Poolside-Chat-parents-of-competitive-swimmers

[Glittertwins]

Hopefully this will work as we’re at 999 on the other!

Agree. It would give so many more a chance to swim and they know swimmers aren't going to enter everything they qualify for when they qualify for 3/4 events a session!

Do any of your clubs have a large drop out of boys around 15-17yo?
We seem to be having a period where at this age the boys are struggling with managing school/college and the training because they also want parties and to work!

We are lucky we are a large city club so lots of alternative squads available to suit needs but many want to remain in national squad but only attend 2/3 of the sessions and/ or pick and choose when they come. They seem most put out that it's not allowed.

It's the general age group of 15-17 yrs here. They were the ones that missed out most due to Covid - first opportunities of regionals and nationals missed followed by disappointment of plateauing along, ending up in open age groups rather than age groups and with an interest elsewhere. We aren't a big club compared to others and we've lost a lot where we used to be very strong.

We've always struggled to retain boys after the age of about 11 or 12.

We have very good cricket, hockey, rugby clubs in the area with strong junior/youth teams.

The boys that stay tend to be the ones who have parents who are/were swimmers.

That's interesting. My ds still loves his swimming. He's 18 now. But he's finding those who have and are struggling can have an effect on atmosphere and that brings him down sometimes. Not to the point he wants to leave but just the general atmosphere of sessions.

I was not a swimmer but my dad and brother were - genetics?!

We struggled to recruit boys at younger ages - football was a big draw at primary age - but we found it was the boys that tended to persevere through the early teen years. By 15 / 16 a lot of both sexes dropped out - school work ramping up, weekend jobs, social lives all kicking in making long hours of training much less appealing.

One of the local clubs switched to a HIIT programme, which meant fast paced 1 hr training sessions 4 to 6 times a week and was very successful for the 15+ age group (one swimmer made Commonwealths).

Swimming isn't cool enough sadly

We used to run a couple of sessions a week for older / slower teens for fun and fitness. They also tended to go on to train as swim teachers which at least kept them in the sport.

We do have a squad for swimmers to do this if they choose but it's rapidly decreasing as they find other things more interesting

Yes we have squads the older swimmers can swim in.

The difficulty seems to be those that make national level and then don't want to commit to the training schedule (understandably!) but are only 16/17 so not really masters age.

They want to continue in the national squad and miss numerous sessions a week and they (and often their parents) get stroppy when told that their options are x,y and z if they cannot meet the national squad criteria for commitment.

I have no skin in the game other than listening to these parents poolside. I was just wondering if this was common and it's helpful to see what other clubs do to take ideas to committee if needed.

Ds is still very much committed but I worry about the effect of this on him although he has so far seemed quite resilient to it.

I will add they aren't going to other sports all the time but a few have switched for rugby or to focus on tri.

Should add they also don't want to switch to the fun and fitness squads because those swimmers aren't national level.

From listening it seems to be that they and their parents generally believe they've earned the right to do what they want regardless of clubs squad criteria - but it's obvious you can't do that or everyone will want to!

Is there a club handbook that details squad criteria?

Or do they sign an agreement annually about committing to squad requirements?

I think our swimmers sign a whole pile of documentation and policies at the start of the season including behaviour policy.

One of these documents details the squad criteria and commitment required and allows coaches to move swimmers up or down.

Oh yes there's squad criteria.

It's very clear.

Not going to lie - it's strict!

But what their issue seems to be is that it means what it says! They don't mind it or even pay too much attention to it until they don't like it.

The problem at least in our club is the fitness/come to whatever sessions you can squad is seen by the swimmers in the other squads as the dumping ground for those that couldn't make it in the other squads. It doesn't matter what they do to try and rename it/re brand it thats what they all think and so would rather not swim at all than be in that squad which is sad.

Yes - that seems to be the same here. It's very much an attitude of 'we are national swimmers. We are too good for that squad - but we don't want to train at the level required for national squad'.

Yes, I agree with this too.
But if they can't make the nationals level squad commitments, they won't be able to keep up with the training either.

It is a problem because big clubs are going to need to maintain standards in national squads. It’s not so much of a problem in smaller clubs, they can just swim in a slower lane in performance squad and limp towards masters. Covid has led to us losing quite a few older swimmers so the bottom end of the club is rammed but performance has space. It’s more of a problem if this changes and they start creating blocks.

i don’t think it’s about squads necessarily though the problem is that if you are 16 and have been training 6 times a week and now go down to 2 you get slower. They don’t like that so them dropping out has an inevitability unless they are someone who loves swimming enough to ride it out and go into masters. But they swim for different reasons, a lot of them love the racing aspect rather than the actual swimming.

It is a problem in smaller clubs as they simply don't have the pool time / space to separate off those who want to swim a a less frantic pace than the ones who are. Dropping into masters is also not great because realistically 17-18 yrs olds are not masters - I believe the youngest competing point is also 25 years and speaking as a masters swimmer (maybe being selfish here), we don't want to get drowned by non masters / want to compete and train with former squad swimmers as they are still incredibly quick.

Well it isn’t a problem for us at the moment. Masters squad is 18+ so by that age they have as much right to swim there as anyone else. The galas cater for this too although it isn’t called that till 25.

We never have masters with one lane and we also have some very quick older masters swimmers. You can also as long as it’s risk assessed have masters swimmers swimming in a performance lane if needed. Some performance swimmers are 18+ anyway.

I tend to avoid those sessions these days anyway. I was never ever as good as them

I don’t mean forcing slow masters into performance but if you had a shared session with 2 masters lanes, 1 fast master and 5 medium masters and 5 slow masters if the fast master is frustrated by the middle masters he/she could swim with performance.

The masters tend to sort themselves out and turn up with people they like to swim with anyway. The extremes of slow and fast tend to choose to go to sessions with 3 lanes.

Thanks for the good luck. It really is a waiting game isnt it!?!
Ive just seen the nationals window stated as 10 Mar - 22 May.

Wow, 22nd May is late. Must be some long running regionals. I just saw that one of our events is later in May this year than last years equivalent

I think the South West might have had to shift their final weekend, because they would normally have had the younger swimmers competing on 6th and 7th May?

Yes there is. I forget some have had to move later because of the extra BH in May. Ours has.