My guest in this episode is Division I swimmer Natalie Heim. Natalie shares openly about the challenges she faced in becoming a big-time college student-athlete.
How did Natalie Heim navigate the transition to college athletics?
Welcome to The Freshman Foundation® Podcast where we help young athletes become confident problem solvers in sport and life.
My guest in this episode is Natalie Heim, a Division I swimmer and mental health counseling graduate student at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey.
Natalie shares openly about the challenges she faced in becoming a big-time college student-athlete. She discusses her experiences dealing with injuries, her recruiting process, mental health challenges, and transitioning through COVID.
So, what is your biggest takeaway from my conversation with Natalie Heim?
My biggest takeaway is that the road to athletic success is rarely straight and smooth. The ability to persevere requires actively seeking out help and developing the resilience to withstand adversity.
I want to thank Natalie for joining me on the podcast and wish her luck during the 2024-25 school year.
To learn how mental performance coaching can help young athletes become confident problem solvers in sport and life, visit https://michaelvhuber.com.
Thank you for listening. We’ll see you back soon for Episode 77.
Michael Huber00:00
Ready?
Natalie Heim 00:02
Hey, Natalie, how are you?
Michael Huber00:04
I'm good. How are you?
Natalie Heim 00:04
I'm doing great. So, Natalie, for those listening, is a student athlete at Seton Hall University, where she swims, and she's also entering her graduate program in mental health counseling. Is that correct?
Michael Huber00:16
Yes, that is correct.
Natalie Heim 00:17
All right, so, like, tell us a little bit more about yourself.
Michael Huber00:19
Yeah. So I am a Seton hall student. I've been for the last four years, and I'm going into a graduate program, mental health counseling, for the next two. So I'm really excited. I was a social and behavioral sciences major with minors in psych and sociology, and I've been an athlete since I was six years old. So. Long time. So, always a swimmer.
Natalie Heim 00:40
Yeah, yeah. And just to give a little bit more background, so Natalie and I got connected. She's helped me with some stuff professionally in my practice, and given her background and some of her experiences, I thought it'd be a great conversation for us to have. So you mentioned you kind of started swimming around six, is that right?
Michael Huber00:57
Yes, that's correct.
Natalie Heim 00:58
So tell me about that. Like, when you started swimming, like, do you remember, like, what you liked about it?
Michael Huber01:04
So I started actually when I was three, but competitively when I was six.
Natalie Heim 01:07
Okay.
Michael Huber01:07
I did a summer league when I was, I think, three or four years old, and then I started competitively because my summer league coach told my mom, she's like, you have to get her into swimming. She's really good. So I don't always, like, remember that young, but growing up, it was always a huge part of my life. My family, all of us are swimmers besides my mom. Okay, so it's a huge talk in our house. Yeah. I grew up swimming for the same team since six to, I think I was 18, so my whole life.
Natalie Heim 01:39
All right.
Michael Huber01:39
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 01:40
All right, so at what point did you start to realize, like, personally, like, hey, I'm pretty good at this?
Michael Huber01:46
That didn't come till I was probably in high school. I'd say I had an injury, actually. I told my hip flexor, and I kind of, at that time, was not fully enjoying swimming as a sport. I wasn't happy with it. I wasn't really. I didn't have a stroke that I was very good at. And then following that event, I kind of had to take time off from the sport, and I realized how much it meant to me. So then after that, I kind of started to become, like, a freestyler, and I got a lot better in the. The year is probably between my freshman year and then my senior year of high school. Okay. So that was kind of when it became a really important part of my life, and I knew that I wanted to continue it in college.
Natalie Heim 02:30
Okay. How old were you when you tore your hip flexor?
Michael Huber02:33
I believe I was twelve or 13.
Natalie Heim 02:35
Wow.
Michael Huber02:36
I used to be a brush stroker, so that was. My foot was kind of adjusted in a weird way, so then I ended up just. It was a micro tear, but it was still. It kept me out for a whole summer season.
Natalie Heim 02:47
That's a pretty, pretty rough muscle to tear, even if it's a small thing.
Michael Huber02:51
Yeah, it was rough.
Natalie Heim 02:53
Okay, so how long were you out at that point?
Michael Huber02:56
I think I was out for a whole season.
Natalie Heim 02:59
Okay, so, like, how many months is that?
Michael Huber03:02
It was from. I'd say it was only the summer season, so it was probably April to almost August.
