Swimming: Dead Time on The Wall

Dead time on the wall. When swimmers aren’t doing anything. If my goal is just to get heart beats in then this is BAD…..okay but what if I want to get better at swimming? Well rest on the wall (believe it or not is extremely beneficial from both a motor leaning perspective and physiological).

1.      Mirror Neurons. Watching videos of high level athletes or watching their peers swim a drill or technique. Mirror neurons switch on and try to mimic the environment so if you pick out someone that does something well and show the athletes either on YouTube or in person. It’s learning!!

2.      Rest More Rest = Higher quality swimming. That’s crazy but resting is good time. If we want to get faster, we also have to rest a lot. Less rest = not as fast and we want to be fast

3.      Reflection. The swimmer gets time to reflect on (1) what they are doing and (2) what their peers are doing. This higher cognitive activity creates better learning conditions for the brain, enabling learning!

4.      Ask Questions. This dead time gives you a chance to ask deliberate questions to swimmers to trigger this reflection to learning. You now have time to really stimulate their cognition. Use it well.