Swimmer coach relationship guide:

If you don’t have a good relationship with your coach it’s going to be difficult to go far in swimming and achieve your goals. You need to have good communication with your coach. Your coach needs to know your goals and ambitions, if he doesn’t know them then he or she won’t know what’s up. So we all agree its an important factor.

Your relationship with your coach is no different from any other relationship in your life just a more deciding one. If it’s the same as any other relationship, then you build it as such. If you have a weak or non-existent relationship with your coach then don’t start it with ,, I want to get to the Olympics´´. It’s like saying to your girlfriend or boyfriend of two months ,,Will you marry me?´´. That’s just not it.

Start with these questions- What kind of person is your coach? Where is your relationship with your coach?

That’s your base which you going to push of from. Everybody’s coach is different. I can give you the starting knowledge the starting push but in the end its on you.

You start small. A good perception you could have would be for example Eat the elephant analogy or progressive overload. The building of the relationship should feel natural not forced. You can start by just saying hi to your coach every day or if you already do that you can ask him before training what set you’ll be doing. I do both. You can ask him for advice. It shows that you care and want to improve. Ask for feedback if you aren’t getting it. If you liked the swim session say it to your coach. You can try having regular normal conversations with your coach (not about swimming). For example, once I had a conversation with my coach about Greek history and how gay they were. You can invite him for a coffee which you’ll offer to pay. Or a meal. On races its easier to have a conversation with him or her because you’re together all day or multiple days.

After some time, you can talk to him about making it to the national team, some big race, really ambitious performances(goals). EU championships, world championships. And finally the Olympics.

My stories:

1. Around two years ago my coaches motivation to coach dropped. Its been like that for a while but I had a talk with him like two weeks ago about it. I found out that he didn’t even notice. Long story short it took like three days for him to make a phenomenal change.

2. This happened like two hours ago. The first time i talked to him about my goals, the bigger ones. I told him that this year I want to be knocking on the door of being a national swimmer. He took me seriously and I consider it a crucial step towards achieving my goals.

My last piece of advice is- If you are 100% confident in achieving your goals. Then those aren’t your goals. That’s you being a scared little b # # c h. Being confident, having hope and believing in your self is not the same thing. Hope is the last stand, believing in your self is the core(base), confidence is something you build and get on the way there. You can be confident in achieving your goals but not 100%. Lean just beyond the edge……. or just fucking bungee jump down the cliff.

Take care guys.

5:04

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