Natalie Heim 03:11
Okay. Yeah. But it sounds like from the way you explained it, like, that time away made you realize how much you really liked be a swimmer.
Michael Huber03:18
Yeah. Because I realized, like, not having it every day, not going every day, and then watching all my friends still train.
Natalie Heim 03:23
Okay.
Michael Huber03:24
It kind of put it in perspective to me how important it was in my life and how the kind of discipline and structure kind of made me who I am.
Natalie Heim 03:34
Okay. Yeah. And we were kind of talking about this before we started recording. You know that idea that if you don't have that sort of structure, sometimes it's hard to, like, be accountable, and that structure actually is really desirable. It's actually something you crave.
Michael Huber03:49
Yeah. It was something that I really missed, and I can't even imagine now not having it. And I know when I graduate and I'm done with swimming, it's gonna be quite the adjustment for me.
Natalie Heim 03:58
Yeah.
Michael Huber03:59
But I think it gave me a lot of good qualities of, like, dedication, time management that I wouldn't have gotten if I didn't continue the sport.
Natalie Heim 04:07
Yeah, I think we'll talk more about that as we move on here in terms of, like, what it might look like when you're done, which obviously is, you know, kind of a theme of this podcast is about transitions, whether it's from high school to college or college to out of your sport retirement. So we'll talk more about that. But, um. Okay, so, like, do you remember what changed after you came back from the injury, in terms of the way you approached the sport?
Michael Huber04:33
I don't remember exactly what changed, but I had a very rough start getting back in. I remember I couldn't kick for a while. I had to use a pole buoy, which is something you put in between your legs. To make you float. Yeah. And so it was quite the adjustment. I had to be really careful with how I was pushing off the wall. I couldn't dive off the blocks for a little while, so I kind of worked more technically on my stroke and focused on that, and then everything else kind of came after that.
Natalie Heim 05:04
Okay. But, like, was your, did your motivation change, like, as you're going through sort of those? It sounded like you had to be really patient in terms of coming back and recovering and sort of building yourself back up. Did you feel like you had that, like, extra, you had extra, more motivation to go and, like, approach it in terms of getting back into it rather than feeling like, oh, I'm frustrated because this isn't going as fast as I want it to?
Michael Huber05:26
Yeah, definitely, because I definitely took the sport for granted before the injury, and when I came back, I kind of. It did put it in perspective for me that, like, I'm not gonna have this forever. And I realized that in order to enjoy what I'm doing and have that, like, excitement in the sport, I'm going to have to be motivated to continue it because you don't want to just show up and just be there. You have to show up and do everything that you're supposed to and want to be there because that's going to make the experience more fun.
Natalie Heim 05:58
Yeah, but I think you. I think the injury, and it's not something I think we've talked about up until this point, but I think injuries, we athletes immediately assume injuries are a bad thing. Right. When you're going through it. But there's a lot of good that can come out of being injured, I think a lot of times, especially if it's not something that's career ending. Right.
Michael Huber06:18
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 06:18
Learning how to be resilient, learning how to work on things away from your sport that you wouldn't otherwise prioritize because you're away from it, but also, like, getting that love back of being like, oh, my God, I missed this. Now I want to go back and really rededicate myself because now I see the other side of it. I don't know what I would do without it. Right. Sometimes we just take it for granted and we just keep going and we don't realize how important it is to us until we actually stop.
Michael Huber06:45
Yeah. And I feel like a lot of athletes also kind of reach a point of burnout at least once in their career. For me, it's happened maybe twice, actually. So it's definitely difficult when you kind of don't want to show up and you don't want to be there, but kind of having that mental toughness to show up and say, I belong here, I want to be here. I can be resilient in this situation. That was something that was so helpful for me after that.
Natalie Heim 07:11
So at what points did you ever. Did you feel burnt out or have.
Michael Huber07:16
You felt burnt out after? I mean, before that injury? Definitely. I was burnt out, and I was young, so I didn't know that was burnt out at the time, but I wasn't enjoying what I was doing at all. And then in college, I'd say I was also injured. Last year. Last semester, I had a back injury, and I came off of a really good season my junior year. And then coming into the next year, I wasn't in the shape that I needed to be to do the same thing that I did the year prior. And that became something that was very tough for me because I wasn't really enjoying what I was doing anymore. I didn't feel like I was getting, like, the proper, I guess, training, not proper training because I was receiving good training, but it was more or less I wasn't putting in the effort I needed to because I wasn't really mentally there, if that makes sense.
