bit of, I don’t like the word, use the word addiction, but addiction has negative consequences. But it becomes a habit, a practice in your life that it’s how you feel good about yourself as part of your self esteem. It’s how you achieve your goals, all those things. And so if you identify yourself as somebody who works hard, who can who can suffer some and who has goals they’re

working toward, then when you experience pain, that’s simply that’s affirming. So you want to embrace that. Rather than like, Oh, my gosh, this hurts so much, I need to push this away. So experiencing pain, exertion pain and training and in races is actually a positive thing because it makes you feel good about who you are. And yes, there’s no doubt just like the Lionel example, where people perceive you as like, Oh, my gosh, he can suffer. And so we all like to hear, you know, we like to all think we’re super tough. And and you know, to varying degrees, but anybody who swims or is a triathlete, you know, worth the higher end. Because you know, most people are sitting on their couch watching TV, and there’s not a lot of suffering going on there, although that would be suffering for us. So so there’s no doubt that that identity plays a role in how you manage it. So if you perceive yourself as someone who likes to feel pain in

your training and suffer, because it helps you, it’s helps validate you, then that helps you deal with it. It also motivates you to to get out. One of the things that was interesting when I had Gustaf Eden on the podcast a little while ago, and I asked him about some listeners sent in questions and one of the questions was, when did it start to hurt with his Iron Man World Champs race? And he said, at no point did it really start to hurt, which is an interesting perspective, because you say look at someone like Lionel who and a lot of the other guys who would have been working their ass off, they would have been suffering, perhaps halfway through the through the run. And he’s good stuff. Yeah. Okay. If you’re having a good race, it generally feels good, you’re relaxed and you race well and doesn’t hurt as much when you are having a really good race. So I think maybe that’s part of it. But for him, he’s not looking to push

himself to the wall in that race and just look to be hurting as much as he can because he knows he’s got the most out of it. For him, a smart approach is to sustain the right level of output and hold that throughout the race. And then he knows he’s going to be able to have the best success in that race because he’s hasn’t blown up halfway through the through the run, which I thought was an interesting thing. And obviously they do work hard in training and at the right times, but it was a different approach to the racing side of things where, especially for that distance, it’s more about just sustaining the same heart rate and output for the entire race, whereas others are looking to just, you know, put themselves to the wall. Yes, it’s a great observation. And just by coincidence, I was doing an hour spin indoors and I was watching Gustav and Blumenfeld being interviewed by Rich Roll and they talked about that and how it used to be an

icono, especially was about just like getting through it and surviving. But now it’s like racing, it’s start to finish. And the fact that, you know, he crossed the finish, having set a new course record, but not falling down and collapsing sets a couple of things. One, he’s in phenomenal condition. And one thing that Norwegians do is they train at extremely high levels of volume and intensity. And whereas, you know, some of the other athletes, they just can’t handle it. And so, so and but also that he was staying within himself and he left a lot of time on the course, which is a little scary. So really, they are both rewriting the long distance triathlon book on how to train and how to approach races. And because the idea of racing for seven and a half hours, meaning going hard, pushing yourself is a strange idea and not struggling at all, totally staying within themselves is a remarkable thing. Whereas, you know, you see others in

these races who are just dying on the bike and they’re just walking the run and they’re suffering. They’re in a lot of pain. This episode of the podcast is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, Form Goggles. They’re more than a pair of Goggles meet the world’s most powerful swim platform. See yourself improve with Form Smart Swim Goggles, including a free one year membership when you purchase your Goggles for only $228 US dollars. Now, they’ve currently changed up the offer where you can now get the Goggles and you have that one year membership included for free. And then if you’d like to continue with the membership going forward, it’s only 15 US dollars a month where you get access to their workouts, training plans and their custom workout builder. But you’ll always have access to the real time data of the Goggles, so you’ll never lose access to that. So if you’d like to swim without stopping to look at a pace clock or your

watch and get live metrics right inside your Goggles, including your time, distance, pace, they are right there in your Goggles with Form Goggles. I’ve used these for over 12 months now and I’m a huge fan of these goggles and use them for a majority of my sessions and find them very helpful, especially for gauging my time, my effort, my pace. And I think it’s a very helpful tool for the majority of swimmers that I would normally work with to get your pair of Form Goggles and save 15 percent off. Use our link form swim dot com forward slash effortless or use the coupon effortless at checkout. That will get you 15 percent off your pair of Form Goggles using our special link form swim dot com forward slash effortless or use the coupon code effortless at checkout. You mentioned earlier about the knowing that for exertion pain, you can just simply stop and then it’s going to go away and that can help you continue to push for longer.

