Don’t Be a Victim to Your Last Practice
An Exercise in Memory
Let me start with a question. What did you do last Tuesday? What did you eat? Did you work out? In the morning or the afternoon? What did you do at that workout? Was it good? Bad? Somewhere in the middle?
If you even got to the last question, I can almost guarantee that you either:
Don’t know the answers to those questions, or
Answered them at least somewhat incorrectly
Now let’s try again. What did you do yesterday? What did you eat? Did you work out? In the morning or the afternoon? What did you do at that workout? Was it good? Bad? Somewhere in the middle?
This time though, barring a case of short term memory loss, I can guarantee that you:
Answered all the questions, and
Answered them at least mostly correctly
The Effects of Recency Bias
This exercise was not meant to make you feel bad about your memory, but rather to illustrate the crazy and monumental impact that recency bias has on us. Let’s say last Tuesday was a great workout- you followed your practice plan, held your pace times, and worked your butt off. And let’s say yesterday did not go to that plan- the goggles were leaking, your lanemate was riding your toes, and you couldn’t hit a time or tempo for the life of you. If you had to talk to a stranger about how swimming has been going, Tuesday is out the window, and the way you’d describe it would be colored quite heavily by the toe riding teammate. If we’re going through these mood swings each and every day, how are we supposed to stay consistent with our goals, move in the right direction, and improve as much as we can each day? How are we supposed to move in the right direction?
What to Do, What to Do?
That is where I bring in the daily log. It can take various forms- writing and annotating your workout, writing the main set out and the times you went, or even just listing what stroke you worked on that day and how good out of 10 it was. But the place I like to start is with what I call the 3-2-1 drill. List out:
3 things you did well- a time you went, a tempo you held, or pride for your effort
2 things you could do better- maybe you missed your walls, or messed up the interval
1 thing you will do better tomorrow- show up earlier, more kicks underwater, or better turns
This daily log forces two things. The first is frequent reflection, which you know I’m a fan of. And the second, is to concretely and objectively create a record of what you’ve actually been doing and working on. By completing this record, you form some meaningful thoughts around the practice and file away the practice for later, so you can come back to it after a slump or high, and see how you’re really doing.
Don’t be a victim to the last 12 hours, be a champion of reality.
Want More Help?
We all know that swimming can be really hard! And you may need help getting started with implementing little habits like these. That’s where we come in to help. At College Swim Connect, we connect you with experienced mentors: elite college swimmers who have figured this stuff out. They can guide you through and give you access to their own arsenal of tools that they’ve carefully created over the years. Enter your email on our site and get started today with a free meeting!
