Fatigue from training or races can obviously affect your energy and endurance levels, plus it can also directly impact upon your training, enthusiasm, morale, positivity and concentration. Needless to say, overcoming fatigue during a week-long meet can put you at a distinct advantage over your competitors in the finals!
Of course, if you experience fatigue outside of the pool, probably the first things to check are that your diet and the amount of sleep you are getting each night are adequate for your needs.
If these are not the problem, then the next place to look is within your own mind. A US swimmer's parent asked me during the week about her daughter - whose eating and sleeping habits were perfectly fine, yet for some reason she still felt the draining effects of fatigue each day.
So once diet and sleep have been discounted from the list of possible causes, fatigue is most usually coming from mental over-exertion, which manifests within the body as plain tiredness This is brought on by the mind becoming tired of the constant focus upon the goals in training or meets - and once the mind becomes tired, so does the body. (Please note that this does not discount the possibility of other medical causes).
It makes sense that the best way to overcome mental fatigue is through mental rather than physical techniques - primarily regular mental relaxation. Relaxing the mind for 5-10 minutes each day releases the body's taut muscles and clears the mind of stress - and this helps to make physical recovery time from swimming 2-3 times faster!
A mental relaxation exercise is much like taking your mind on a mental holiday for 10 minutes, and in this short time, it helps to rejuvenate your body's energy levels and immune system, plus your mind's clarity and concentration. Doing this regularly will help to overcome fatigue far more quickly, which of course improves your chances in the pool. For those already doing a regular daily visualization or my audio exercise, this should take care of this problem for you (though please note that if you are doing this exercise without the audio guidance, it is important that you are doing the relaxation part of it correctly).
An earlier swimtip I wrote on 'overcoming nervousness before races' happens to also describe exactly how to do this perfect relaxation for overcoming fatigue as well (it's truly a multi-purpose exercise!). For overcoming fatigue, this exercise is generally used while you are at home, however as the swimtip explains, it can also be used directly before races for the purpose of overcoming chronic nervousness.
Rather than go through this entire technique again for you here, I will instead direct you to this swimtip on mental relaxation, which will show you exactly how to do this. Remember as you read it that it can be used for both fatigue and nerves.
So don't put up with fatigue, find the cause of it and discover your energy again.
The Mind controls the body, and the mind is unlimited. The best of success,
Craig Townsend
