A child counselor at Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, Eloah Rocha sets daily activity schedules and monitors all child care staff at the hospital’s youth activity center for siblings of patients. When she’s not working with children and their families, Eloah Rocha maintains an active lifestyle and regularly participates in swim competitions.

1. Properly Preparing for a Swim
Competition
Eloah Rocha

2. Introduction
• A child counselor at Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, Eloah Rocha sets daily
activity schedules and monitors all child care staff at the hospital’s youth
activity center for siblings of patients. When she’s not working with children
and their families, Eloah Rocha maintains an active lifestyle and regularly
participates in swim competitions.
For many swimmers, participating in a swim competition is one of the
benefits of their dedicated training throughout the year. However, training
is not over until the competition is. Following are just a few points to help
ensure you properly prepare for your upcoming swim event:
- Get rest: it’s normal to feel a bit anxious as a big competition looms, but
skipping out on rest is a surefire way to cripple your performance on the big
day. Set aside time to relax every day leading up to the event and consider
cutting back on running and weight training.

3. Swim Competition
• - Eat right: focus on eating well-balanced meals that provide
proper nutrition and energy that your body can use during the
competition. If you already follow a good diet, do not make changes
to it within the days leading to the event because it may upset your
stomach.
- Warm up: on the day of the competition, arrive at the pool with
plenty of time to warm-up. Completing a swim competition with
cold muscles increases your risk of injury and may prevent you from
reaching your top speed, so practice your starts and do a few sprints.
- Visualize the event: focus is a key component to successfully
competing. Do not dwell on mistakes you may have made during
practice or warm-ups. Instead, visualize yourself swimming in the
competition and avoid any analysis of past performances.