Swimming Australia encourages positive psychology coaching initiative

Swimming Australia has embarked on pilot 'positive coaching' initiative designed to develop mental fitness and building resilience among athletes.

Designed by AFL Sports Director of Education Matthew Scholes, the free online program, is backed by the Oceania Australia Foundation.

Introducing the program, Scholes told AAP "positive psychology is relatively new, about a 15-year-old field.

"The research out of it is really conclusive, but it hasn't ever been packaged together for sport.

"It's not just about the positives. We look at negatives, but the way we frame them."

The evidence-based approach helps athletes perform at their peak while also improving athletes' well-being and their ability to cope with life after sport.

Scholes adds "you can change the wiring of the brain so people are able to better handle failure.

"It doesn't mean losing becomes acceptable, you just understand the relativity of it all.

"That attitude actually helps athletes perform under pressure ... and when they retire they can have that resilience in other settings."

These attributes are, unsurprisingly, of interest to Swimming Australia, who have witnessed a number of once highly dedicated swimming stars experience personal problems in recent years after retiring.

Swimming Australia President John Bertrand told AAP "we see it as a our responsibility to have a cultural environment that gives our athletes the very best chance of making their next transition (after thier careers).

"You want them happy and passionate, so they don't burn out right now.

"But their health and well-being for the future is fundamentally important.

"For our head coach and high performance unit, we'll be utilising the learnings and research that's coming out of this program."

The prospect of a greater level of consistency in the pool is also attractive, with Bertrand adding "we want to be number one in the world by the 2020 Olympics.

"The question is how we do get there with an extraordinarily very small population compared to the US, China and so on?

"That means leading-edge thinking in terms of the time and direction between coaches and athletes."

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