Racing rules for young swimmers

Everyone has seen swimmers who train well but melt under the pressure of meets, and everyone has seen swimmers who do not train well but who love to race. Personality determines how kids think about racing and how they think when they are racing really matters. For swimmers at this age two are the most important things when it comes to fast and consistent racing: confidence and competitiveness. Swimmers who work hard and smart in training, who are used to setting goals and working to reach them and who are getting better every day will generally be confident in their abilities. To nurture competitiveness, both coaches and swimmers should try to create a love of it and competing in practice. Swimmers should race all the time, and they must learn to take pleasure in the contest.

General racing tips for age groupers

How one swims a race matters, and there are many ways to race poorly and spoil good training. Physiologically, an even paced race takes best advantage of a swimmer's energy resources. This is true for elite swimmers who are driven, mentally tough, and used to hurting and who will use all the energy they have. Fos age group swimmers though, this might not be the best tactic. For age groupers, mental state is a key aspect in swimming a good race. Often if they see that they are far behind the other swimmers, they drop the race and stop trying . It doesn't matter how much energy they have in their bodies, if they feel that they cannot win the race they have no interest in using it. Alternatively, if they think that they have a chance to succeed, they will give all they have and surprise everyone with their toughness.

Race tactics tips for young swimmers

Do you coach development and age group swimmers and they don’t know how what to do during a race? This post is about general guidelines for constructing tactics for the 50 m, 100 m, and 200 m events. Of course there will be adjustments from one coach to another, one swimmer to another, and one stroke to another, but these guidelines are the general rule of thumb that coaches and their young swimmers should follow. These tactics should be practiced in daily training so that swimmers arrive at a meet knowing their race plans and feeling comfortable about what they want to do.

Programme goals for 11-14 years old swimmers

These are the most important years for creating future national level senior swimmers. With their training, swimmers are determining what level of athletes they will be later. During this time, there is a gradual and proggresive buildup in the intensity and volume of training. The training for this age group should have the following goals:

Difficulties during stroke changes

Making stroke changes is difficult, especially for younger swimmers. Alexander Popov’s coach, Coach Gennadi Touretski, once said that it took Alexander about 100,000 m of focused swimming to take a minor change in his freestyle. Coaches may sometimes feel that they don’t have the necessary knowledge, or that his/her swimmers don’t have the ability, but this is not the problem. Coaches real challenge in helping his/her swimmers to improve their stroke is to keep them focused until the good skills become habitual and then continue to reinforce and polish those good habits. They have to realize that many barriers stand in the way of positive change.

Ideas of goal setting for an age group squad coach (11-14 years old)

These are the most important years for creating future national level senior swimmers. With their training, swimmers are determining what level of athletes they will be later. During this time, there is gradual and progressive build-up in the intensity and volume of training. Also, coaches should begin to differentiate in the training groups between those swimmers who are more advanced, more committed, and higher performing, compared with the others.

Characteristics of top swimming programmes

Swimming programmes vary enormously in their culture and expectations. There are few programmes in each major swimming country that produce national or international level swimmers; these programmes are doing something better than the other programmes do. In these top programmes, the various levels are designed to develop the necessary talents, and swimmers are taught to expect to succeed at national levels. This is a culture of excellence and high performance.

Things to teach your development squad swimmers (9&10 years old)

Most swimmers in this group began in the novice programme, so they have a background in technique. They are still high energy and low focus, but they have more control over their aquatic selves compared with the younger swimmers. At this age, girls tend to learn technique quicker and focus better than the boys.

So the key things to do for these swimmers are:

• Keep them happy. Be sure they are getting better and more skilled, and make sure they know it. As with younger swimmers, you want them excited about coming to practice and nagging their parents to let them come more.

What to teach your younger swimmers (8 & under)

These kids are the youngest novice swimmers on the team, most of them fresh out of lessons, and they are initially able to swim a little backstroke and freestyle. Their attention spans are brief, their energy levels are high, and their control aver their bodies in the water is low. But their daily improvement is noticable; to a good coach, they are as moldable as soft clay to a potter.

Qualities a talent should have (part 2)

Today I'm going to continue yesterday's post on the talents a swimmer should have and improve. Today's post is about the physical qualities and the anatomical characteristics.

Qualities a talent should have (part 1)

Success in swimming derives from certain skills, qualities, behaviors, habits, abilities, and attitudes which from now on will be named as talents. No one talent will make a swimmer a champion; conversely, there is no one talent whose relative lack will prevent a swimmer from becoming a champion. Just as no swimmer has every talent, no swimmer has none of them. Coaches can teach these talents, or at least most of them, and swimmers can develop them. These talents fall into three groups: psychological qualities or skills, physical qualities or capacities, and anatomical characteristics. Today I'll refer to the psychological skills and the other two groups will be analysed tommorow.

Developmental advice for parents of age-group swimmers (8-12 years old)

In todays post I'm going to advise parents on how to prepare for and deal with the ups and downs of this challenging  yet rewarding sport. 

12 tips for youth swimmers moving to the senior level

Following are tips for youth swimmers who are moving on to the senior level. Coaches can put them on a board so that these tips are visible all the time by the young swimmers.