Swimming - how much is too much?

[SeriouslyAnnie]

My son, who is nearly 11 has been swimming with a club for 2 years, he loves swimming and is really happy with the club.

It's a small friendly club and he currently does the maximum amount of sessions which add up to 5 hours a week.
He's doing quite well and has multiple county times, however his heart is set on regionals. He has asked to join another club which is far more competitive, and the squad they'd like him to join would require him to be swimming 11 hours a week, including 2 mornings before school and land training.
I know many children do this, it just seems an awful lot for a 10yr old.
Is it really worth it just to knock off a few seconds to get the times he wants? I'm worried he will stop enjoying it.
How do children cope with such intense swim training?

Hi OP, I have a 12 year old DD (Y7) who trains similar amount to your son. She's no where near as good but loves her swimming, we often lose the will to live sitting poolside gala after gala, so I can empathise with you!

My personal opinion is if he loves it and you are prepared to keep supporting him to develop, move him now, not at Y7. DD started senior and new club (very competitive one) in Sept, and it takes a big adjustment, given the extra homework, commute, school etc etc. Mine currently does 10 hours on top of other stuff like music, hockey etc. This is not the top rank squad but one we negotiated, given her other interests (and not at regional level). But she has to keep up the sessions of 4/5 x or lose her place.

Advise from chalet is spot on, as many children do develop later, and we are watching carefully the tiredness/homework on time factor. Having made the move, she's starting to benefit from the club's training, but is not a natural like your son. Body changes will also effect form (and impact on motivation) and we are hitting that now as she is playing catch up on ability vs her new peers.

However, one if the biggest benefits is the wider friendship groups formed. May not be a consideration for you now, but her extra curricular stuff always gives her more genuine, longer term friendships than school alone, and being on the swim circuit for a while has created a camaraderie (boys and girls, across all local clubs) that we really value, especially given today's challenging social media world that children have to navigate in!

Yes, it's tiring, but the longer I can keep her away from the small screen and socialise amongst real kids (whilst keeping fit with a healthy body self-image), the better. Not once has a boy commented on her appearance at the pool, unlike at school. I know which ones I'd rather she hangs out with...who will hopefully continue to be the gents they are now!

My main worry would be that he would start to resent the amount of time that is taken up by swimming. At this stage however, he has asked to do it and wants to do it so I think on balance, I'd allow it. But only following a full discussion about continually making sure it is the right choice for him etc.

You say that he is smaller than his peers and although swimming is not my sport so I don't know exactly but will this limit him - are the faster kids getting the regional times because they are bigger and stronger with flipper feet? Rather than because they are training more?

I'm guessing you have a heavy month of galas to get him into the qualifying time zones for county/regional times before the deadline closes?

Otherwise squirrelledAway has a point that every weekend is a little excessive...

Swimming's a weird one Bubbletree4. I am no expert either, but am continuously amazed at how the most unlikely body shapes (slight, tiny for example) can be such phenomenal swimmers! OP's boy is hitting multiple county times which is good going but times are grouped for 10/11 yrs and separate out for 12 (and get tougher)!

So more training may be needed...just how much is the question to reach optimum vs age!

In my experience, lighter less muscular swimmers tend to do better at distance events, and the bigger more heavily swimmers do well at sprints (at least the younger swimmers are getting more of a shot at doing sprints these days).

Not sure how the ASA county / regional events do their age groups for meet entries, in Scotland for bigger meets it's age on 31st December, which is great if you have a January / February birthday and rubbish if you're late in the year - especially for boys up to about age 16 or 17 when puberty hits at vastly different times and you can have slightly built nearly 16 yr olds swimming against huge nearly 17 year olds.

UK rules changed to same as Scotland's last year Squirrelled. So bored with the 'it's so unfair argument from my DD how is always nearly there until age changes.

Another few added values beyond performance alone: resilience, learning from failure, perseverance...I could go on

DS always had his birthday about 2 weeks before Nationals, so the change to age at 31st Dec benefitted him (until he hit the Open age groups).

But, for younger swimmers with age on the day there are always a couple of big meets where you're at the top of the tree regardless of when your birthday is. We have a couple of swimmers with birthdays in the last week of December and it does make a big difference, so I am firmly in the It's Not Very Fair camp, especially as it applies to most of our District events.

Thanks for all the advice,

I am thinking more long term, but my son is only considering what he wants right now.

I hadn't even thought about the change when he starts yr 7 so I definitely think it's a good idea to start sooner and settle him in slowly.

At the moment the club is very keen for him to join, I don't think he would be asked to leave if he didn't get the times, he would just be moved down a squad.