Are there any other strategies that can help someone continue to push behind in a race? Yeah. So this is sort of a preparatory approach and it has to do with wording and language. So I’m a word guy do a ton of writing, a ton of speaking. Words for me are very powerful things because they act as the filter through which we process the world in many ways. And so a number of years ago I was out for a ride, long ride in Northern California, really hilly with a bunch of guys. We finished and one of the guys says, man, that was a suffer fest out there. It was a suffer fest. And at the time I had been giving talks to a leukemia society team and training. I don’t know if they have that in Australia, but it’s basically where somebody signs up and they get coached in preparation for a marathon or a triathlon and things like that. I was giving talks to them, just volunteering my time. And so at every meeting they’d have somebody who has

cancer and is getting treated. And so I started thinking suffer fest suffering is what we do as triathletes and swimmers suffering. And I decided it wasn’t the suffering is unbelievable pain that you can’t control and that has dire consequences like somebody with cancer. And then I thought, well, OK, how do we go? How do we just call it pain? You know, pain fest, that doesn’t sound so bad either. But then I thought, you know, pain will pain is like a serious injury. Like I get hit by a car a little over a year ago and had some broken bones. And that was pain. And it’s it’s different than suffering because it will go away sooner or later. You heal, hopefully. So I decided pain wasn’t really what we experience. What I decided we experience is discomfort, physical discomfort. And when I when I mentioned this to different different triathletes, they go, you know what, that doesn’t work for me. And then I thought like, oh, you know, that was a

discomfort fest out there.

Brendan, it doesn’t work, does it? So I decided, OK, we’ll call it pain, but we know what it really is. So so in starting off, a painful experience like a race, if you can put that in perspective, it’s like what I’m going to experience out there, you know what, it’s not suffering and it’s not really even pain, but we’ll call it that. It’s just a lot of discomfort. And that alone changes it too, because there’s a big difference in how you interpret discomfort, which is uncomfortable, but it’s not like like that versus pain and suffering, which is really bad. So if you go into racing, oh, yeah, this can be pretty uncomfortable out there, like in Abu Dhabi, it was 90 degrees, it was hot, it was uncomfortable. So that that sets the tone also of that, OK, it’s not going to be that bad. And when you don’t think of it as that bad, you think, OK, but I can handle it. And it goes back to what I said earlier about being in feeling like you’re in

control of it. So they had cooling stations in Abu Dhabi with this little tent in this van where you if you wanted to stop and go into it and get sprayed with cool water. And it’s like that’s a way you control it. So so those are some things things you can do to set yourself up. But then once you get out there, what can you do? So there’s been a lot of interesting research on pain. And what they found was that how you think about pain and how you the emotions you connect with pain have a big impact on how you experience pain. So for example, they found that people who associated negative thinking. So if you know, if you’re out there and maybe it’s open water swim or the start of a swim and a bike race or in a triathlon, excuse me, and you’re hurting and you go, you go, oh, man, I hate this out there. This is terrible. This is no fun. I don’t want to do this. You’re going to feel more pain. And also if you associate negative emotions

with pain, you feel more pain. So anger, frustration, despair, those kind of emotions. And we’ve all experienced these things out there. Any endurance athlete has. And so you’re going to feel more pain. The other side of that is that if you associate positive thoughts and positive emotions with pain, you feel less pain. Now, Bretton, it doesn’t go away. But it just takes the edge off a little bit, turns the dial down a little bit, which means you can keep going. And so saying things like, oh, yeah, this is why I’m out here. You know, if it wasn’t if it wasn’t hard, everybody would do it or nobody would do it. Or this means I’m striving toward my goals. You feel less pain. Also emotionally. But here’s a tough one. When you’re really hurting out there, what positive emotions can you possibly associate with it? Fun? No. Excitement? No. Joy? No. Happiness? No. I can only think of two, Bretton. You want to take a shot or you want me to give it up?

