"Why
Didn’t I Swim As Fast As My Teammates?"
-and-
"How Can He/She Swim Fast Because They Never Work As Hard As I DO?"
I have been hearing these two comments at meets ever since I have been involved in competitive swimming, both as a competitor many years ago and now as a coach and parent of swimmers. In fact, I am sure that I have asked the same questions of my coach and parents. I do not hear it so much from the younger more novice swimmers, sometimes I hear it from the parents of the younger swimmers, but most of the time it comes from the more experienced athletes and their parents.
Well, first things first! I would like to answer the first question of why was my performance not as good as my fellow teammate. Several items come to mind: a) Has my attendance been average or above? b) Have I been healthy lately? c) How has my effort been in practice? d) Have I been able to make the stroke corrections that my coach has asked me to do? e) Finally, have I done everything in my power to make sure that I might experience the most positive outcome both physically and mentally? I could probably come up with several more, but the bottom line is that the majority of the time the answer to the questions lies in what the athlete has been doing leading up to the competition and has very little to do with the day of competition. If you could not answer a positive yes to most of the questions above, then it might not be very realistic to expect the most positive of outcomes even at the younger age groups.
I have asked myself the above questions over the last twenty years of coaching. I would say that I can justify almost any outcome based on the 5-6 questions that I asked earlier, but there have been times when I had no real explanation for above average performances from individuals who would appear to have not worked that hard. However, I have tried for many years to think of possible solutions or reasons that might justify such outcomes. I have no scientific evidence to support my findings, but it would appear that several factors are evident in all cases.
In conclusion, this idea can be summarized as follows: Young, novice swimmers will continue to improve at a tremendous rate because of skill development. This may continue for several years depending on how athletic he/she is and their level of maturity. As the athlete continues in the sport, the chances are greater that each athlete will encounter some "staleness" or "plateau." Why? Because once the skills are learned, then for further improvement, the athletes ( around 12 for girls and 14 for boys) will depend on implementation of the skills learned and putting them to extensive and consistent training for an extended time period. For example, what once was easy to knock 20 seconds off a 200 IM now becomes a drop of a couple of seconds or less. Why? I think it is how the sport has evolved. Athletes are getting better coaching at an earlier age than they once did, so improvement can be quite rapid, but when others begin to catch up physically, then those most talented begin to question their "love for the sport." I see it each year, less and less athletes really training at their maximum and committing less to the sport when in fact that is exactly when they need to train their hardest because it will return and be even better. Notice how old our average athlete was at this year’s Olympics ( Women average 24 yrs old/ Men 26 yrs.). I would be surprised to learn that many of our great Olympians from this past Olympics were able to get by just on their talent alone.
The benefits from swimming are countless - - from learning complicated skills, to time management, to working on math skills, to learning great communication and social skills that isn’t seen in a lot of other sports. Keep it fun for yourself and your athlete! Every athlete should someday begin to reap the benefits from their labor as long as they continue with proper mechanics and take their swimming in slower progressions until their body catches up to their skill level, and then amazing things can really begin to happen!
Kevin Weldon
Head Coach, Dayton Raiders