NLP in Sports Training: Improve Swim Team Performance – The First Meeting

Both of my brothers and I were competitive swimmers while growing up. When my I was nine years old my older brother Mike returned from swim camp with a booklet entitled something like “Psycho Cybernetics and Competitive Swim Performance.”

I ate this up. As a nine-year-old I simply accepted the idea that visualization and belief in yourself could help you accomplish anything. I did well at swimming at the district level. Mike went on to Nationals and still holds records at the local level.

Since then I have been fascinated by the workings of the unconscious mind as it relates to optimizing performance, in life, sports training and in business.

Now I am an NLP trainer, I am at the time of writing this article, preparing to work with a local swim team to help them achieve top performance. I met with the coach; the plan is to meet once per week for six weeks to improve the team’s performance. There are 13 swimmers in the group from age 13-18.

The coach is a past Olympic athlete, a few of the young people are destined to go to the National events. There are some big meets coming up.

The swimmers seem very excited about this upcoming NLP sports training. I believe it is because the coach is so jazzed to have this kind of training. I mentioned to her that the most powerful hypnotic induction is your own mental/emotional state. When I introduced myself to the swimmers, they appeared to be a very motivated team. When I mentioned it is going to be fun, and that they would be getting out of a 1/2 hour on one of their weekly swim practices, I got a good laugh from them, as they nervously eyed the coach. I can see she makes them work! I may have to jump in the pool myself for a workout after I train these swimmers.

I am looking forward to getting to know the coach and each of these fine young people on the swim team. I am excited to find out how NLP will help their sports performance in a short period of time.

My strategy is to work on the following:

Teach centering and grounding techniques to alleviate stress at the swim meets.
Logical levels of therapy. Take the entire team on a journey from their environment to their larger purpose in life, and work their way back with their augmented resources.
Work on any fears they have of success, of being in the limelight at a swim meet, and other fears.
Clear up procrastination using chaining anchors
Set up a team motivational song, have them listen to it before each practice
Have them walk onto the floor of the pool in formation, dressed the same
One arm up for breaking their own record, two arms for first place – get team support (cheering) for accomplishments.
NeuroTrek Journeys of winning

As of the writing of this article, there will be 1/2 hour sessions with the entire team, and two 1/2 hour one-on-one sessions with the swimmers individually.

Stay tuned for the results!