I’ll let you give it up. Pride and inspiration. So it being inspired like I’m working really hard. That’s inspiring for me. And that will tie in with motivation, which we’ll talk about in a little while. And second is pride is like I’m proud of myself for pushing through that heat and Abu Dhabi and getting the results I did. And so those emotions, those thoughts then trigger a different physiology. So when you feel those positive emotions and those positive thoughts, it releases endorphins our body’s natural pain killers. So you literally are feeling less pain. And so these are some tools that are really practical. So how you think about it has a big impact on your experience. And I’ll be honest, like I think I told you in a previous podcast, I didn’t grow up swimming. I didn’t I’d never done, you know, lateral breathing or a lap until I was well into adulthood. And so relatively recently as recently as last year, I’d start

swimming in a triathlon and just immediately be going like, boy, I do not want to be here. This is no fun. You know, half an hour of this. Gosh, I just want to get it done. And I realized that that just it was just terrible for me. It was just sucking the life out of me. So this year I’ve trained myself and of course, given what I do for a living as a sports psychologist, I have to sort of practice what I preach. But I really worked on positive attitude and just saying like, oh, yeah, I’m keeping it going. Let’s keep it going. Moving along. Let’s finish strong, whatever. And and amazingly enough in Abu Dhabi in the Olympic event, I had the most enjoyable swim I’ve ever had. Like I actually enjoyed being out there. And I know, you know, you grow up swimming. So you just love it innately. But there are a lot of swimmers out there, a lot of triathletes who didn’t grow up swimming or lousy swimmers. And so it’s hard to stay positive in

that in those situations. So but it takes practice. You have to exercise that ability in those situations, especially if you tend to go to the dark side, you don’t mind the Star Wars reference. So there’s a couple of really practical tools. They’re great. On that point of not loving their swim initially is I had a guy come to a clinic or a no, he came to a follow up filming. So he’d done a clinic before and then he came for a checkup basically. And he said, prior to coming to the clinic, he hated the swim part of the triathlon. It was just he struggled to get himself to the pool. He came to a clinic and figured out what he needed to do to get faster and what to focus on. And for him, that helped him love love the swimming portion of it. And I found it funny because he said I should probably get on the bike and start running a bit more because I’ve just been doing way too many swims each week because it’s what he really enjoys now, which

is and I think that’s the case. Certainly if you figure out what you need to be doing to get better and you see that progress and improvement and still feed into the motivation, I guess is that’s a real motivator to continue to do that that thing. And it doesn’t matter if it’s something that originally you hated when you do have that within any area of life, it can actually draw you more towards it. But before we go on to that, I really enjoy that part about your reference point of what’s real suffering having cancer, having to go through chemo. That’s real, that’s real suffering. And so when you’ve got that reference point of what real pain and suffering is, you look at what you’re doing. All right, I’m choosing to go and do this triathlon. Yeah, it’s going to be uncomfortable. It’s nothing. And it’s the same with like a, I sort of look at it with long distance swim. So for me, prior to five, six years ago, the longest swim I

had done would have been a 10 K training session. But really, like for me, if I did a five K swim, I’m like, oh, that’s a long swim. And then I talk to these people on my podcast they’ve done, Chloe McCart, I think she did 118 kilometers broke the world record for the longest continuous swim. And now look at that and go, all right, well, surely I can do 20 K, surely I can do that. So you have that different reference point of what you consider to be hard or difficult or challenging. And I think it’s a good way to help you see what you’re doing is being easier or to take it on. So yeah, it’s a really good approach. Yeah, perspective just changes everything. If you just look at look at it in a different way. And you made a really good point with respect to the fellow who just improved a lot. So if you’re in the pool and I’m struggling with this a little bit now and I’m just like working my butt off and suffering in a lot of pain in my training

swim training, and I’m not getting faster. That’s hard to keep going. So if you show improvement, and it’s like, oh yes, worth it. It’s like, you know, yeah, I worked really hard and I felt a lot of pain, but it was worth it because I’m faster now. So if you can connect those efforts with those goals, then it’s really motivated. It’s like, I want to get out there again. And I want to work hard. So that’s really valuable. And another interesting thing is your physiology. So when you feel pain, you feel it in your body, obviously. And again, through evolution, our natural tendency when we feel pain is to brace ourselves to tighten up and hold our breath. And as I talked about before we got started recording, you know, on the Serengeti 250,000 years ago, if you’re about to be hit by a club with it by rival tribesmen, you definitely want to do this. The problem is that reaction of tightening up to protect yourself, to increase your chances of

