College Athletes Research Paper

During the spring of 2015, I missed all of the time cuts to make Speedo Sectionals, forcing me to compete in a much slower meet at the end of the season. There are few things I have experienced that are more crushing than trying my hardest and falling short of my goal. Despite the heavy disappointment, I used the opportunity to harden my resolve and use my strengths to my greatest advantage. Along with my coach’s help, I used my ability to think strategically and hone my technique through focus on the smallest details from how I would approach a swim mentally to how I would warm up. My coach had many important and useful suggestions and lessons from his past experience that required me to be an active learner that could apply his information.

The school day ends, and while most students go home, swimmers still have one final practice to complete before heading home. In the time before practice starts, those who are participating in conference take a look at the psych sheet with all their times and competitors’ times with mixed emotions.

Many athletes begin a season from where they left off the season before. These athletes have not realized that without a dedicated Off-Season, there will be no substantial rollover of improvement from where they left off the season before. In fact, there will more than likely be regression because successes with bad habits have promoted complacency of non preparation.

When training to meet these goals however, the muscles you have worked out so hard for so long can become fatigued. Fatigue can happen due to overtraining during a program. When an athlete over trains, they put they’re body in harms way. When a muscle gets fatigued, the chances of getting hurt increase greatly. To correct the overtraining, the athlete needs to rest as much as possible to give the muscles a break period. The longer an athlete goes without resting, the more fatigued the muscles can get. Athletes today are bigger, stronger, and faster than they have ever been before. For this reason, coaches want their athletes to show up to camp in peak performance shape. There is an expectation in our society these days for athletes to be somewhat invincible when it comes to their

Demonstrating extraordinary leadership, AST1 Dibble recognized the importance of Rescue Swimmer fitness and preparedness. He astutely employed skills cultivated during the Operational Fitness Course to implement a new physical training regimen. This training regimen incorporated guidance for proper functionality, mobility, and prevention and rehabilitation for common athletic injuries. The result of AST1 Dibble’s intrusive leadership unlocked a pathway for peak athletic potential in the rescue swimmer program.

Swimming is an activity that demands much physical and mental attention from the partaker. Every time I go to Hearst Memorial Gym to swim laps, a flurry of activity occurs within my physical existence. A schedule as full as mine, after all, is stressful and exhausting. Once I enter the pool, though, most of my academic and social anxieties evaporate. While I may feel relaxed, many biological responses occur in my body's muscular, nervous, and cardiovascular systems to accommodate my act of swimming. This is not to say these are the only organ systems involved in the act of swimming. Rather, I believe they are the most interesting in the context of biological psychology.

The human body is capable of extreme and intense activities that allow us to push our bodies beyond limits. The dedication and determination that these athletes undergo to train their body and to such high-risk conditions is on the rise. The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler, addresses psychological reasoning on how athletes break the limits of ultimate human performance. This book focuses on the psychology of these extreme athletes which helps understand their perspective. Kotler’s book is a reliable source because he is a New York Times best selling author and award winning journalist. It is reasonable to consider him an expert in understanding the human condition because of his graduate degrees and his extensive research on this

2007; Ploeg et al., 2010; Stem & Jacobson 2007). Arazi and Asadi (2011) reported at the end of an eight-week plyometric program, during which one group of young male basketball players trained in the water and another group trained on land, both groups showed significantly improved sprint times (36.5m and 60m) from baseline to post testing with no significant differences between treatment groups (land vs. water). The aquatic training group also showed significant differences in increased leg strength when compared with the control group, but no significant differences when compared to the land training group. White and Smith (1999) also reported increased muscle strength at the end of an eight week aquatic training program. Arazi, Coetzee, and Asadi (2012) repeated a study similar to Arazi & Asadi (2011) and reported similar outcomes- the aquatic and land trained groups displayed similar improvements in anaerobic power. The results of these studies imply aquatic based plyometric programs are at least equal to land based plyometric

Sport participation is a significant aspect of life for many female athletes beginning at a young age. With increasing female sport participation, specifically in swimming, understanding the possible implications of their chosen form of training is critical. Over years of training, an athlete generally becomes more elite and focused in one specific sport however the timing of when they choose to do so determines their chosen training pattern. The two most common forms of training are high intensity single sport participation and that of multiple sports with less time dedicated in one particular activity. With the current research showing female swimmers to start training at the age of 10 (Malina, 2010), well before typical maturity, evaluating the long term impacts is necessary. While data sport participation prior to menarche is not convincingly seen to impact growth and maturation (Malina, 2010), the impacts it may have on injuries is yet to be seen. Injury patterns have also been previously studied with female collegiate swimmers and the most common areas of injury are in the shoulder/upper arm and the back/neck (Wolf, 2009). However, in this study, intensity of training either currently or in the past was not also examined.

