By: Yiling Sun
Professional swimmer, Caleb Dressel, took an eight-month break in 2017 to prioritize his mental health. During this break, he missed many parts of swimming, such as blowing bubbles in the water and stepping onto the diving block. Additionally, Dressel even missed the chlorine water and the dry feeling of his skin resulting from long hours of swimming in the pool.
“I missed every part of it,” Dressel said. “And that’s how I knew I was ready to get back. Because I didn’t need to—I wanted to.”
After stepping away from the world championships due to health issues, seven-time Olympic gold medalist Dressel returned to the U.S. national championships in late February.
Dressel started training again, initially with three weekly practices. He worked up to a full workload of eight practices a week in early May. Although he lost some strength and fitness during his break, he also found peace.
“I am now able to sit on my front porch with my wife,” Dressel said, “and not think of a million things I need to be doing, or what I did wrong in practice, or why I thought I did bad in Tokyo, or why I thought 2019 was terrible.”
During Dressel’s first meet since his break, his swimming speed decreased significantly, failing to qualify for the finals. In that meet, his best performance was in the 50-meter butterfly, coming in third place; his time was not fast enough to qualify for the finals.
“I always had a smile on my face actually racing,” Dressel said. “There is a difference between racing scared because you don’t want to embarrass yourself and then actually enjoying racing. And I haven’t had that enjoyment in quite some time, so it was nice having it back.”
Dressel decided not to reveal his reason for withdrawing from the world championships in Budapest last year, but he said taking a break from the sport was necessary.
“The easiest way to put it, my body kept score,” Dressel said. “There were a lot of things I shoved down, and all came boiling up, so I didn’t really have a choice.”
According to Anthony Nesty, who coaches Dressel at the Gator Swim Club in Florida, Dressel was under much pressure as the leading male swimmer in the United States. To help him cope, Dressel had taken some time off to focus on himself and his well-being.
“Mental health is a serious issue, and everybody deals with it differently,” Nesty said. “Sometimes it takes time to heal from that.”
Despite not making it to the championships and placing 19th, Dressel was content with his performance. After takinga break from swimming for eight months the outcome was still a victory.