survival doesn’t work if you’re swimming because you can’t swim tight and you can’t swim holding your breath. So a really valuable thing to do when you’re training and especially gets hard. So for example, let’s say you’re doing 10 by 50, 50 as hard as you can, then to really focus those last couple when your body starts to tighten up on just being loose and relaxed and really focus on your breathing. Now breathing is harder and swimming because I’m running and biking, you can breathe whenever you want. But you can’t obviously do that in swimming. But it’s really useful to have some little like keyphrase or keywords you can use. So for me toward the end of a hard interval set, all my key phrases long and loose. So I want to really stretch and get along along as per stroke and then keep myself loose. So so when I start to struggle a little bit, I keep that in mind. I’m repeating myself long and loose, long and loose. And that keeps my body

relaxed. And it keeps me breathing. And so I’ll also make sure big breath on the breathing side. And that has the direct physiological effect. So you know, we talked about thoughts, we talked about emotions. And now we’re talking about your physiology. And those are the big three. And so if you can do something about all three of those, you’re going to feel a whole lot better. And you’re going to feel less pain. On Friday mornings, we do a like a heart rate set. And it’s quite often hundreds at what I would consider best average pace. So for example, a set that we did not long ago was 24 100s on two minutes for them best average. So as hard as fast as you can maintain across the entire set. And then you’ve got to act recovery. So in total, it’s 1600s that will be at best average as fast as you can you can maintain. And that is that’s a hard set. That’s that’s painful where you get this lactic build up. And you’ve got to really relax

throughout the set to try and maintain your speed throughout. And every time I’m driving on a Friday morning to the pool, I’m sitting in the car. And in my gut, I’m nervous because I know the pain that I’m going to experience in this session. It’s probably the hardest session I do do all week. So I’m a little bit nervous driving to the to the pool. And for me, a few things that have helped me with motivation to make sure I get there every Friday, but also to make sure that I do my best each time is I just make sure I do a long enough warm up a decent warm up where I just have time to loosen up and fill the water. If I get straight into it, I will usually blow up a quarter halfway through that main set. So I need a long warm up first of all. But the other thing that’s helped a lot is for those sessions, I like to wear the form goggles because that way I can distract myself throughout that session of like, I’m looking, I’m pushing off.

We are in a 50 meter pool. So I’ll hit the turn at the 50. I’ll see what my split is. And that will just give me something else to focus on. It’s like, OK, well, that was it was this time. Now I know I need to come back in this time. And I’m just trying to match that every single time we’re doing an all out hundred. So that’s been something that has has helped me have better consistency with my time throughout the set. Take my mind a little bit off the pain because I’m just focused on my pacing there. And the other thing that’s that’s helped a lot to is I look forward to the very last all out of the very last hundred because in that last hundred where we’re going fast, I want to try and go a second or two seconds fast. I want to leave it all on the table at the end of it. And one of the things that I love about swimming is when I put everything into that last one, I’ll generally pick up the kick a little bit more I’ll be sitting a bit higher

in the water. And that first 50 I’m thinking, OK, I’ve got to go easy, easy speed. I’ve got to just relax that first 50 while just picking up the stroke rate a little bit. And then on the way home, I’m just going to build up. And I know I’m going to feel it in my my shoulders, my stomach, my legs. I’m going to feel this this lactic acid. And when I hit it, when I feel that, I go, OK, there it is. All right, let’s just see if we can we can maintain the speed. But I as best I can, I’ve tried to train myself to to look forward to that last hundred because I know what it’s going to feel like. But I know at the end of that, that I’m done. And that’s it. And so it’s something that that has really helped me just get to those sessions and and do well with them. So there are a few strategies that have helped with my my motivation throughout throughout them. Yeah. And also help you deal with the pain because two really additional effective tools are