Natalie Heim 08:08
Yeah, it does make sense. And I can't even imagine because I've never been a competitive swimmer. I mean, the amount of discipline that's required to, like, consistently over. I mean, in your case, from the time you were six, generally, until now, which you're 23, 22.
Michael Huber08:25
I'm 22, yeah.
Natalie Heim 08:26
Yeah. So 16 years of that, more or less straight through, like, every single day, getting up at 05:00 a.m. to get into the pool and sometimes twice a day and all these other things that you do, like, it does take a lot of discipline. I can't imagine that. There aren't times where you don't question, like, hey, what am I doing here?
Michael Huber08:44
Yeah. And then when you're also surrounded by some people who kind of have that same mindset of, ugh, I don't want to be here. I don't want to do this. It makes it a lot easier for you to also say the same thing, which, it stinks, but it happens a lot.
Natalie Heim 08:58
Sure.
Michael Huber08:58
On a team environment.
Natalie Heim 09:00
Absolutely. Yeah. We could talk more about that. I wasn't planning on going there, but I think it's really actually a really important conversation to have because, you know, something I talk about in my own work, you know, with, when I'm working with athletes and, you know, individually, is like, you know, you don't control the people, people around you, but they can certainly influence the way you look at your sport, and that can affect your performance. So how can you create the conditions, the kind of bubble around yourself to not let that seep in as much so that you don't get poisoned by it? Because it can. It's very, very easily happened. Very easily. So at what point did you start thinking about swimming in college?
Michael Huber09:40
Remember, I don't know what year I made this cut, but it was probably my sophomore, maybe junior year of high school. I was going for a national cut, which is basically the highest level that you can get, or one of the highest levels that you can get in YMCA swimming. And I remember my dad was at the meet that I made the cut at, and he was like, if you go this time, I think he had, like, some sort of ring on his finger. And he was like, I won't take this off unless. Until you go that time. And then I swam and I went that time immediately. And that was when I kind of realized that, like, I had potential to take that somewhere and use that as a career in college, because it was the first time I kind of had a moment where I realized that I'm in a place that I can, I guess, be. I don't know the word for it. Like, be better than some other people, but not in, like, a rude way. Just, I don't wait. I feel like I'm stuttering a little bit. I just feel like that moment, my dad, seeing him so proud, too, I wanted to continue doing that because I felt like it made me happy, and then it made also others happy, and it meant something to us.
Natalie Heim 10:55
Yeah. Yeah. But there's a lot, and I think you preface it as, it's not in a rude way. We get our motivation from competing with other people, at least on some level. Right. Like, some of its internal. It has to be right. If it's not completely. If it's. If there's not some level of internal motivation, you're gonna burn out.
Michael Huber11:13
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 11:14
Because now you're trying to get all of your motivation from the outside, which you don't have any control over. But at the same time, as a high level athlete. Right. We get our motivation from the environment, people around us. Am I swimming better than this person? I'm competing against them. They're giving me the will and desire to push harder, and now I'm getting a result that makes me feel good. I don't get the feedback. It's really hard to keep going unless I love something so much. That I don't eat any of it. Right. So, like, it's not something necessarily to, like, I don't say feel bad about, but, like, almost like, to have to, like, caveat it.
Michael Huber11:45
Yeah. And I think that was a large part for me, was I wanted to always. I still always want to make my parents proud because they did everything for me when I was younger and they still do everything for me now. So that kind of a moment was similar to just the overall high school experience as well. It almost like the sport kind of gave me a promise of validation, almost, for that feeling of happiness and that feeling of being the big fish instead of the small fish, because I was always the small fish growing up. So I feel like that promise of validation of the happiness and the excitement was what drove me.
Natalie Heim 12:28
Yeah, yeah. Especially when, I mean, you know, you could say small fish, you could say kind of average sized fish, but, yeah, like, you put in all that work eventually. Like, if you get to the place where you're the bigger fish, it's gonna feel good.
Michael Huber12:41
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 12:41
Right. Like, just to sort of support the idea that I put in all this work for a reason versus, like, why am I doing it?
Michael Huber12:47
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 12:48
Right. And so, like, at what point did you start to get recruited off of that?
