Mindset

What's actually happening in that pre-race routine?

Behind the blocks, some swimmers run a little sequence: a few sharp breaths, a small burst of movement, a specific spot to stand. It looks strange from the stands. It isn't superstition. It's a nervous system being told, on purpose, what state to be in.

August 21, 2026 · 5 min read

Idea in Brief

  • The ritual is a trained switch. With enough repetition, a short sequence of actions can bring back a practiced state of mind on cue.
  • It was built on purpose, and it’s common. Coaches and sport psychologists help athletes design these routines across competitive sport, and nothing about one should worry you.
  • Your one job is to leave it alone. Even a well-meant “good luck” at the wrong moment can break a rehearsed sequence. Save the encouragement for before the call room and after the touch.

Fourth heat, lane five. Your kid is up next, and they’ve gone somewhere private. Two sharp breaths. A quick shake of both arms. Then they step to the same spot they always stand in and go still, eyes closed, for one slow breath. From the stands it can look like a tic, or nerves, or a superstition the team invented. Another parent leans over and asks what they’re doing.

What they’re doing is a routine, and it was probably built on purpose. The idea underneath it is simple. With enough repetition, the body learns to tie a small action to a state of mind. Do the same two breaths and the same arm shake before every race, in the same order, and the chain starts to work like a switch. It brings back the state it was practiced with: calm, focused, ready to go. Any habit works this way once it becomes automatic. This one has just been aimed at something useful.

Swimmers rarely invent this alone. Coaches and sport psychologists build these sequences with athletes on purpose, and versions of them show up all over competitive sport. David Karasek, an Olympian who coaches the mental side of swimming through SwimPros Performance Academy, teaches exactly this: practice entering the state you want, on a cue, until the cue alone can find it. The reason is practical. A meet is loud and soaked in adrenaline. The right frame of mind rarely shows up by itself in that environment. A rehearsed way in beats hoping.

If you’ve read this library for a while, you’ve met the other two pieces of the mental race-prep kit. Visualization happens at home, weeks before the meet, in the quiet minutes before sleep. The nervousness relabel happens in the head, when a pounding heart gets called excitement instead of fear. The routine behind the blocks is the third piece, and the only one you can watch from the stands. Its job is smaller than it looks: the mental reps were already done at home, and race day runs on autopilot. Those few seconds just set the body to the state all that rehearsal assumed.

What goes inside the sequence is technical and personal. It depends on what this particular swimmer needs. One kid has to come down from frantic; another has to come up from flat. The steps were chosen for that, usually with the coach or a sport psychologist, and they work because they’re always the same. So this article stays out of the steps on purpose, and it’s worth staying out of them at home too. If the routine seems to have stopped helping, the person to tell is the coach.

There’s one place a parent genuinely helps, and it costs nothing. Let it run. A rehearsed chain works because it goes start to finish. A voice from the rail in the middle of it means starting over, with less time and more adrenaline than before. Even a warm “good luck” can land at exactly the wrong second. So move the encouragement to where it fits: a squeeze on the shoulder before they head to the call room, a wave when they look up at the stands after the touch.

None of this needs anything from you on race day, and that’s the part worth holding onto. Somewhere along the way, your swimmer learned that where their head goes before a race is something they can steer, and they built themselves a way to do it. The strange little sequence behind the blocks is that skill, visible for a few seconds. Watch it the way you watch the race itself: quietly, from a distance, a little impressed.

Share it with your swimmer

How you treat the routine shifts as they grow:

  • Under 12 (you’re driving). At this age a routine is often small and half-borrowed from an older teammate: a goggle tap, a spot to stand. Treat it as a normal part of racing, because it is. “I saw you getting ready before your race.” Don’t tease it, even fondly. The goal now is simply that settling themselves feels like something swimmers do.
  • 12–15 (sharing the wheel). This is when a real routine often gets built. If they want to explain theirs, listen and take it seriously. “What did the coach give you to do before races?” is a good question at the dinner table. Behind the blocks, it’s too late to ask.
  • 16+ (they’re driving). It’s theirs by now, and probably invisible to you. Respect the bubble around it. Your presence in the stands is the support; the ritual needs no audience and no review.

Stay aligned with your coach

What happens inside the routine is the coach’s territory, sometimes shared with a sport psychologist. Yours is the environment around it: arriving with time to spare so nothing has to be rushed, and keeping the last minutes before the call room calm. If you’re not sure whether your swimmer has a routine or needs one, ask the coach rather than suggesting one yourself: “Is there anything about their race prep I should know, so I can stay out of its way?” Then stay out of its way.

Keep exploring

Go deeper with the experts

  • SwimPros Performance Academy: Olympian David Karasek’s coaching on the mental side of the sport, source of the state-on-cue idea this piece keeps at the “what and why” level.

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