distraction is if you can just think about other things like like some people like Lionel, he always has some headphones on when he swims. And so I don’t know what he’s listening to, whether it’s, you know, heavy metal or music or a podcast or something like he’s probably listening to you. But but you keep your mind off it a little bit. The problem is with with distractions is you can only distract yourself so long because it’s like the pain gets louder and louder and louder until you can’t ignore it. And there’s a number there’s research a number of years ago where they where they looked at pain strategies with elite marathoners and and we can warrior marathoners. They found that we can warrior marathoners tended to distract themselves. So again, they’d listen to music, they would talk to people, they would do everything they can to keep their mind off it. Whereas elite marathoners, they associate it, they focused on the pain

and they use that is information. And this is another really good tool. And and and it sort of ties them with what you said also in that using the information is like, oh, I’m starting to hurt here. What can I do to adjust my technique to adjust my stroke rate, maybe breathe the other side, adjust my kick, whatever it might be. So using that information, but it gets analytical, you can do things to ease the pain, but also simply engaging that part of your brain, what’s called the prefrontal cortex, it takes away your the processing of your primitive brain, which is where you process pain. And that’s where it’s telling you to stop. So simply by getting getting the analytical helps you in this ties in with with form goggles where you’ve got this data that by engaging that you’re shifting the circuit away from the primitive brain onto this logical brain, which is less emotional and less physiological. And another thing is you suggest is

is distraction, excuse me, is goals, having a goal for yourself. So at the end, I’m aiming for that last set, and I’m going to push it really hard. And so it’s like giving yourself a reason to struggle. So this is this is why I’m out here. And because I want to get faster and I want to achieve my goals, whatever they might be. So distraction using pain is information and making adjustments and also connecting them to goals, like this means I’m working toward my goals. And in terms of motivation, what are some other strategies that you’ve seen work really well and that you’ve used with the athletes that you coach? Sure. Well, motivation is one of the toughest things I work with, because I can give athletes tools to build up their confidence, to get them to relax, to focus better. And there’s certainly some tools that I mentioned that can help with motivation in the short term. And but motivation ultimately has to come from within. You’ve

got you just have to have to have a reason for wanting to go out there. Because there are a lot of things pulling you not, whether it’s the pain of a hard workout, or for example, to swim from five 30 to seven in the morning, especially during the winter, when it’s cold and it’s dark, it’s hard to get to the outdoor pool. And so again, it’s like what motivates me then is that my coach puts in training peaks. And if I don’t do it, A, I’m going to he’s going to look less kindly on me. And I’m less likely to reach my goals. Or I spent half my time up in the mountains of Northern California where it’s six and 7000 feet. And I don’t know if you’ve ever done interval workouts at that elevation. But there’s no joy in it. It’s hard. It’s way harder. There’s 25% less auction. And so again, for motivation, one really powerful tool is to tie it to your goals. Another one really related to my coach is accountability. Like, like it’s on the program. I’m

telling my coach expects me to do it. So I better do it so that that can really help a lot. What about strategies to the opposite of motivation? So to have something to steer away from to move away from because one of the things that I’ve found really powerful is yes, you want something to work towards you want that goal time, you want that that podium, but also having something that you want to you want to steer steer clear from. And so an exercise that I’ve done in the past is writing down the things I’m going for. But also, if I don’t do those, what does that look like? And then how do I how do I feel with it? If I don’t get up and swim each day, if I just turn into a couch and Tato, how does that look and how will I feel as a person? And to me that that’s almost more motivating than having something to work towards you had to run away from being this couch potato who’s overweight, who’s not fit that I’m on deck, I’m coaching and people may not

have that much respect for me because I don’t look like I must run. I don’t maybe look like I could do those those things that that to me is a really powerful motivator. Okay, certainly strategy that can work. And I know a lot of people use it. I don’t think it’s the best thing because it’s better to work towards something, move towards something, pursue something, then run away from something. And like basically what you do is you’re kind of shaming yourself and guilting yourself into it. And again, to guilt and shame are very powerful motivators. But ultimately, they’re not the healthiest. So so I would say, you know, balance it out. So still have the goals you’re working toward and a reason for being out there. But also, you know, use those other things like I don’t want to be a slug. I don’t want people to think I’m some guy just out of shape and hanging out by the side of the pool. So so that can be good. But I think a