Michael Huber12:53
I think it was my. Must have been my junior year, because swimming, we only are allowed to start our junior year of the recruiting process. And I remember my junior year in the summer, my team had won nationals, and that was when everyone kind of started reaching out. And then I started going on visits, and I wasn't satisfied with most of the visits just because I knew I was going to be kind of really small fish in their ponds. Like, in college swimming, if you aren't the best at the bigger schools or you're training for the Olympics, like, you don't get that kind of shot at greatness, basically, because you're kind of left on the back burner. So I, with Seton Hall, I kind of felt like I was going to be in an environment where I can continue growing as an athlete.
Natalie Heim 13:41
Okay. So, like, without, you know, without getting too detailed or naming names if you don't want to, like, like, what were some of the alternatives? The bigger alternatives, like, what conferences were you looking at?
Michael Huber13:54
Big ten was majority of the schools I looked at. You know, that's Penn State, Michigan. So all those schools are kind of the schools that train, like, possible Olympians or, like, kind of that stuff. So I wasn't. I knew I wasn't going to get to that level at that point. In time, at least, I didn't think I would maybe NCAAs, but I just knew that I would kind of struggle there mentally, but also physically. I don't think I would struggle to keep up, but I think I would struggle with the adjustment of kind of being the small fish.
Natalie Heim 14:30
Okay. What were some of the other things outside of swimming that you were looking for in a college at the time?
Michael Huber14:36
I was looking for a team that I can bond with because that was the most important part to me. I went to a lot of the schools that I was visiting, and a lot of the schools had teams that were very disjointed, and they kind of seemed separated, clicky. And I did not want that because I feel like when you train, especially as a swimmer, with a team that's disjointed, it's very hard to keep yourself wanting to go every day. And I wanted a group of friends instead of just teammates. Like, I wanted to be close with everyone and. Cause that would make the team easier to succeed or have an easier time succeeding, and that was definitely a huge part of what made my decision.
Natalie Heim 15:17
Okay, so how did you figure that out? Right. Obviously, you're going into the recruiting process. Like, you're getting only a certain amount of information. Right. Like, the coaching staff's trying to obviously encourage you to come there. You're going on visits, you're meeting some of maybe your fellow recruits, but you don't have complete information at that point. So, like, what gave you the sense that Seton hall would be the place that would sort of give you that feeling?
Michael Huber15:42
Yeah, you can just tell when you go to a school because we go on, well, back then, we would go on recruiting trips for two days, so I'd spend a lot of time with the team, and you can kind of tell when everyone's friends. I mean, not everyone's always going to be friends, but you can tell when everyone gets along or if they don't. And I feel like a lot of the bigger schools, it just. They felt like they didn't want us there sometimes. And at Seton hall, you felt wanted. You felt like everyone was excited to have you there, and that was, like, really important to me because you can see that that would be how it was going to be for the rest of your four years.
Natalie Heim 16:19
Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And I guess you're right like anything else, right? You got to trust your instincts sometimes. So when did you. At what point did you commit?
Michael Huber16:30
I committed in October. It was like, end of October of your senior year? Yes. And it's funny, because Seton hall was not my first choice at all. My mom actually made me look there, and she was like, you have to get. It's close to home. Just look. And I was like, I know I'm going 4 hours away. I'm not gonna be any closer than that. And then I went there for the visit, and I loved it, and I was not expecting that, but it was a pleasant surprise. And then when I came home, I think I committed, like, three days after visiting. It was very short after.
Natalie Heim 16:59
Sure. That's such a mom thing to say.
Michael Huber17:01
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 17:01
Well, I'm actually kind of surprised that you, like, didn't, like, stubbornly resisted just because she suggested it. Right?
Michael Huber17:12
Yeah. No, my mom and I are very close, so it definitely wasn't because of that. I just. For some reason, I thought, I feel like everyone always thinks they want to be far from home, but it was definitely a blessing that I did choose the school, because I love being home. I'm a homebody. I'm very close with my family, so it was a good choice.
Natalie Heim 17:29
Awesome. So you commit in October of your senior year, and then. So you're there. You started in August of the following year, so less than a year later. What was the biggest eye opener for you when you got onto campus?
Michael Huber17:46
Well, that was Covid time, so.
Natalie Heim 17:48
Okay.
Michael Huber17:49
Yeah. So everything was very eye opening, because before that, we kind of just were stuck inside. I didn't have school, didn't have anything. We were wearing masks all the time, so I think at that time, it was very shocking to me to see. See, not many people were on campus, so we were kind of just. It was mainly athletes walking all over campus, so that was definitely eye opening for me, because I felt like we were the only ones who were there.
Natalie Heim 18:16
Yeah.
Michael Huber18:16
And we needed to be there all the time, so that was definitely interesting.
