Swimming is good for us, right? Right?!

We all know that swimming is good for us....

• it builds stamina and fitness
• it's low impact exercise on the joints
• and it provides an all body workout

But no-one talks about the harm it can do...

I don't mean all the potential injuries that can occur through over training and over exertion.?No, I'm not talking about your physical health.?I'm talking about your mental health.?I'm talking?about all the mental problems that swimming can cause you.?The problems that no one seems to mention!

I used to swim only to get fit - to get a six pack.?I thought it would help me to get girls!?

It was all about burning calories, counting lengths and going faster than everyone else. There?was definitely no sense of enjoyment in my swimming.?That wasn't on my radar at all.?It was all about the end goal.?That six pack.

Every swim I would push myself to swim further and further.??I used to get cramp all the time from being so tense in my swimming.??I ended up with shoulder injuries that still affect me years later.??

But it was my mental health that suffered the most, not my physical health

Swimming was in fact a form of self-punishment - punishing myself physically by swimming length after length, pushing through the physical pain.?But also punishing myself mentally, putting myself through so much negative self-talk.?

I could swim 2 hrs straight in BreastStroke but I was slow so it didn't help with my fitness.?It certainly didn't help with my mental help, beating myself up mentally for being slow and rubbish length after length.

As for my Front Crawl - I could barely manage a length.?My stroke was rushed, frantic.?I was all arms and legs.?The more splash I made, the more?I was ashamed of my poor technique.

It was so embarrassing at having to keep stopping after every length just to get my breath back.?In my course, I actually have a term for this: ‘Swimbarrassment’.

I'd be so angry whenever I was over taken by another swimmer, especially if they were older and didn't appear to be as fit as me.?Angry at them but mostly, angry at myself.?Self-blame and self-judgement were a constant presence in my thoughts.

Every time I got in the water, I would always compare myself to everyone else.??How come they were faster??How come they made it look so easy??

I used to look with envy at all those other swimmers who would glide past me with ease.?I simply didn’t know how they did it.?Of course, I thought it must be their technique so I’d have more lessons or ask for more advice.

Even though I was always asking for help, I hated myself for doing so.?I felt so disempowered and dependent on others for help.?It was so frustrating.

Worse still, every time I got a piece of advice, I thought, this is it - this is going to fix everything.?It never did.?The problem was their advice was based on their experience not mine.?And expert swimmers couldn’t relate to my issues.?It was like I was speaking in a foreign language.?

When the Internet took off, things got even worse and I've seen the growth of information on line as a blessing and a curse.?So much advice.?But who to listen to??There were (and still are) so many conflicting opinions and how come their advice didn’t work for me??I was so confused.

Don’t get me started on YouTube?swimming videos. So much more comparison to deal with.?Seeing perfect swimmers online was like going onto Facebook and seeing friends living their perfect lives.??It brought up more self-judgement in me.

What was wrong with me??Why couldn't I figure it out??The shame I felt at not improving despite all those lessons, YouTube videos and hours practising was overwhelming.?I wasn’t in control of my swimming or my thinking.

Simply put,?I was ashamed of my swimming.

Looking back, swimming for me used to be a form of self-punishment.?Every swim was mental torture.

Two hours in the pool, ploughing up and down slowly in the pool?with only my negative, self-critical thoughts for company.?

In hindsight, that's no way to swim, or live.

Ironically, all that training didn't work.

I never got that six pack..

I was training hard but not well.?I hadn't learnt about the importance of diet or building muscle when getting fit.?Information wasn't as freely available as it has become since the Internet.

My mind was so fixated on the end results that it restricted me from thinking any differently. In Alexander Technique, this is known as end gaining, where the end result takes precedent over the process of achieving the goal.?There's another blog idea, right there.

In the end I gave up on swimming only coming back to years later whilst I was working in London after a chance office move.?My new offices came with a pool in the basement!

I was now swimming in a private pool in the basement of the offices where I worked.

The pool was small but quiet, very quiet.?There were no lanes.?There were hardly any other swimmers.?(lane swimming is pain swimming – watch out for a future blog).?

As a newly qualified AT teacher, I realised that this was the perfect environment to start applying AT concepts to my swimming to allow my thinking and my movement started to change:?Concepts like:

Conscious Control, Inhibition, Non-doing, Unified Field of Attention, Expanding Awareness.

Instead of trying to fix my swimming, I started to understand it.?Instead of trying hard, concentrating and focusing on targets and end results I was noticing the process of swimming.?I started, experimenting, observing and learning.?I took all the technique, advice and hints n tips and started to make it work for me.?I started swimming intuitively.

In the end my swimming was transformed. I could now swim distance in any stroke and was pretty fast.?But more than that, my thinking was transformed.?I had developed the tools and awareness to figure out what had been missing from my swimming.?It wasn’t technique, it was an understanding of my swimming and my thinking.

I started to swim in the present moment, stroke by stroke with an enjoyment and awareness that made every swim a joy.?I hate to use the term, ‘falling in love’ with swimming but it does kind of fit.

And I even ended up helping other swimmers in the pool.

That’s what led me to starting my coaching programme.?It felt like I really had something unique to offer.??Things have evolved since then.?I don’t have to be in the pool to help swimmers.?The magic happens over Zoom.?

I guess all this is why I feel best placed help struggling swimmers.?I've been there. I can relate.?I don't simply offer fixes and solutions though.?My first step is to offer acceptance. After that, it’s about developing their own understanding of their swimming

As for that six-pack, well, I got a 4 pack after all my time in the pool!?However, it turns out muscle growth and nutrition count a lot more than cardio…which I never really appreciated until recently.??

It’s not the obsession that it was, I prioritise pleasure over performance.?As an AT teacher, such image conscience things no longer bother me….ahem…who am I kidding?!!?One day, maybe, one day.

But enough about me.

What do you think about when you swim?

Is your swimming making you feel bad about yourself?

What is your inner monologue telling you?

Are you constantly criticising your own swimming, your technique, your performance?

Are you giving yourself a hard time about the distances you swim and the speed you swim?

Are you bored when you swim and only happy when you get it over and done with?

Are you fixated on the end results of your swimming?

Are you always comparing yourself with others and feel envious and resentful??

Since launching my online course and online coaching programme, I've spoken to over two hundred swimmers.?A lot of them don't enjoy swimming.?They're frustrated, unhappy, ashamed and sometimes even traumatised.?It's not their technique that they need help with, it's their thinking.?

If there’s enough interest in this article, I’ll explain how I brought about this change in my thinking and swimming using the principles of my approach Alexander Technique.

Mark Foster