positive orientation is generally more important. And just it feels better, I think. One thing we talked about before the podcast was it’s people think about motivation is like this rah rah, let’s go kind of thing. But really, there are a lot of different reasons why people swim and do triathlon. And so it’s really a matter of figuring out what your motivation is. So some people do it just because the satisfaction of getting better of improving others are competitive. They want to beat do well in a race. Others like the technical aspects of it, like I loved when I first discovered effortless swimming last year when I was basically didn’t know how to swim. I was enthralled with just the technical aspect. So you know, you have high elbow and the recovery. And that was really motivated to see myself understanding better how to swim properly and how to how that makes you faster. And other reasons, you know, some people love being in a master’s swim

class. So being with other people. So it’s a social thing. And so if you have those kind of social needs, then it’s really valuable. That’s really motivated to know that these people are waiting for me. Or if you have a swimming buddy, same sort of thing, you don’t want to get up at 5 30 or you don’t want to go to go to swim after work late in the day because you’re tired. But if you know your buddy is going to be there, and he’s counting you or she’s counting you, well, you’re going to go because in a way, they’re motivating you and you’re motivating them. So you both are hold yourself accountable to the other person. Yeah, that’s that’s a really powerful one. When I was training for right nests a couple of years ago, the 20 K swim, friend of Cassandra was a friend of mine. She was training for the swim as well. Every Wednesday morning, we’d organized to swim at six o’clock in the morning in the in the bay there in Melbourne. And it

was rain, hail, shine. We were going to do it. And there was no question in my mind when that alarm went off in the morning, it’s not like, oh, should I get out of bed? It’s like, no, you need to go because she’s not going to go swim by herself when it’s pitch black. And it might be chopping everything. So she’s relying on you to go. So that that accountability of having only you responsible for being there. Yeah, if it’s a group of 10 swimmers and doesn’t matter if they don’t turn up, it’s motivating, but just having that one person relying on you is very much a big one. So yeah, I quite like that one. Good, good. And another big thing is just reminding yourself of what your goals are. Because I have the same that you pay now or you pay later. So you can pay now by doing the work and feeling the physical discomfort, or you can pay later emotionally by not achieving your goals because you didn’t do the work earlier. And I can assure you

paying now is way less painful than paying later because the pain now it stops as soon as the workout’s done. Whereas the paid later in regret, for example, and disappointment in yourself because he didn’t achieve your goals because he didn’t do the work, that can last forever. And so really important to constantly remind yourself that when you don’t feel like doing it, it’s like, well, do you feel like losing? Do you feel like being slow? It’s your choice. And although I do want to point out that there are some days that, you know, most of the people I work with are pretty darn motivated, whether they’re professionals or Olympians or down to, you know, very serious age groupers or young, young swimmers and triathletes. And, and it’s really important to listen your body. So there can be under motivation or there can be over motivation. And I’m working with one of the top professionals in the world and triathlon. And he just basically thinks

if five sets is good, eight will be better. And he did Kona and he was totally cooked by the time he got there. And so you have to really balance that out, just doing enough, doing what you’re supposed to do and not thinking the more is better approach. And, and so the fine line, but having those goals is it provides the reason for why for why you’re doing it. And so if you constantly remind yourself, oh, yeah, it’s, you know, I do not want to get it get out of bed at five in the morning to go to the pool. But you know what, I these big goals from next year. So I’m going to go and another brand, another little side thing that I find is that that the time like getting there is the hardest part. Once you’re in the pool, you got your workout and and you sort of do your thing. And it’s maybe only an hour. Now obviously, if you’re if you’re doing for a 20 case swim, you’re going to have longer workouts. But for me an hour swim is pretty long

in 2020, 2,000, 2,500 yards, something like that. And it’s like it takes less than an hour and then it’s over. And then you look back and go, that wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t that long. And so you want to remember that at the beginning when you think it’s going to be super hard because it’s like, oh, yeah, in 45 minutes, I’m going to be done. I can get through this. And then all of a sudden it’s like, oh, yeah, it’s a lot easier to get yourself to go out there and do it and do the work. One of the rules I had for myself in training for the rottenness swim was I had any session I had planned. It was if I don’t feel like going, you’ve still got to go. But if you want to get out after 500 meters, you can. So the rule of that 500 meters, that’s the minimum you’ve got to do. And then you can get out if you choose to. And I only did it once. There was only one session. And I think I probably went 800 instead of 500. I was like, yeah, I’m just not

