Coach Steve LeDuc

Here is the Racing Checklist that we used in practice today. It is set up for a 100, with specific things that need to be executed well for each 25. It can easily be adjusted to fit any distance. If you hit 90-100% of the checkmarks, your odds of going a great time are very high. 80-90% and you will likely be on your time. 80% and lower makes it very difficult to swim fast. They look at it before they swim a race off the blocks and afterwards they count how many they got. The idea is for the swimmers to practice hitting these checkmarks throughout the week so that they are automatic when they swim this weekend. This is generic stuff, I ask swimmers to add anything specific to them. It gets them thinking about how they can put together complete races.

First day back from a week off. Lighter practice today. One of the first things to build back after break is core strength. Lots of fly kick.

High-agency people genuinely believe that reality is negotiable in a "there are always more levers to pull" way. It's about having this bone-deep conviction that if you keep poking at something from different angles, eventually something will give.

High-agency people seem to have this weird immunity to embarrassment. Getting rejected? Not embarrassing, that’s just data collection. Looking naive? Not embarrassing, that’s just information asymmetry you’re fixing. Breaking minor social rules? Not embarrassing, most rules are just Schelling points anyway. What would be embarrassing to them is not trying. That’s the thing they can’t live with.

You are not depressed, you just don't have a quest. Start quest maxxing

This wont make sense unless you try it. In the picture on the left I believed in free will. The picture on the right is 2 years after I started assuming that I did not have free will. Which version had more control over their mind and body, the 245 lb version, or the 175 lb version?

@grok @PathOfMen_ @grok translate this into a swim set that has similar amounts of time sprinting vs. resting

Sprinting 4 × 250m (3 min rest between sprints) increased testosterone by ~20–30% in young men. Growth hormone increased by ~15×

One of the most useful things @ScottAdamsSays left us with is a paradox: Free will is something that can only be obtained by first understanding that you do not have free will. Once you operate under the assumption that free will is an illusion , then you obtain a new level of control over your body and mind that you did not have under your prior assumption of free will being real.

The best part about this is that we get to decide what failures are. You create the invisible barriers for yourself. How you look at any outcome is a choice. If you routinely see outcomes as failures, you will stop trying. If you see it as learning and growth you keep going.

“Sweet treats” is a psyop to get you to eat more slop (I’m only half joking). Rhymes have a weird effect on our minds. Whenever we hear one we think it makes sense even if it didn’t. Pair a rhyme with a programming word like “treat” and you’ve got a powerful, punchy reframe. It’s not dessert or candy anymore, it’s a “treat”. It’s so easy to talk yourself into deserving a treat, which is why you see that framing everywhere now.

Speak visually if you want to grab your someone’s attention. When you want someone to focus on what you are saying, you are fighting for mental real estate. The visual part of the brain takes up the most space. It spreads all throughout the brain. If you speak visually, you are much more likely to get full attention. Example: When a swimmer has a breakthrough in practice that I want to reinforce, instead of saying “that is going to make you fast” I’ll say “the next time you lift your head out of the water after a race and look at the scoreboard, you are going to see a time that even you didn’t know you could do.”

The most powerful words ever spoken: Aramaic: “Abba, shbôq lehôn, la yadin man avdîn.” Greek: “Πάτερ, ἄφες αὐτοῖς· οὐ γὰρ οἴδασιν τί ποιοῦσιν” Latin: “Pater, dimitte illis: non enim sciunt quid faciunt.” English: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Why do so many faiths/religions ask you to resist temptation? Let’s look at 3 different arguments. 1. Hedonist take: They want to control you. They use the authority of God to prevent you from enjoying things. This is the weakest take. It assumes that those who follow religion must be unhappy when studies show that the opposite is true. 2. Longevity take: Resisting temptation leads to long term happiness. You sacrifice short term pleasure for long term joy. This argument is stronger. Those who resist temptation report feeling more long term joy. Refraining from impulsive behavior leads to better overall health. 3. Hypnotist take: It allows you to see reality more clearly. Our minds are inherently flawed. They are clouded by biases that come from our subconscious desires. Our subconscious sees everything through the evolutionary lens of surviving and reproducing. That works well for keeping the species alive, but it prevents us from seeing base reality. Unless we do something about it. Resisting temptation allows us to reach a higher level of consciousness. When we resist our subconscious desires, we begin to see things through the advanced parts of our mind, as opposed to the primitive parts. We begin to see reality more clearly. When people fast, for example, they often report a level of clarity that they have never had before. They have moved past the primitive feeling of “I’m hungry, I must get food” and begin to open their mind to all of the other things that are going on around them. The bodily desires that clouds their mind begin to clear. Now, let’s go deeper by applying this take to the original question: why do religions ask us to resist temptation? I will speak in terms of Christianity because that is what I am most familiar with. Thomas Aquinas describes God as the ultimate reality. He famously argued that God’s essence is existence itself. That’s right. God is not a man in the sky with a beard. God is reality itself. God is base reality. Resisting temptation is how you see reality more clearly. Resisting temptation how you see God more clearly. That’s why you do it. It’s not about control, it’s not about happiness (although it will lead to that), it is about looking into the eyes of God. That’s my alternate take on this question, viewing it through a hypnotist lens.

If you were to design a curriculum for advanced age group swimmers, what would the core subjects be, the units that are covered each year, and how would you design the grading system?

Why do psychiatrists prescribe SSRI’s first instead of explaining how to improve serotonin levels by improving gut health?

A hypnotherapist friend once gave me an exercise: “Every time you feel fear, treat it like a suggestion, not a fact.” Changed everything.

The quickest and easiest way to change your mental state from negative to positive. Ever notice how many elite athletes express gratitude to their team, coaches, God etc. in their post game interviews? They know something.

negative thinking destroys your brain being a silly goose and delusionally optimistic is the ultimate longevity hack

Timeline cleanse. The Interface to Your Attitude. (Just think about it.)

Master your self talk. What most never realize is that talking to yourself in the third person (“X feels…”) has been proven to lower performance anxiety in public speaking studies by psychologist Ethan Kross. Master your self talk.