The Swimming Parents Manual
By Wayne Goldsmith. Reprinted with permission.
This informative fact sheet covers many of the commonly asked questions parents have in simple, easy to understand language. Wayne Goldsmith is an internationally renowned consultant to Australian and US Swim teams, and a regular contributor to prestigious Swimming Magazines such as Swimmers World.
Here's a special free gift for every Swimming Coach and Swimming Parent - my Swimming Parents Manual - available now at https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/…/Swimming-Parents-WG…
Parents...this is a great free resource answering most of your questions about swimming.
Special Announcement: Sporting Parents Video Series
Commencing May 21st 2018 and continuing for ten consecutive weeks, I'll be releasing a series of videos on my You Tube Channel specifically developed for Sporting Parents.
https://www.youtube.com/wgcoaching
The video series answers some of the key questions I've been asked by sporting parents around the world during my Sporting Parents education sessions which I've been delivering for over 25 years.
By Wayne Goldsmith. Reprinted with permission.
This informative fact sheet covers many of the commonly asked questions parents have in simple, easy to understand language. Wayne Goldsmith is an internationally renowned consultant to Australian and US Swim teams, and a regular contributor to prestigious Swimming Magazines such as Swimmers World.
Here's a special free gift for every Swimming Coach and Swimming Parent - my Swimming Parents Manual - available now at https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/…/Swimming-Parents-WG…
Parents...this is a great free resource answering most of your questions about swimming.
Special Announcement: Sporting Parents Video Series
Commencing May 21st 2018 and continuing for ten consecutive weeks, I'll be releasing a series of videos on my You Tube Channel specifically developed for Sporting Parents.
https://www.youtube.com/wgcoaching
The video series answers some of the key questions I've been asked by sporting parents around the world during my Sporting Parents education sessions which I've been delivering for over 25 years.
Why do we have to swim so often?
By Anita Killmier
Walk into any public pool and watch and listen to the sounds of the swimmers churning up the pool.
Most swim awkwardly, make a lot of splash, or snake through the water. Some thump or smack the water and if you listen to the rhythm or tempo of the swimmers you may hear or see them loping, lopsided, one arm swinging differently to the other; legs flailing, splitting wide, not kicking at all, or having one foot kick higher than the other. Then count their strokes. Those who have a higher number will be poorer swimmers.
Compare them to the better swimmers. Great swimmers are even on both sides of their body with a constant steady tempo, they appear to glide on top of the water, and it looks effortless. The best move through the water with barely a ripple, quietly, and with little splash. Poetry in motion; a harmonious fusing of a multitude of movements all choreographed and timed to minute perfection.
Percy Cerruty, the famous Melbourne born track coach from the 1950's who coached Herb Elliot to world records and an Olympic Gold medal when asked about swimming, stated:
"In no other sport except perhaps golf does power, wrongly exerted, result in a poorer and poorer performance."
Swimming is an immensely difficult skill to acquire or perform well, for a number of reasons. The main one is that as humans, we have evolved over eons to walk upright in a gravity based medium that gives a firm base under our feet.
Consider the following:
Consider then a skill such as walking. As a baby, imagine how hard it would be and how long it would take, if you limited your babies practises of walking to just half hour a week? They practise crawling, then standing up and balancing, and falling down over and over again (liken this to floating) until they master enough balance to take a few steps. In between they start crawling first (rudimentary propulsion e.g. kicking/dog paddling) before they have sufficient strength and ability to take those first few steps (arm strokes). Before they can run (swim with breathing) they need a huge range of complex coordinated movements in place.
Yet that is precisely what we do with swimming lessons - usually only swimming once a week for 30 - 45 minutes.
When children finally graduate to squad, this increases to 60 minutes or possibly more. Once they enter squad some programmes work fitness often to the neglect of technique, emphasising swimming longer, further, faster. The problem with this approach is that the technique tends to deteriorate over the session duration which results in bad habits forming that are hard to fix, or worse, cause shoulder injuries. A good program will balance skill and technique development with increasing fitness without allowing technique to break down.
Land based fitness bears little similarity to water based fitness. Moreover, swimming fitness can help land fitness, but the reverse is generally not true. The best marathon runners in the world can be breathless after 25 metres if they are untrained in swimming.
Any fitness expert will recommend that you cannot get fit unless you exercise a minimum of 3 times a week. At the younger ages we spend at least half of each session in fitness work and the other half in skills and technique development. But this refinement continues indefinitely. Every session over twice a week is a bonus and will give additional benefits in retaining muscle memory from one swim to the next.
The body also reaches a natural plateauing of improvement if it doesn't get exposed to new challenges. That is why lap swimmers who simply swim half an hour every day going up and down the pool at the same speed, never improve. (Most would also benefit from stroke correction!)
When swimmers enter our squad programme our minimum requirement then is to swim twice a week, but by the time swimmers reach 10-11 years old they should increase this to 3 times, 11-12 years to 4 times and continue increasing sessions as the swimmer ages up.
For true mastery, swimming takes
No wonder coaches like their swimmers to swim more, not less!
By Anita Killmier
Walk into any public pool and watch and listen to the sounds of the swimmers churning up the pool.
