Poolside chat: Calling all parents of competitive swimmers!

[Marypoppins19]

I thought it might be helpful to share our highs/lows/questions/thoughts in one place. Who’s joining me!?

My daughter is only 7 so still very young I know.

She swims with the 9/10/11 year olds.

Current club is only 5 minuets away 2 soon to be 3 sessions a week. No early morning training. Not very competitive club the kids who show promise usually join a second club.!

Three big local clubs all within 20 minuets of home. One don’t take Kids until they are 9. Other two clubs take from much earlier if they see potential.

Much more commitment and time needed at Manchester aquatic and Stockport metro.

My daughter is desperate to swim more but don’t want to do to much to soon or leave it to late.

Wish I had a crystal ball!!!

If you’re happy with current club I would stay until 9 when she can compete in full galas and look at achieving county times. Big clubs will always find a place for promising swimmers. 9 is a good age to step it up as pre-secondary school and she will be able to do counties in the year she turns 10. You could go and give big club a try and see what you think and what they will expect. Probably have more kids of a similar age, which is nice.

Ooooh! Hello, I’m in!
DS is a 12 year old swimmer, we’ve spent today at a last chance gala for East Region Champs. I’m hot, tired and my feet hurt (I’m an official). So high points and dome not so high- such is swimming.
Still, he squeezed into his new hammers and didn’t pass out, so that’s all good.
Anyone else swim this weekend?

Jammers, not hammers- not sure hammers would help with the PBs!

Would love to join in, DD is 9 and has been in a club since six. Although changed last year to a much larger club. We are just outside Glasgow.

aah yes, the joy of sitting in a hot leisure centre for 8 hours, for your kid to spend a cumulative 2 mins in the water

we're at a really relaxed club and tend to stick to small local open meets. It has made me appreciate what effort proper athletes go to though and the support they must have had as even to pootle along at this level requires quite a bit of training.

the big city club near us is very competitive and the kids have a massive training schedule and they are faster but doubling the training time seems to not double the speed.

@grasspigeons we said something similar this evening. Time in the pool: 4 minutes. Time out of the house: 12 hours!

We have nothing now until regionals in a couple of weeks. Nice to have a break from galas but still in the pool at stupid o’clock this morning...

We had a free Saturday afternoon AND it was sunny! Commiserations to everybody stuck inside.

I have a bad feeling the school is going to ask DD to swim in some relays next week. That involves 2x1 hour+ drives for 2 swims lasting about 15 seconds each. All a bit of a waste of time as none of the other girls do any swim-training. I know it is all about the taking part....

"We" have our first County Development Camp next weekend; excitement all round.

Anyone's DC do anything out of the pool to help their swimming? I've been doing Yoga for Swimmers on YouTube with DD which she really struggles with, very unflexiable. Trying to find a yoga class which will take a child but no joy so far. Any one have any tips on encouraging wider fitness and flexiability?

Joining to offer/share the ups & downs of DD's swimming to date. She's 14.5 yrs, does around 13 hours a week in Nationals squad, ironically, reduced from the previous squad due to being with older swimmers who will be entering exams season, so all sessions now weighted to early mornings with 1 x evening only. Fabulous, especially for these summer months!

Turkey, it looks like your DD already does some land training? Other than supplementing it with school sports, to keep her as active and rounded as possible for now, land as well as water, as even basic ball co-ordination skills helps. Your club may not like this though (but my DD's sports physio does). There will always be potential conflict with some coaches who are old school in their approach.

Good luck to those entering their Regional meets over the coming weeks.

I'll ask at camp on Sunday as I know DD has slightly tight achilles tendons. I've made her keep up ballet as that helps with her posture and core and tendons (but I think that will have to fall away when she starts senior school).

Her club hasn't let her start land-training yet - she hasn't started that pre-teen growth spurt that some of her peers have (and many of them seem to get injured because they have been pushed too far in their various sports).

Maybe I am doing the wrong thing, but I decided that a 10 year old shouldn't just focus on swimming to the detriment of all other sports and friendship groups. Swimming has helped running and vice versa.

ealing 13 hours/week must really stretch your DD's organisation skills.

It did Mad, but thankfully years 7 & 8 we’re not overly heavy with homework, and she learned to utilise breaks/lunches, and would study after school before heading off to evening session.

If you can get them through those years with the multi tasking, the ones that have stayed in swimming around 13 plus are all in the same boat, and help each other. Especially getting their heads down with the books scattered poolside in between events

Yes nothing like homework in the cafe between swim sessions on a Gala Saturday! Swimmers tend to be very well organised teenagers. My year 9 does homework on a lunchtime in library if possible, otherwise it is just utilising spare time as much as he can. He doesn’t like the early mornings and would prefer evening swims but they’re all different. This week we will miss a morning as he is tired.

Enjoy the camp, Madcats - they are always fun and usually have good sessions for parents on how to support kids.

I’d recommend Pilates for core strength and flexibility. DS used to do TRX as his land training elements, no weights until he was 16.

Morning. Anyone else built up a sweat already this morning watching warm-ups 😓

We’re packed and ready to travel to regionals tomorrow- anyone else travelling for hours Tomorrow morning?

Regionals too - only 30 minutes away though. Good luck!

We’re you at Eastern or London Esther? It was so hot at Eastern region today. A mixture of the heat and the early start made me so sleepy.
Still a good set of swims for DS, so worth it all. Hope your DC achieved what they wanted.

We were in sunny Leeds for north east. Glad yours had a good one - makes those early starts worthwhile! Are you back today? Our last day of four... Two PBS and a final yesterday so we had a happy boy.

Yes, two more days to go. Happily, we are just there for the afternoons today and tomorrow.
DS got one final and 3 PBs (2 in the same event!) so it was a happy evening.
We are staying in a hotel for the weekend rather than do the 3 hour round trip each day, it was nice to laze in front of the tv and wake up late today. I’m now looking for a supermarket to buy pasta salad and jelly babies.

So you have BH Monday as well? We had last weekend and this weekend. Yes with that trip we would be in hotel too - last year it was in Sunderland... Good luck for today. We have a week of revision now for exams. Not much of a half term break!

We were at NERs too.

Looking forward to the summer break

I have found my people! Thank goodness!

My son is 11 and swims 5 times a week plus land-training. He loves swimming and particularly loves galas. He is on the county development pathway for 11-year-olds too.

I am finding our club a bit tricky because it’s very cliquey. I’m volunteering for lots of things and trying to work my way in.

We’ve actually had a few weeks off galas because he didn’t swim in regionals, but as of next week it’s kicking in again. And no training today because it’s bank hols so that was a bonus!

Hello! Cliquey clubs... Don't get me started ! Hope everyone had a good regionals who was there. Ours was mixed. Can't believe another season almost done. One more gala and home nations to go.