Luckily his birthday is very early in the year, so is one of the oldest in his age groups, however he'll still probably be one of the smallest. Some of the boys his age who are always beating him look about 2/3 years older, they are much bigger.

We do have a lot of competitions this month, he is only doing the 3 events he's not qualified in to try and get the times before the deadline, and then his best events. He wants to beat his times and get closer to the regional times he wants for next year! And of course get a few medals while he can. There is nothing after November until the county events next year. It's certainly not like that every month.

Good luck OP with this month - at least his birthday falls on the right side of Dec to maximise his chances, irrespective of his physique. Sounds like it makes him more determined.

My final thoughts on his progress is that it really is not the end of the world if in a few years, he's either reached his peak, learned that it's too much hard work/develops other interests and so forth in senior school. What he has demonstrated is the ability to drive himself to achieve, and this generally translates to other sports/activities he may turn his hand to (and hopefully studies too!). Unless he truly has aspirations to progress as an elite swimmer at the highest level, then he will decide if other interests are worthy of his time and pull back on the training.

10 is very early to put all eggs into one basket, which is why lots of children do burn out in pre/early teens in swimming - so pacing himself with the right level now (what ever you decide that is) whilst meeting his goals with his current levels of motivation seems a good plan. Even if he's smaller than his peers, he seems to be holding his own so let that develop too...he sounds like a very determined young man!

A bigger club should in theory, translate to better coaching and a good handle of the cycles of a developing swimmer. We miss our small club also but cannot fault the enhanced support my daughter currently gets from her new club. However, they won't always appreciate your son's day to day tiredness thresholds - if a session is too much for what ever reason, pull him out for that one until he's back on form.

I'm not convinced that a bigger club necessary leads to better coaching - smaller squads will give coaches more time to focus on individual swimmers and work on technique, and large squads are often there to (financially) support the one or two outstanding swimmers and training cycles are put in place to develop those swimmers rather than the squad as a whole.

When DS stepped down from a large squad and training 18 hours a week to a small squad training 6 hours a week he reckons he got more technique coaching in a month than he had in the previous couple of years, and it showed in his times. His recovery times improved and he stopped picking up injuries. Sometimes small is good.

Small is not so great when: the club does cannot secure the right pool times at a decent cost; when coach to swimmer ratio is poor, when the club does not have the ability to offer judges, helpers, time keepers etc, when coach/es are off & there is no contingency (so session is cancelled), when sponsorship support is low (no additional income other than subs), when the club cannot recruit at the right age groups/understand attrition and costs escalate (resulting in increased fees), when there is limited relationships with other clubs to secure gala places resulting in scratched entries, there is no video equipment/additional resources to support 121 development, no land training provision etc etc.

Of course there are great small clubs, and there are great large clubs as there are rubbish. Like schools, you cannot be generic about either...

ealing all clubs face those problems and solving a good few of them is down to how much you can engage with parents to become club volunteers and how proactive your committee is. All swimmers should have at least one parent that is a time keeper, and moving on to judge or recorder as the child/ren progress through the squads, older swimmers should be encouraged to become time keepers, parents can train as assistant coaches to provide support. Clubs without their own swim school need to build relationships with local LTS providers to attract swimmers of the right age and standard and get their names known in the local community, we advertise locally in shops and primary schools for instance. We have to work hard to get sponsorship for club kit and galas (I have written a lot of letters, made a lot of phone calls, gone knocking on doors of local businesses), and we do a lot of fundraising (bake sales, raffles, bag packing etc). It is hard work and you do need people that are willing to do it, rather than treat the club as cheap childcare.

I'm not sure how getting relationships with other clubs would prevent swimmers getting scratched from meets - surely swimmers are scratched because the meet is oversubscribed and they are too slow?

Agree Squirrelled. Unfortunately not all smaller clubs are adept at the business elements that you and I highlight. And if a club does not state some of these conditions in their T&Cs (and enforce them) then the club fails on sustaining its objectives.

I wish the latter were not true, but sadly is by our experience. It's not been the seed times, but the lack of relationship building that has resulted in scratches from a number of key gala hosts (resulting in top swimmers leaving). Subtly enforced, but nevertheless an issue for the type of club that does not see building relationships with your LAs, schools and neighbouring clubs as critical to a club's longer term viability.

Sorry OP - off topic a little but more insight for those when considering clubs vs your child's performance alone. Voluntary parental involvement is a key component to a club's success too.

May I ask what sort of times your 9 yr old children are getting for 50 m freestyle? I am moving back from overseas and wish to gauge my daughter.

