Daily Log 13 June 2011 - When mastering a skill, focus on small improvements rather than big ones

SWIM I went for my triathlon swim workout this evening. I've discovered that every time I go for the workout I would write something like 'that was the toughest swim workout I ever did' and I would honestly think that it could not get tougher. Well it did today. This was the workout we did:

50 reps stretchcordz (repeat 3 times)
Warm up 75m freestyle 25m breastroke (repeat 3 times)
50m fins 50m freestyle with fins (repeat 3 times)
200m freestyle with fins (repeat 4 times)
400m freestyle
400m freestyle with paddles
Cool down 100m easy

When Saiful announced the 200m freestyle with fins to be repeated 4 times I couldn't believe my ears. When he then announce the 400m freestyle I had lost hope and when he announced 400m with paddles my mind just switched off. This was a tough workout. Funny thing is I was able to cope with it quite well. Sure I was tired and my arms and legs felt like it was going to fall off any time, I felt fine. The other good thing is that I think my stroke has improved ever so slightly. I can feel my elbow going high and that I'm using my shoulders more than my arms which is a good thing as the shoulder has far bigger and stronger muscles than my arm. I think focussing on a perfect stroke is far more important than focussing on speed and pace. The pace and speed will come one day if I keep on perfecting my stroke so I shouldn't worry. 6 more weeks of this and I should be ready for the 750m swim that I need to do for the sprint triathlon. When mastering a skill, it's always better to focus on small incremental changes that to try to go for the big improvements. That's not to say that big improvements are not possible. I just think that the big improvements become more possible when we focus on the small ones. Based on my experience, at some point, the small improvements will all fit together and suddenly the huge improvement will come.