Most swim awkwardly, make a lot of splash, or snake through the water. Some thump or smack the water and if you listen to the rhythm or tempo of the swimmers you may hear or see them loping, lopsided, one arm swinging differently to the other; legs flailing, splitting wide, not kicking at all, or having one foot kick higher than the other. Then count their strokes. Those who have a higher number will be poorer swimmers.
Compare them to the better swimmers. Great swimmers are even on both sides of their body with a constant steady tempo, they appear to glide on top of the water, and it looks effortless. The best move through the water with barely a ripple, quietly, and with little splash. Poetry in motion; a harmonious fusing of a multitude of movements all choreographed and timed to minute perfection.
Percy Cerruty, the famous Melbourne born track coach from the 1950's who coached Herb Elliot to world records and an Olympic Gold medal when asked about swimming, stated:
"In no other sport except perhaps golf does power, wrongly exerted, result in a poorer and poorer performance."
Swimming is an immensely difficult skill to acquire or perform well, for a number of reasons. The main one is that as humans, we have evolved over eons to walk upright in a gravity based medium that gives a firm base under our feet.
Consider the following:
- Swimming is one of the few sports performed lying down.
- Whilst the water is gentle, soft and cushioning, the face when immersed is smothered, making it potentially lethal. Mouthfuls of water and water up the nose are common in swimmers and usually results in poor head position through avoidance. This causes further technical errors that radiate out into the limbs.
- The water effectively renders the swimmer free of gravity, similar to an astronaut who has to learn to control their bodies in three dimensional space. Swimmers need to be comfortable performing their skills in changing body positions. Upside down; rolling over, on their sides and everything in between.
- The buoyancy and wave movement means water is constantly shifting and unbalancing or destabilising, adding additional complexity to mastering swimming, that few other sports encounter. If you have ever been ice skating you will understand the similarity.
- Water is 1000 times denser than air so any inefficiencies of movement are exacerbated. Drag increases exponentially the faster you move through water. Drag is the number one enemy in efficient swimming. Elite swimmers spend much of their programme engaged in activities to learn how to reduce drag as much as possible. The coaches mantra is "Minimise Resistance to Maximise Propulsion".
- Our senses are honed on land. In the water we are sensory deprived. Our primary sense, vision, is limited. Goggles restrict the field of vision and fog up. To swim well, the head needs to be in the correct position (eyes looking straight downward to the bottom of the floor). This is a huge challenge as our natural instinct (land based instinct) is to want to look forward to see where we are going, but this is totally contrary to good technique and can also potentially lead to neck and shoulder related injuries if not corrected. Our sense of smell and taste is irrelevant in water (unless it is to detect poorly balanced water), hearing is nigh impossible, so the only other sense to be relied upon is 'feel' or touch. Feel is probably the most important sense of all in swimming. Feel for the subtle changes in water pressure on the palm is the difference between good and great swimmers but is very hard to teach. Highly attuned swimmers are fully aware and mindful when they swim, as well as being introspectively focussed, similar to the art of Tai Chi or Yoga. To excel, swimmers first need to be able to swim slowly with great control and balance. ( To see my article that expands on this, click on The Tai Chi of Swimming and scroll to page bottom.)
- Walking and running on land encounters little noticeable friction on any part of the body other than the feet. In water, the entire body encounters resistance. The swimmer in effect needs to pull their body weight through the water, and through the added resistance the water creates. Bad resistance impedes forward movement. Some resistance however can be good. In order to move forward, good swimmers grab hold of the water with their hands and forearms and 'move' large volumes of water backward. The better they are at this, the greater the pressure against their pulling surfaces and the stronger they need to be in order to do this repetitively, without fatigue. Swimming is therefore akin to a gym workout using weights. The faster you swim the 'heavier' the weight. Lesser swimmers unconsciously avoid the pressure by 'slipping' their hands through the pulling movement.
Consider then a skill such as walking. As a baby, imagine how hard it would be and how long it would take, if you limited your babies practises of walking to just half hour a week? They practise crawling, then standing up and balancing, and falling down over and over again (liken this to floating) until they master enough balance to take a few steps. In between they start crawling first (rudimentary propulsion e.g. kicking/dog paddling) before they have sufficient strength and ability to take those first few steps (arm strokes). Before they can run (swim with breathing) they need a huge range of complex coordinated movements in place.
Yet that is precisely what we do with swimming lessons - usually only swimming once a week for 30 - 45 minutes.
When children finally graduate to squad, this increases to 60 minutes or possibly more. Once they enter squad some programmes work fitness often to the neglect of technique, emphasising swimming longer, further, faster. The problem with this approach is that the technique tends to deteriorate over the session duration which results in bad habits forming that are hard to fix, or worse, cause shoulder injuries. A good program will balance skill and technique development with increasing fitness without allowing technique to break down.
Land based fitness bears little similarity to water based fitness. Moreover, swimming fitness can help land fitness, but the reverse is generally not true. The best marathon runners in the world can be breathless after 25 metres if they are untrained in swimming.
