Developing Swimmers Progressively
From News for Swim Parents
Published by The American Swimming Coaches Association
5101 NW 21 Ave., Suite 200
Fort Lauderdale FL 33309
We develop our swimmers progressively with great patience.
Winning is not an issue with our younger age groups. We want
swimmers to be their best in their later teen and college age years.
We spend the majority of time with our youngest swimmers developing
technique, some time developing endurance, and very little time
developing speed. As swimmers become older and more skilled we
increase the amount of endurance work, continue to develop technique,
and introduce “race preparation.” Racing preparation means learning how
to race more than it means high volumes of quality speed work. At
older ages and higher levels of skill the emphasis is on racing speed
and competition while continuing to build long term endurance and
continuing to refine technique and race strategy.
On the mental side we want the swimmers to learn to take responsibility
for their own performance and to learn the importance and the thrill of
meeting challenges straight forward. We also teach swimmers to;
learn to read a pace clock and understand time relationships; learn
about setting goals and the relationship between work and achieving
goals; learn that everyone on the team contributes to each other's
performance; and learn a sense of control in pacing swims, sets, and
practices. Control allows for the highest levels of work without
counterproductive out of control struggling. We feel this learned
sense of control is applicable to other areas of life as well.
