Poolside-Chat-parents-of-competitive-swimmers

[Glittertwins]

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

Hope he goes off to training with a bit more added bounce @Hellocatshome !

That's brilliant hello. Resilience is a brilliant skill to have.

I’m glad he’s feeling a bit better. It definitely affects things for boys whether they hit their growth spurts and puberty earlier or later. My eldest swam in the 14s at this year’s counties and it was noticeable that the finals were full of 6 footers who looked like men, whereas at barely 13 he was smaller and less developed. I could see in the 13s and to a slightly lesser extent the 12s that the bigger and more muscular ones were mainly the ones doing well. It is hard but things should even up again once they have all been through puberty.

My eldest has had a really difficult year with swimming, through a combination of knee problems and seeing others grow and pull ahead of him that he used to be faster than. Having had the first few races this season I think (touch wood!) he has finally turned a corner, improving times that have been plateaued for the best part of a year and finding his motivation in training again. I’m hoping it continues! He has grown a lot and definitely hit puberty now at nearly 14, but should still get a few inches taller yet.

I’m sure if your son can keep going through the harder patches, he will grow and catch up to the others again.

Hi everyone, I am fairly new to this thread and wondered if I can ask a question of experienced swim parents - I asked a question once before about something else, and you were very helpful. My DD is 12 and has asked for a racing swimsuit for Christmas. Currently she has the type of costume which has got the long shorts which I bought from amazon. At her training sessions she is now the only girl with the long shorts type costume and all the others have costumes which are more traditional style. Where do you all get your DDs swimwear from? I have seen some costumes at pop up stalls at races and the costumes there can go very expensive over a hundred pounds so don't want to get it wrong. Thanks for any advice

Hi @Bananabrain99 I have a swim son but from what I've seen at training most of our girls wear Funkita or Amanzi type traditional costumes for training. The brighter colours the better seemingly. They then wear the swim skins with the long legs for races, usually Arena or Speedo. I recommend Swim Equipment UK on Facebook for picking up barely worn swim costumes at a fraction of the price. All DSs racing jammers are from there as I won't pay new prices.

Have a look at pro swimwear.

Agree above about styles.

I find Proswimwear quite expensive compared to mailsports or Allen's of Kingsbury. The other two also have free delivery and if you are south east, mailsports have a retail unit you can go to and try things on. Obviously it depends who has what in stock but I've found Mailsports will sell you what is needed, not necessarily the most expensive suit going.

Arena also do a good entry range, around the £60 mark. At 12, nothing more is really necessary

Thanks for the advice, I will looks at the sites you suggest and she can pick something brightly coloured so I can pick her out when racing

And if she's only 12, she'll still fit in the children's range. Just watch out for the style or colour changes between adult and child sizing. Amanzi so am amazing colour but it's only adult size so I got DD a different colour (she did like it, promise!!) which was 20% cheaper due to no VAT on child sizing.

@Bananabrain99 I’d go onto pro swimwear and look at what’s in the sale with her. The girls wear a variety of brands for training suits. My daughter is 13 and has a dolphin one and a funkita. The beauty is that the smallest ladies sizes are always on sale - measure her and then order accordingly. My daughters dolphin one was 23 quid for example. I previously managed to buy a TYR one when she was a bit smaller (12) for 14 quid. Sadly she outgrew it.

Most of the girls have arena race suits. I struggled with the fit on my daughter so she’s got a speedo that was reduced and is still a child’s. At 12 she’d be unlikely to fit into a child’s arena unless she’s very small so you’ll have to look at the ladies.

Her second one is actually an amanzi 🤣 doh. One of the tie back ones. They are great they fit as they touch.

Hi - are you looking for a race suit or training suit?

Race suits are expensive and have legs and the very expensive ones (£300 upwards) are compressive (v tight).

Most of the major brands Arena, Speedo, Finis, Tyr, Jaked all do entry level race suits (around £100 - £130 but may be able to get for £70 in sale)

Training suits - just the regular suits for training and usually the older girls don't like leg-suit style. Popular styles are the solid coloured tie backs (Amanzi, Jolyn), but Arena, Funkita are also v popular - £30 - £45 per suit but cheaper in sale.

Echo what the others say about womens sizes versus girls. If your child is on the smaller side, you may be able to get away with child sizes which are cheaper.

For a 12 year old, I think I would go for an Arena Powerskin ST 2. A child doesn't need much compression (and they are less likely to trash the thing trying to get it on and off). If you just want a legsuit get a Speedo Junior Endurance+ Fastskin (contrast coloured leg) for under £50. We had a TYR cheapo racesuit too that lasted quite well.
Go for an openback design (closed backs are designed for backstrokers).

DD is 15 now, but I've tended to alternate between Proswimwear and Simply Swim. GB Swimwwear are good for Funkita (and they have a useful chart explaining the difference in body length/sizing between girls and womens' in that brand).

We USED to have a company that turned up to open meets with a swim shop of reasonably priced kit and the glorious £5/£10 bargain bin of training suits. Those were the days!

This has just reminded me that pretty much all of the young swimmers (my daughter included) go through a phase of turning up to training in a legsuit. They switch back by the time they are 12 ish. After that the costumes get progressively skimpier in many cases!

In terms of brands of training suit, I was underwhelmed by Zoggs, Speedo and Adidas for longevity.

My DD is not huge and has only just grown out of the basic arena race suit. The sizing on the box makes no sense, they need to be tried on

DS’s cohort of girls used to train in Dolfin Uglies suits - they are lined / double layer so fine for training but can’t be used in competition. I have one too and find it really comfortable.

I’d suggest taking a look at the Speedo Junior Fastskin Endurance race suits at this age:

www.allensswimwear.co.uk/kids/racing/kneesuits

For longevity in training suits, the Australian brands - Amanzi and Funkita do really well.

No stretching and no crusting (where the bands and stretchy bits go a bit strange) after a few weeks unworn in the summer.

DS’s LZR jammers were a 24 - looking at them now (still have them) I can’t believe how he ever managed to fit into them. It did take about 20 minutes to ease them on.

His current LZR jammers are a 24! He's not very big.

I have boys rather than girls, but as a starting point, as the others have said the Speedo Fastskin is a good introductory one that is more affordable. Mine have both also had the Speedo Junior LZR X as first proper racewear, my eldest has just moved on to more expensive ones at almost 14. From seeing the kids at open meets the Arena Powerskin ST 2.0 is also very popular with younger ones.

Generally racewear should be tight so ignore ages on the junior ranges as depending on their build they may need a much smaller size than the age suggests!

Allens are really good, they also deliver very fast. If you can get somewhere to try on it would probably be helpful if you’re not sure on sizes, and from what others say it is a bit harder with girls too to get the fit right (as boys don’t have to worry about upper body!)

DS was about 15 I think? Must have been 5’10” or so but fairly lean as they hadn’t started doing weights at that point - his training trunks were 30” waist.

Now he’s got legs like tree trunks 🤣

I can't immediately find the (simpleish) chart of racesuit sizing I used when sizing DD, but this might be worth a look:
swimcompetitive.com/tech-suits/tech-suit-size-chart-guide/

At the bottom of the article you will see another link to under 13 suits. I think it is just the US and Scotland(?) that are banning ££ compression suits for the youngsters.

Swim England have not banned racing suits for u14s.
Full compression suits are not necessary for pre-pubescent swimmers either. Yes, they can be bought but are expensive for zero benefit as their bodies simply aren't developed enough for them.

I think we have a Powerskin Pro 2.0 that would fit a slim, relatively short bodied girl.