Natalie Heim 18:20
Were you getting tested a lot?
Michael Huber18:22
Yes, we were getting tested I think once a week, maybe. It wasn't that often, but we definitely got tested every now and again. Yeah.
Natalie Heim 18:31
Yeah. Because I talked to other collegiate athletes at that point who were sort of in the same bucket as you, and I heard that they were, like, getting tested all the time, and they were the only ones that were literally on campus, like, only athletes?
Michael Huber18:43
Yeah, that's what it seemed like. I mean, we have a lot of commuters, but it seemed like we were the only ones there. We couldn't even use our locker rooms because they didn't want us being too close to each other. We had to go to class in our suits. We would be the only one sitting in the classroom because everyone else would be virtual.
Natalie Heim 18:58
So bizarre.
Michael Huber18:59
Yeah, it was weird.
Natalie Heim 19:00
So, like, how do you think that affected you athletically? Like, how did it affect your development or did it.
Michael Huber19:09
I had a pretty good freshman season. However, we only had one duel meet and then Big east, so we didn't really have much to base it off of. I think our training wise, we were doing a lot less yardage than we do now. So we were also, I believe we were practicing once a day. We weren't doing doubles, so definitely decreased workload a lot. And I feel like we just couldn't do more because there was no way that we could be in. We had to be in pods. We had to only have a certain amount of us in a lane, so we definitely had to decrease a lot of the workload. But then I did somehow have a good big east meet. I think I dropped, like, a lot of time in my 200 free that year, which was very shocking because 200 free was not my event freshman year.
Natalie Heim 19:55
Interesting.
Michael Huber19:56
Yeah. So I don't. It didn't really affect my training. I think I could have probably done a lot better if we had more under our belt, but I think I still did well.
Natalie Heim 20:06
And so, I mean, I didn't really think about the COVID part of it, although I'm sure we've talked about it before. So, like, were there bigger challenges academically and socially, then?
Michael Huber20:17
Socially, for sure.
Natalie Heim 20:18
Okay.
Michael Huber20:18
I spent all my time with my teammates. My freshman class. We didn't really have many options because there was no one on campus besides us, and we didn't really venture out to meet other athletes because you meet them in social settings, and we just didn't really have social settings to meet them at. And athletics pushed and pushed for us to be separated, even from my teammates. They wanted us to never see each other. Like, it was. It was tough. So I think socially, I didn't give myself the opportunity to kind of branch out, which was not ideal at that time because I'm a pretty shy person, so I wish I would have had that chance, but definitely made it hard.
Natalie Heim 20:54
Yeah, but you're kind of. You're kind of forced to, right?
Michael Huber20:57
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 20:57
And. And I think, you know, as an athlete, actually, in some ways. Right. Like, if you were just a non athlete coming in as a freshman during COVID it's probably even way worse because you don't even have teammates. Right. Like, you don't even get to be on campus. Like, you're missing that whole first year versus at least I'm there with people.
Michael Huber21:14
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 21:14
Right. Like, it's a small group. It's different than I expected, but at least we have this group of people became stay connected to versus, like, now I'm going to college, and I can't even go to college because they're not letting me go.
Michael Huber21:25
Yeah. And we tried our best to make the most of it. Like, we would all hang out in the dorms, but we weren't supposed to, but we did. And then, um, like, the senior class, I didn't. I didn't know them for half of the year, which was crazy because they're on my team. I didn't see them. I didn't see them. We didn't have meets to go to. Uh, we weren't lifting together. So that was definitely interesting because I didn't meet them until I was probably halfway through the season.
Natalie Heim 21:49
Yeah. So when things started to go back to normal. Right. We could sort of argue what that means. But generally speaking, right. When things started to go back to what you would have expected to be when. Before COVID how did that change your experience as an athlete? Did it, like, make it better or did it make it harder or.
Michael Huber22:07
I think it made it better, but it was a lot harder because we were. Went from training once a day. I don't even know if we would probably go for, like, an hour and a half. I don't think we'd ever do 2 hours to going six days a week. Three of those days would be doubles. So two practices, then lifts on top of those two practices, and then Tuesdays and Thursdays, we would also do, like, two hour practices. So that was definitely an adjustment because I wasn't used to the doubles. High school, I only did them for a week during Christmas, so it wasn't something that I was used to doing all weekend. So I think it was definitely adjustment increasing that workload after the freshman year. Yeah.
