Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast, the show that helps swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer, and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Hi, Brenton Ford here. This episode is about the real reason why I think people enjoy swimming so much. And I’ve been reading a book lately by a lady named Angela Duckworth, and the book is called Grit. It’s a really good read, especially for someone who’s into triathlon or into swimming. She talks a lot about swimmers in the book, but one of the most interesting things she brings up towards the end of the book is her research into what she believes kids should be doing when it comes to extracurricular activities outside of school and how to develop someone or help someone become a gritty person. And by grit she means someone who persists at something and works away at it and is not someone who easily gives up. And she talks about the importance of that in young kids and I think it’s important obviously

for adults as well. And one of the things she says is, do I think that every moment of a child’s day should be scripted? Not at all. But I do think kids strive when they spend at least some part of their week doing hard things that interest them. And I think that’s really the backbone behind what, at least for me, and a lot of people that I’ve met, that’s the backbone behind why a lot of people swim is because they find it interesting, but it’s also a very difficult thing to do. So many different things to think about. You’ve got your starts, your turns, the technique, you’ve got your racing strategy. There’s so many different things that can be challenging. And there’s these little puzzles every time that you get in the water, these little puzzles that need to be solved. And you really need to persist with swimming for at least a year and it can be 10 years or more if you want to reach the elite level.

And it’s something that you’ve really got to stick with. And I think that’s the true test of whether you should be doing a sport is does it interest you? And do you find it hard? And the analogy she uses or the example she uses, she says the bottom line of this research is school’s hard, but for many kids it’s not intrinsically interesting. Texting your friends is interesting, but it’s not hard. But ballet, ballet can be both and insert whatever sport you want in there. And so I think that’s a really strong argument for having kids do swimming at least a couple times a week and have them do it for at least a year until they decide whether or not they want to continue with it. One of the other things she brings up is kind of in relation to doing something that’s difficult, doing something that’s hard is the notion of deliberate practice. And this is something I’ve spoken about on previous podcasts, but deliberate practice

is going to training and being deliberate about what you’re looking to achieve, whether it be the effort that you put in, but a lot of it really comes down to the quality of this something that you’re doing, the quality of your technique, the quality of the session. And she says, lately I’ve been asking gritty performers and their coaches in diverse fields to elaborate on how it feels to do deliberate practice. Many agree with Dancer Martha Graham that attempting to do what you cannot yet do is frustrating, uncomfortable and even painful. And just a side note, that’s very similar to what Gary Haring said on previous podcasts about the pit of discomfort, it’s exactly that. And then back into what Angela Duckworth said, she said, however, some have suggested that in fact the experience of deliberate practice can be extremely positive. Not just in the long term, but in the moment. Fun isn’t quite the word they use to describe deliberate practice, but neither is bitter.

And two top performers point out that the alternative to deliberate practice, mindlessly going through the motions without improvement, can be its own form of suffering. And so I think that as a swimmer, that’s something that I can certainly relate to, is when I’m enjoying things the most, is when I’m highly intentional with what I want to achieve with my swimming, as opposed to just going to the pool knocking out one or two caves and not really having a goal in mind. So I find it best to be really clear on what I want to achieve. And for me, that comes down to having a target race a few months out and then working towards it and kind of knowing roughly what pace, what time I’d like to achieve and the changes to my stroke that I need to do, the type of sessions that I need to do in the lead up to it. And for me, I’m 30 now and I know I’m not going to make the Olympics and it’s not something that I’ve got a desire to do.

But one of the things that’s important to me is to do this and still have a lot of fun. And one of the ways that I cross train for swimming is to surf. I find that a really good cross training for swimming. I still get the same sort of strength as I would from a pool boy paddle set. But it’s just a way for me to mix it up, do something different and still have a lot of fun with it because I think that’s an important part of doing any sport. You still want the hard times, the difficult times, the things that are going to challenge you and you still put in those hard training sessions. But to mix it up with a little bit of fun, whether that be going and swimming outdoors with your friends in the open water and that’s something that I also incorporate into my training. But just having that balance between the two, especially as you get older, you’re probably working a bit more, you have a bit less time.

So the more fun, the more play you can have, that’s something that’s really important to keep doing. At least that’s what I have found now that I’m not training eight to ten times a week. That’s something that’s really important. So if you haven’t got a copy of the book, it’s called Grit by Angela Duckworth and really worth looking into. She interviews a lot of swimmers, a lot of coaches as well in this book. And it’s got some good lessons into persistence and perseverance for sports people.

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.