Hegle has had numerous swimmers and divers who have had success in his years on and off the deck. Dealing with not only the men, but the women, different personalities clash as teams compete together but oppositely to achieve their goals, of winning an Northern Sun Championship (NSIC). Some, as he will note, have higher ambitions; such as National and All-American Statuses. However, given the length of their season (September to March) goals tend to change, for the good or bad. One of the talking points of our discussion was how to keep the focus and motivation throughout this long season, especially with the 2-a-day practices and the stress of collegiate academia breathing down their necks. Hegle tries to split it into two parts. He has a

As the sting of chlorine filled my nostrils, the weeks of training, exercise, and scheduled pasta dinners flashed before me. Emerging from the pool, the red numbers revealed on the scoreboard cast a burning disappointment onto me more than the hot sun did that summer day. I retraced my actions just before my 100-yard race, asking myself where I went wrong. I realized only after the meet, that I lost focus of the thrill of being part of a team. Instead of motivating and connecting with my teammates, I was only concerned with my own goals. Being a part of this team has helped me to grow as an individual both athletically and academically. Athletically, I assumed swimming was largely an individual sport, but now, especially as varsity swim team captain, I make an effort to cheer for and console teammates who are preparing or nervous for their races.

Athletes continuously aim to find ways to increase their level of performance to the extent that commensurate with their individual abilities in order to achieve the required sports achievements and access to the advanced centers at all levels, so the sport is witnessing a scientific race in access to means of achieving the desired development as little as possible The side effects, where increased training loads and doses and attention to nutrition meet the aspirations of athletes.

The swimmers were also selected based on practice attendance and lack of injury (Post et al., 2012). The data was taken from practice sessions collected once a week, on the same day during each phase of the study. The study was conducted in a single-subject-multiple baseline design because it allowed all participants to be their own control and receive treatment (Post et al., 2012). Each participant’s imagery ability was originally tested using the Movement Imagery Questionnaire-Revised before the imagery training began (Post et al., 2012). During testing periods, the participants swam 1000 yards of their preferred stroke, 3 did freestyle while the 4th did five 200 individual medleys (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle) while the coach collected the times for each swimmer. Once the swimmer was able to establish a baseline time, indicating consistency in time, the imagery intervention was introduced. The investigator established individualized scripts for each swimmer to perform including practicing basic images (Post et al., 2012). Each script contained an audio piece that participants were supposed to listen to twice a week and once before the timed practice (Post et al., 2012). The data points (time it took to swim 1000 yards) was then plotted and visual inspection techniques, including evaluating levels of change, overlapping data, and changes in slopes, were used to analyze the data (Post et al.,

As an athlete you constantly deal with stress, managing weight, eating right, working out and playing well. Managing stress is key to a long career in your sport. Not managing stress can lead to a burnout, a loss of desire to perform or a loss of interest in the sport. An athlete can only handle so much stress, A total stress load for athletes includes “Lifestyle Stress + Emotional Stress + Training Stress + Competition Stress = Total Stress Load.” (Tulloh, 2013) People can only handle so much stress until they go into a meltdown. If there is too much stress it can be detrimental to the athletes health, the risk of heart attack, gastrointestinal problems and burnouts can happen if the athlete is overloaded with stress.

In swimming the athletes are always trying to better their times. Once they achieve one goal it is a short celebration and then it is immediately back to work to try and get their time even lower. A swimmer will spend tireless hours in the pool, working on everything from technique to stamina, in an effort to drop even a hundredth of a second. A swimmer will spend extra time in the pool when they could be doing something much more enjoyable just to fix one little kink in there stroke. They will keep working every day to try and outdo their competition. When the day of the meet arrives their emotions are a mix of nerves and excitement. Their adrenaline is pumping. Finally, their biggest race comes up. This is the moment that they have been preparing for. They dive into the water, giving the race everything their body has to give. They look at the clock to see they have shaved off some time, no matter how small the amount. A wave of relief washes over them but they immediately jump out of the water to ask their coach what could have been better. The swimmer will not stop until they have reached