Natalie Heim 22:47
So did that increase in volume? Did that. I mean, I don't even know if this matters. I'm just curious, did that increase in volume lead to any sort of physical consequences? Meaning, like, was it harder on your body? Did you get injured, or, like, did you adjust to it pretty well?
Michael Huber23:03
I guess I adjusted to it pretty well. I think I had a harder time adjusting with it. I didn't do as well my sophomore year, college. So I think that maybe I was struggling with balancing everything, and then also because I was having a very tough time in school as well, but I think I didn't balance everything well, so then I kind of wasn't prepared for our final meets.
Natalie Heim 23:26
Okay, so how did you. I know this is kind of a big question, but, like, how did you ultimately figure how to balance, or how did you figure it out, where you started to be, like, okay, like, school's really hard. Now I got more volume. This is really hard. Like, how did you sort of work through that to figure out, this is how I need to handle it to get the most out of it.
Michael Huber23:46
Yeah. So I actually had a lot of experiences with mental health throughout my career, but I, sophomore year, had gone through the kind of mind body disconnect that we saw Simone Biles go through. And gymnastics is a little different because they call it the twisties, I think. But for me, it was. For some reason, my brain was not wanting to do what my body was doing or my body wasn't doing what my brain was telling it to do. So I was actually in a point where I just didn't know how to explain it. And I would tell people and they would kind of be like, that doesn't make sense. But it didn't make sense to me, either. So I had gone to our sports psychologist group on campus, and I was kind of reluctant to it a little bit because, you know, you never want to ask for that help. But I did end up asking for it, and I had a sports psychologist who kind of taught me little tricks. So, mindfulness, she kind of told me, when you're brushing your teeth, just think about the motion of brushing your teeth. And it sounds silly, but it was something that stuck with me for the rest of my. Like, I still think about it today.
Natalie Heim 24:48
Yeah, sure.
Michael Huber24:49
So, kind of being mindful of, like, what you're doing. And then I kind of found out ways to kind of cope with, like, if I were to experience that again or if I was anxious about a meet. And she definitely helped me figure that out a little bit better than I was doing on my own.
Natalie Heim 25:08
Well, first of all, I appreciate you sharing that. And second of all, I think it is hard to ask for help. And I think the fact that you did it is great, right. Because you probably were able to work through it a lot more efficiently and effectively than if you tried to solve that problem on your own. And that's something that, you know, I'm big on, is being able to find the resources that you need and then ask for help. But the mind body disconnect part, like, give me an example. Or like, what? Like, what was happening? Like, can you explain that in a little bit more detail, like, from a swimming perspective? Like, what was happening.
Michael Huber25:41
Yeah. So it's kind of difficult to explain because a lot of people don't understand it. But I remember I was showing up to practice, and I just felt like my flip turns were not working. Like, they just didn't feel right. And then I remember being scared to dive off the blocks because I was worried that it wouldn't, like, I would hurt myself or I'd not dive in correctly. It was just little swimming techniques that just didn't feel like they were working. And my brain was saying, do what you're supposed to. You know how to do this. And then I felt like a five year old who just learned how to swim, and my stroke was, like, lopsided, and my turns were, like, too over rotated. It just was small things like that.
Natalie Heim 26:27
Yeah. So I don't know if you recall, but was it something that happened gradually or progressively, or was it something that was sudden that you just sort of, like, woke up one day and was like, what's going on here?
Michael Huber26:39
It was sudden. I remember I had a very tough school year, as I said before sophomore year, because I was in a lot of very tough classes. And I just remember I wasn't doing well mentally at that time. I just was not happy and very stressed and not sleeping. And I just remember one day I went to practice, and I tried to figure out what it was, and then I took, like, a day, and then I decided to talk to my coach about it, and they were like, I don't know what that means. And then I was like, oh, great. Nobody knows what this means.
Natalie Heim 27:13
Scary.
Michael Huber27:13
Yeah. It was very scary because I had never been scared to do anything in swimming. It's not something I'm not scared person for, like, athletics, but I just was scared to swim every day, which is weird, because you can't really get hurt in swimming. But I just. I don't know. It was just a different feeling.
Natalie Heim 27:31
Uh huh. So, how did practicing mindfulness help you make those adjustments in the pool? Like, what was it about the practice that allowed you to kind of work through it?