I'd leave him where he is. I would feel like it's too much work all around for him to change. There would be nothing stopping changing when he is older.
Would you have to take your DD with you when he does the early starts?
We had a similar issue with DS1 who was at national level for a competitive activity at a young age. However it soon became apparent that to maintain his level he would have to practically devote all his free time to it. We walked away. He is an adult now and is still very good at it but definitely not at national level. He doesn't regret his/our decision at all. He had a normal childhood and did lots of other things. He particularly enjoyed one sport despite being very 'average' at it . In fact he still plays that sport the most.

Sometimes it's more fun to be the big fish in the little pond

sofato5miles, I've had a look at the club times of the 9yr old girls at my DD's recent gala - the times range between 32 and 41 secs for 50M free. Most were 35 secs plus. There may be those that are faster, that did not qualify for this particular meet due to being too fast...

Hope this helps as a gauge, hopefully others may give you indicative times from their respective clubs!

Thanks, I don't know much about other clubs, but our small club work very hard on technique, while the more competitive club focus more on strength and stamina.
The club he is currently with has lots of technically good swimmers and fantastic coaches, they just do not have the pool time or as many coaches that the more competitive club can offer.

I wouldn't need to take Dd to early morning sessions no. I wouldn't be prepared to do that.

At the last meet we went to, the 9yr girls times for 50 free ranged from 34 to 50 seconds.

ealing swimmers shouldn't be scratched unless the meet is oversubscribed and they are too slow - to do it any other way is biased and unfair, and blatantly obvious when you see the draft programme. No gala hosts that I know of would do that up here, you wouldn't get it past the referees for one thing. I'm appalled that clubs seem to think they can do that.

I don't think we have Ts and Cs as such, we have a volunteer code and a swimmer's code of conduct. Everything else is done either by the committee or lots of gentle arm twisting for extra help - usually once people know what's involved they're happy to do their bit (obviously, every club has the odd exception to this). We do insist on a poolside parent helper rota (necessary to meet our self-lifeguarding requirements), but parents only need to cover one or two sessions a term so it's hardly onerous. We do have to insist on parents becoming officials though, once kids start swimming at District meets the club is fined if we don't provide our quota of officials.

sofa you can check the British Rankings for 9 yr old girls times for the last 12 months - the fastest is 32.51 short course (which is incredibly fast, but she was a week off turning 10), there are 10 in the last 12 months faster than 35 seconds (age as at 1/11/15). Most will be in the 38 to 55 seconds range.

Thank youeast and squirrelled. She only swims 3 hours a week at the mo but loves it. She's been getting between 39 and 41 so looks like she should keep it up.

this may not exactly answer your question but a close friend at uni was a top swimmer in his country in his teens, practicing before school every day. He suffered a few undetected ear infections and was almost deaf on one ear starting in his teens. He dropped swimming despite being 2nd in his country around 15 or 16 (for other reasons, because it was too much and killed his social life). We don't know for sure the ear infections were related but he told me another boy from his club also had hearing problems later, which seemed suspicious.

I'd try to think long term... if he absolutely loves it and can't imagine any other life than that of a swimmer, go for it, but most likely, he'll end up doing something else with his life and then the question is if it was worth it. That said, I think 10 hours per week or two mornings before school still sounds okay, once it becomes every morning before school I think that's a level where most kids will end up dropping out unless they are super committed...

To be honest there is little point in worrying about it too much because the ultimate choice is your child's.
My DD is just 13 and swims 12 hours a week. She is not in the top squad but has 12 county times and 2 regional already so being in the 'best' squad is less important than how you train.
She wants to. She's first at the pool every morning. She fits in her homework, watching little tv and is totally committed.
As it stands, great. If next year she wants to give up - her choice
If she wants to change her hours - her choice, she can drop down a squad.
If her school work suffers we stop her training (although that hasn't happened yet)

If a child wants to do it then I'd support them.mif they don't let them stop.

The only other thing - galas every weekend is preposterous and stupid. Pick about one a month.

Everything caprini said. However I don't have experience on the impact on siblings re time taken/logistics etc.

Dd swims twice a week and swam 38.9 at a recent competition, she's 10 in March.

This is so interesting. DD1 has been swimming with a small club for about a year. That is a serious amount of training that some of your children do.

I heard Rebecca Adlington interviewed a while ago and she remembers her mother breaking down in tears in the car because of the travelling to the pool to train! But it was worth it for Mrs Adlington, wasn't it?!

Sofato50miles, DD1 is 9 and a couple of months, swims 2-3 times a week for 1-2 hours and she does 50m free in 46 seconds. She's only done one local, junior sprint gala but she was about 8th in her age group.