Written by Far too often I witness, in training sets for swimmers, instructions along the lines of ‘ … swim the whole of this section with ‘perfect’ turns or ‘perfect’ form’ and as I make my daily scroll through my social media feeds it is generally awash with various organisations boasting that you too can have ‘perfect’ freestyle. It all makes me want to roll my eyes and hang my head in despair of coaches trying to train athletes to achieve a state that they cannot define with clarity and one that is purely hypothetical.
On asking coaches to explain further what they mean by perfect? usually with an additional prompt from myself of what are they actually looking for their swimmers to demonstrate, I usually receive a blank expression with an unconscious shrug of the shoulders. If I ask the swimmers what they think their coach means by perfection, I usually receive an answer along the lines of ‘… well … um like good swimming’. If the coach and athlete cannot understand what it means to be perfect or what they need to be doing to become perfect – how is this an encouraging word with which to give direction? Yet it gets bantered around like it is something that is attainable and something everyone ought to strive for. In reality many coaches tend to use the word perfection to somehow emit the technical ability with which they wish their athletes to execute their skills – but with no idea on how to convey what that ought to look like. This should come as no surprise when little time has been given to dive into either what perfection means or what it means to be perfect in sport or even question to what extent being perfect matters.
Taking some examples of elite athletes: Ian Thorpe whose freestyle is anything but textbook is absolutely sheer genius; Caeleb Dressel currently the world’s fastest swimmer has a flawed freestyle technique at a fundamental level; Usain Bolt’s starts were often described as sluggish; Michael Johnson just looked all sorts of textbook wrong while running to the extent he earned the nickname of The Duck. If you believe in measuring performance in the number of imperfections your athlete has in relation to a pie in the sky ideal, then apparently all these elite athletes are very much flawed and in need of much improvement.
All sports requires a vast amount of ability in technique and skill and there are fundamentals within these two areas that every coach desires in their athletes. Gymnastics/ artistic swimming/figure skating and arguably diving are all sporting disciplines who look to ‘perfect’ every move flawlessly with the same gruelling work ethos as a ballet dancer – but does trying to perform something with textbook precision make you successful in your sport: especially when the phrase ‘nobody is perfect’ is a truth that you cannot argue against and therefore an unattainable and hardly incentivising ideal to an athlete.
Knowing when and when not to change an athlete’s naturally ability or even how to improve a style that is uncommon is an area that all coaches have to address and have to define for themselves. It is also an area that leads into coaching analysis territory, so I will abstain from taking you down this path. Instead ponder on this: Google tells me that perfection is having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics – yet as by the examples given and from engaging with and watching many athletes over the years this is not a necessity to success.
A common trait of athletes who do achieve greatly in their sport are the ones who show up at training and focus on being a better version of themselves each and every session. Naturally this needs to come under the guidance of a coach who can help pick out solutions to help improve the specific areas of focus for each of their athletes. The key message here is be specific in your approach and have the courage to define your own ideals. You want to create a space where obtainable goals can be reach, but where the athlete is driven to push those goals to even greater standards day in day out. By omitting the impossible goal of perfection in training and bringing in the goal of ‘be your optimal best day in and day out’, each athletes’ needs can be tailored-made with goals set as high as the coach and athlete are willing to push toward. Perfection on the other hand is an unclear objective, and has no place in training aims or outcomes.
I shall leave you this week with the words of the most celebrated sprinter in track running – the imperfect Usain Lightning Bolt (11-time World champion & eight-time Olympic gold medallist):
Train hard, turn up, run your best and the rest will take care of itself.