Michael Huber27:44
Yeah. So my coaches knew what I was. I mean, I had told them, but after she had told me that, I kind of. It didn't immediately just end. I just felt like that way for a little while. I think it took, like, probably two weeks for me to kind of get over it. And I remember just, I would show up to practice, and they would ask me how I was doing, and I would tell them, I'm still kind of feeling a little bit lopsided, and I kind of would just focus on the motion of my arm in freestyle, specifically going into the water and catching and then pulling and circling around and then my breathing. I would kind of just focus on, like, how many breaths I would take in a lap or how many strokes I would take before breathing. And then just the flip, rotating, like everything just very technical. I just focused on more and my coaches knew that I was going through that, so they were on board with it.
Natalie Heim 28:37
That's great.
Michael Huber28:37
Yeah. So I wasn't doing like, speed work. I was just more focused on technique.
Natalie Heim 28:42
Yeah. Like, when you use the example of brushing your teeth, right. When you're brushing your teeth, you're usually thinking about twelve other things. You're not thinking about brushing your teeth. And so when you're really mindful, when you're brushing your teeth, like you said, like, you're really focused on those little things that you usually ignore, you're very present to it. Right. So what you're explaining in the water is like you're shifting your focus. Total process.
Michael Huber29:02
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 29:03
How does it feel to actually do this when maybe I'm thinking about the result of, well, what happens if I dive into the water? Or what happens if I do this now? I'm thinking into the future and I'm disconnected from my process, from really recognizing my body, being able to come into that and really get back into that present moment. Awareness takes the focus off of the bad things that can happen now you're sort of reconnecting with your body in the process, and that's great that your coaches supported that because they can very easily said, like, no, swim faster. Right. And so, like, now you're taking all that focus off of, how do I just, you know, put my body, move my body through the water and onto, like, oh, no, I got to swim faster. And now I'm going back into that focus of, uh oh, I need a. I need a better result or else that's going to probably result in that disconnect coming back.
Michael Huber29:52
Right? Yeah, yeah. And I think it was something I couldn't understand at first because it's like second nature for me at this point to just do, like every stroke, swim the way I've been swimming since I was little. But then it kind of became not second nature. So then I had to kind of almost take baby steps back and just focus on things that I would have focused on when I was very young instead. And just like, the technical motion of, like, swimming.
Natalie Heim 30:18
Do you still practice mindfulness now?
Michael Huber30:21
I do. I think after hearing that from the sports psychologist it became something that kind of stuck in my brain, and I still. I tell my teammates about it, too. I tell anyone who's, like, willing to listen about it because it's something that people think is so silly. But it works. It works 100% if you practice. And it's even now, I still get anxious. I still get, like, nervous about certain things. I'll just take a moment back and work on that, basically. And it always works for me.
Natalie Heim 30:54
Yeah, well, it's good to know, and I think it's interesting. Right? Like, we still live in a world where people like. That sounds silly.
Michael Huber31:00
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 31:01
But if it works for you, it is a practice, and the more you do it and the more you have that to go back to, too. Like, just the practice of breathing. Right. You said, like, focusing on your breathing, like, it's really hard to be distracted by things that are outside of your control when you're just focused on your breathing. So the fact that you're continuing to practice, it is great. Right. Because we all get anxious. We all get stressed out. We all start to worry about the future or we think about the past. Like, how do we come back to the present moment? Well, there's really no better way than just focusing on, like, hey, I'm right here, right now. I'm breathing.
Michael Huber31:31
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 31:32
So, like, looking back now, like, as you sort of progressed through college and now you're going into graduate school your fifth year, like, what skills do you wish you had known or had under your belt coming into college that you didn't have?
Michael Huber31:48
I think something that I wish I did have going into college was, as I said, like, a little earlier on, I was kind of a big fish in a little pond because you trained with people you swam with your whole life. They were your town, just, like, very. You grew up with these people. And then I didn't realize how different it is swimming with people who are from different countries, different states, came from different training regimen, and I don't think I was prepared for that part, because who you're swimming with makes a difference, as we talked about. And I just don't think I was prepared to shift the culture of the team that I came from and then go into a new culture. It was very difficult for me to kind of adjust to that.
Natalie Heim 32:36
Okay, but what. What do you think you could have done to prepare for that? Or could you? I mean, is it something you just have to learn how to deal with when you get there?
Michael Huber32:44
Because I guess you could say that's something you learn how to deal with. When you get there, I think if someone would have kind of, I don't know, warned us about it, but I guess I should have expected it because we see who's coming in, we see who's on the team. But I feel like when you just grow up with the same people and you swim with the same people your whole life, you don't really think about stuff like that, how different it would be if you adjusted it, so.