feeling it today. I can not be bothered. I’m gonna gonna jump out. But that was once over the course of, I don’t know, five, six months that I was training towards it. And about five sessions a week. So yeah, it’s right. Once you’re there, it’s easy. Once you’re in the once you’re warming up, you’re like, oh, okay, this is actually pretty good. And yeah, I do in do enjoy it. So yeah, it’s just a matter of getting there. And some of the things that helped me have helped in the past is just making that as easy as possible. Pack your bag the night before I’ve got my drink bowl, got my bathers, got my towel, keys are there. Everything’s lined up at the door so I can just wake up and I don’t need to think I can just walk straight out the door. Whereas on those occasions where I haven’t packed the night before, I’m searching in the dark trying to not wake up the family looking for my bathers looking for it for it’s our opening doors and

getting frustrated. I’m like, I can’t. Yeah, this is all too hard. And just having that preparation actually helps with the motivation because it just provides this nice smooth path to do the thing that you want to do. Yeah, that’s absolutely true. And I have a saying in terms of what you said, well, maybe I’ll just cut the workout short 90% of success is just showing up. And so if you just show up and he goes, okay, you know, and because I sometimes will do this where I’ll be doing my warm up and I’ll go, you know, I’m not really feeling it. I don’t think I can do this whole workout. But I’ll say, well, I’ll just I’ll just get it going. And then you start you start doing them like, like I have one workout that’s like eight 150s, eight 100s and eight 50s hard. And and so it’s like you’ve done two on three quarters the way done of the first of the first set. And it’s like you’re halfway done on the first set. And you start

knocking them off. And and so you see yourself you see yourself getting closer to the end. It’s like, oh, I can get through this, these next four. And so that’s another thing that can help with motivation is don’t look at the end of the workout, look at just like what you need to do now. So I’ve got eight hundreds coming up. And so let’s just focus on the hundreds. And I get the first one done. It’s like, oh, it’s one less. And then you get another one. Oh, I’m three quarters the way done. And so you play these little mind games. But but once you get in there, then hopefully the motivation kicks in. And you do it because like you, I’ve rarely ever not finished a workout occasionally on an on the indoor bike where I like I’m just not feeling it. And my coach has taught me if I’m not feeling it, I’m a motivated guy. Stop or just spin or something because if you don’t do one workout because you don’t feel like it, it’s probably a good thing.

Now, if you did that regularly, then that’s something you might need to come see me about or something. But but bottom line is if you’re fundamentally motivated and you’re not feeling it, that means your body’s telling you don’t do it. And and you know, swimming is is an endurance sport and it’s high intensity as well. And it takes us tall. And so if there’s one of those days where you just aren’t feeling it, then you should listen to your body and then go back the next day and you’ll probably have it. I’ve had a lot of those sessions before. It’s just it’s not happening. And on occasions, I’ll push it out. Other occasions, I’ll either if it’s a solo session, if I’m there by myself, I was planning to do three and a half four K, I might get out up to two and a half. I’m just like, yeah, today is not the day. Otherwise, if I’m with the group, I might just if I need to put a pool boy in, put some fins on and just sort of sit at the back and just

work on good form. If I feel like I’m about to overtrain or like I just haven’t had enough sleep and I know it’s not worth pushing it. Yeah, I’ll certainly certainly do that. Jim, this has been a great episode. I really appreciate you coming on. I love this topic pain and pain and motivation. It’s great to talk about some strategies where people can can use them and some actionable strategies, not up in the air sort of area for area stuff because, you know, that rara motivation stuff, it’s good for 10 minutes, but it just doesn’t it doesn’t last. It doesn’t sustain itself. So for anyone listening, where can they find out more about you and get in touch if they’re looking to to work with someone like yourself to help with their performance in whatever sport they’re doing? Yeah, so of course, like everybody else, I have a website. It’s drjimtaylor.com Jim Taylor drjimtaylor.com. And on there, I’ve got 95% of everything I’ve ever written

free on my blog. I’ve got categories of cycling. I don’t have a swimming category, but I have a triathlon category. And I’ve got books you can get it and contact information. So people want to ask questions just informally or what people have done actually reached out after listening to our podcasts and or hire me for various reasons, then feel free to do so. Fantastic. Well, this has been episode number 266 of the effortless swimming podcast. Dr. Jim Taylor, thanks again. All right, be well. Thanks for listening to the effortless swimming podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.