Any fitness expert will recommend that you cannot get fit unless you exercise a minimum of 3 times a week. At the younger ages we spend at least half of each session in fitness work and the other half in skills and technique development. But this refinement continues indefinitely. Every session over twice a week is a bonus and will give additional benefits in retaining muscle memory from one swim to the next.
The body also reaches a natural plateauing of improvement if it doesn't get exposed to new challenges. That is why lap swimmers who simply swim half an hour every day going up and down the pool at the same speed, never improve. (Most would also benefit from stroke correction!)
When swimmers enter our squad programme our minimum requirement then is to swim twice a week, but by the time swimmers reach 10-11 years old they should increase this to 3 times, 11-12 years to 4 times and continue increasing sessions as the swimmer ages up.
For true mastery, swimming takes
- The skill of a gymnast
- The grace of a ballet dancer
- The strength of a rower
- The control of Tai Chi
- The mindfulness and self awareness of Yoga
- The balance of an ice skater
- The precision of a Swiss clock
- The coordination of a juggler
- The tempo of a conductor
No wonder coaches like their swimmers to swim more, not less!
“That’s Not It”
By John Leonard
President of the American Swimming Coaches Association.
Last week a mum came to us and ‘informed us’ that her 13 year old daughter would be gone for two weeks vacation in late June, maybe another week after that. Her daughter was not much of an age group swimmer, but she has some endurance capacity and comes regularly to workout at 5.30am and again at 5.30pm daily. She works hard, demonstrates a little talent, but lots of determination.
Her mother is not athletic and clearly does not value athletics. We expressed our dismay that she’d be missing 2-3 weeks in the middle of the most important training of the summer. Her mother’s response?
“Who cares, she’ll never be an Olympic swimmer, so what does it matter really?”
This is the dagger in the heart to any swimming coach, and it is to me.
If we only cared about and worked hard with, those 52 people who will eventually, once every four years, go off to the Olympic Games, it would be a small, empty and meaningless sport.
My response was “That’s really not it”.
What it IT?
IT is the fact that young people need to learn to dedicate themselves to something that is difficult, something that requires perseverance, guts and the daily determination to get our of bed and go out and push your body till it can’t go anymore.
Why do they need to learn this?
Because their lives are too easy, too soft, too catered for. Too many people carry them, make excuses for them, never allowing them to try to be “heroic”. Is it “heroic” to get out of bed at 5am? It is if you haven’t done it before. Is it ‘heroic” to ‘make’ a really punishing training set? IT is if you haven’t done it before. Is it heroic to finish your swim and turn around and cheer for your teammate who is even further behind than you are, and is struggling to make the set? Need I say it? It is if you’ve never done it before.
And that is what IT is about. About doing what you haven’t done before. And learning that sometimes you succeed. Sometimes you fail. If you fail, you go again till you learn to succeed.
It’s not about being an Olympian. It’s about being Olympian. Learning to be a hero.
And what it takes to learn that.
Or, you can Be Comfortable and teach your child that its more important to be Comfortable.
So if that’s your choice, I only have one question.
What will happen to your child on the day they are made ‘uncomfortable’ by life?
By John Leonard
President of the American Swimming Coaches Association.
Last week a mum came to us and ‘informed us’ that her 13 year old daughter would be gone for two weeks vacation in late June, maybe another week after that. Her daughter was not much of an age group swimmer, but she has some endurance capacity and comes regularly to workout at 5.30am and again at 5.30pm daily. She works hard, demonstrates a little talent, but lots of determination.
Her mother is not athletic and clearly does not value athletics. We expressed our dismay that she’d be missing 2-3 weeks in the middle of the most important training of the summer. Her mother’s response?
“Who cares, she’ll never be an Olympic swimmer, so what does it matter really?”
This is the dagger in the heart to any swimming coach, and it is to me.
If we only cared about and worked hard with, those 52 people who will eventually, once every four years, go off to the Olympic Games, it would be a small, empty and meaningless sport.
My response was “That’s really not it”.
What it IT?
IT is the fact that young people need to learn to dedicate themselves to something that is difficult, something that requires perseverance, guts and the daily determination to get our of bed and go out and push your body till it can’t go anymore.
Why do they need to learn this?
Because their lives are too easy, too soft, too catered for. Too many people carry them, make excuses for them, never allowing them to try to be “heroic”. Is it “heroic” to get out of bed at 5am? It is if you haven’t done it before. Is it ‘heroic” to ‘make’ a really punishing training set? IT is if you haven’t done it before. Is it heroic to finish your swim and turn around and cheer for your teammate who is even further behind than you are, and is struggling to make the set? Need I say it? It is if you’ve never done it before.
And that is what IT is about. About doing what you haven’t done before. And learning that sometimes you succeed. Sometimes you fail. If you fail, you go again till you learn to succeed.
It’s not about being an Olympian. It’s about being Olympian. Learning to be a hero.
And what it takes to learn that.
Or, you can Be Comfortable and teach your child that its more important to be Comfortable.
So if that’s your choice, I only have one question.
What will happen to your child on the day they are made ‘uncomfortable’ by life?
Swimming for Parents is a vital resource for all swimming parents. |
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