Natalie Heim 33:08
Yeah, but, like, you know, I think it's a lot easier to, like, think about that retrospectively. Right. When you're going into college in most cases, I mean, not everybody's this way, but I'd say by and large, you're really excited about what's to come.
Michael Huber33:21
Yeah.
Natalie Heim 33:21
You're focused on the good things that are coming with it. And that's sort of like, where I focus my attention, which is like, yeah, like, we go into something new and this is really exciting. I've been working for this for however many years, and now I finally have gotten, and I'm going to go to college to swim. That's great. But we're not really preparing for, like, what could go wrong or what's going to be hard. We're thinking about all the good stuff now we get there and, like, all the good stuff that we imagined maybe not happen, may not happen, at least right away. And now it's like, okay, well, now how do I shift my focus to, how do I solve these problems when I wasn't thinking about it? Right. It's not because you couldn't have prepared for it, just you didn't know to. You weren't aware of it.
Michael Huber34:00
And I think leading off of that part, I think something else that I would have liked to know or have kind of been guided to before going to college was asking for help and seeking out resources and all that, because everyone says, like, they all tell you to do that. But I feel like as an athlete, you grow up kind of being told, suck it up and don't, you know, be worried about that and you're fine. Don't, like, you'll be fine. And I feel like I didn't. Going into college, I felt weak, definitely asking for any sort of help, whether it was mental health or with our trainers, because you don't want everyone to look at you and be like, she's got a problem. Yeah. So I don't think I felt comfortable asking for that. And I don't think the resources were highlighted as well because in high school, our parents did everything for us, at least for me, middle school, so I always had them to kind of help me get there. And then when I got to doing it myself, I wasn't very confident in reaching out.
Natalie Heim 35:02
Yeah. I mean, that kind of highlights a couple things for me, is one is like, you know, I think most people are that way regardless of whether you're an athlete or not. I think, first of all, I think, second of all, we have to learn the hard way sometimes it's not until we're really motivated to look for help because we really want to solve a problem with what you went through mental health wise, you're at a point where I can't do this on my own. I had same experience myself. When I got to a point where I was like, this is so uncomfortable and so unsettling and scary. I can't do this by myself. Now I'm motivated to go ask for help. But up until that point, it was like, no, I'll figure it out on my own. Just because there wasn't an urgency, at least in my mind, versus, like, well, if I just had this off at the pass and do it proactively, then I don't have to get to the point where I'm, like, so desperate for help that I have to go looking for it.
Michael Huber35:55
Yeah. Yeah. And I had a coach growing up who I loved him, but he would kind of not even let you miss practice even if you were, like, hurt. A. So you kind of. I internalize that feeling of being weak if you had any sort of problem, and, well, you can get through it. If you are still hurt, you can still do it. You can still show up. And so that kind of was not very effective in helping me ask for help that I needed.
Natalie Heim 36:24
Yeah, we learned that. Right. And I think a lot of us learn that, like, hey, suck it up. Like, you got to play hurt because you're okay and I need you to win. And, you know, that's just what we do to be tough, and that's a really, like, fine line to walk. Yeah, it's like a tightrope. It's like, well, yeah, you want to fight through and be tough and support my team and keep going, but at the same time, if it's going to do that long term damage and threaten my safety and my health, like, do I really need to do this? Like, yeah, can I step away? And that's really hard to, like, square that circle, especially when you're a teenager going to college. It is. So, as we get ready to wrap up, the last question I'll ask you and I ask this question a lot is like, if you had one piece of advice, if you have not had, if you have one piece of advice to share with high school athletes, particularly, who are going to go on to compete in college, what would you say?
Michael Huber37:21
I think something that I needed to learn way earlier than I did was kind of give yourself Grace because it's not going to be an easy process. You're going to hit a lot of bumps on the way there, and you're not going to know exactly what to do at every point because nobody gives you a handbook and says, here, read this. You'll know what to do. So I think I didn't allow myself to give, like myself grace, which was. Would have been really helpful because it's just a lot of times we're very hard on ourselves, especially as athletes, and we kind of need that moment to say, okay, we're doing the best we can, we're trying, and we're going to get there. We just have to put in some extra work to get there.
Natalie Heim 37:58
Yeah. A great way to end. Natalie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Michael Huber38:03
Thank you for having me.
Natalie Heim 38:03
Yeah, it was a pleasure. We're good. Charles.