So, today I have asked one person to share with us some information about professional swimming. By the way, she’s an ex-professional swimmer and from what she told me you will see that sometimes professional sportsmen have the same psychological problems as the beginners.
1. What did it feel like at the beginning? Did you have any problems or difficulties?
When I started to swim with my dad it was like it is for everyone who starts swimming, very difficult to stay on water. But I didn’t give up. My dad and I were persistant and tried everyday until I got the hang of it. When I was able to swim on my own, I started training in the swim club and learned the basics, like how to float on my back and swim other strokes. Of course when starting a new stroke it’s hard, but it takes time and effort to get better.
2. Was there any finance motivation in your sport that helped you to overcome the moments of discouragement ?
Regarding the difference to other sports, let’s take soccer for instance. Besides skiing its the most popular sport in Austria. I know a lot of soccer players who play professionally and get a lot of money from it every month. Some even get money from it just to show up to training. Well of course everyone who plays soccer has money as motivation, which I find is ridiculous. What I find is more ridiculous is that they train 4-5 times a week, whereas swimmers have to train around 9 times a week and then comes all the training in the fitness center, where we then come up to 12-13 times a week. Yes a week only has 7 days, that means we had to train more times a day. And no we don’t have money as motivation, because we don’t get any from the state like the soccer players. Some soccer players even have a break the whole winter whereas swimmers train the whole year long. But from this example you can see that swimmers swim because they want to be achieve something internationally and are not out for the money even though I find we deserve it more.
3. Can you give some pieces of advice to people who feel discouraged?
If I have to be completely honest, its very hard to become a “good” sports person at an older age. The golden age to learn to swim is 4 or 5 years old and then stay persistent over the years. Its very unlikely for someone to become good at an older age (10 years and up). Of course there are some exceptions but like I said its very unlikely. But to all who want to start a sport I guess I have to say that you need to stay persistent, start in a club to have friends motivate you and have fun with it. Also start now could be that you will regret it later for not starting.
As you can notice, even professionals have some problems at the beginning and even during all their career, but the main thing is to overcome it and continue your way.
Everyday points of sports life 