Reply To: How do you explain USRPT to your swimmers?
I think that makes a lot of sense, Kevin. The most difficult part I find is that swimmer’s still think they are successful only if they complete the entire set. I have one athlete in particular who would leave early, fudge her time, and refuse to accept new time standards because she didn’t want to “fail” on any set. The first thing I will do differently next year is eliminate the word “fail” for a missed time. The psychology attached to this brings way too much shame with it. I am going to ask them to give me the “maxed out” number. I am going to explain to them that this is the number of succesful reps they were able to do maxing out at the desired race pace. If they fail on #12 then there maxed out # is 11. I know this might sound silly, but I believe it will make a difference.
I know next year that I am really going to have to take some extra time during the first 2 weeks to really hammer home the new definition of a successful practice.
