Poolside Chat - parents of competitive swimmers continued

[Glittertwins]

Getting a bit close to the end of the previous one!

Interesting I didn't know it was so inaccurate. Our club runs a lot of LC meets so it'll be interesting to see differences between her times at those and times in SC meets this year. So much to learn for non swimming parents ! Although I'm just delighted she has a hobby that she enjoys so much and she has made lovely friends

We have the same glitter

Phase 1 is a lot of aerobic and lactate work and it's hard work.

Phase 2 mixes aerobic, lactate and some starts turns. They also do race pace and speed work. They also do a lot of back end speed work during this time.

Phase 3 focuses a lot on race pace and speed and technique, starts and turns. They do odd aerobic set and odd lactate, VO2.

Our distance swimmers, sprinters and form stroke swimmers are often split for a good 75% of the sessions too.

Mine is better SC than LC - really works her turns and underwaters.

Currently doesn't have LC training sessions at all but still manages to pull decent LC times when required but when we look at conversions, her SC times are definitely better.

However our NGB, like GB Swimming will only pick international teams using LC times (even for SC competitions 🤷🏻‍♀️)

Short course to LC conversion is total lottery. Dd1 has just missed regionals this year but is a a real all rounder. One of the odd things is it also depends on the stroke! This is partly the swimmer themselves (breaststroke she is way better SC but it probably is her weakest stroke) but sometimes it’s across the board. With backstroke the difference seems significant but she tends to be higher placed in comparison to others LC. 50 free she has a faster real LC time than short course. Fly time is currently faster on conversion.

She needs to specialise more in the next 12 months, she is just too old now to swim all these events and practise them enough to get the regional times. But we have a team gala next week where based on who can go she’ll be on breaststroke…..

@Teateaandmoretea how old is your DD? Just wondering at what age they start to specialise? My DD seems to be substantially better at breast and longer distance free than the other strokes but having said that both her back and fly have improved loads in the last 6-8 months. But at her age I would imagine it's still all to play for!

I don’t thing the number of counties within a region is hugely different although the geographical spread for South East is far bigger than East for example. South East does have some of biggest clubs and well established - Wycombe and Portsmouth.
Having looked at other region’s times whilst trying to work out summer champs possibilities, SE qual times are slower than East’s for DS favoured events

She’s 14. I think it would have all been clearer earlier without her losing the years to Covid. It’s so much easier for the ones with obvious strengths it really is.

Our club doesn't encourage specialism until 15/16 and for some later.

It's usually about the age they stop being so able to compete 5 events in a session and keep holding pb pace or better! Or they stop improving on a stroke compared to another.
We do tend to specialise distance swimmers at an earlier age. (This is purely by observation and coaches meetings and piecing info together!)

Yes SE has lots of large clubs and some very strong clubs! It's what makes our regionals so interesting because they all tend to be in different counties!

I also find it quite interesting how qualifying times vary region to region and also how different each county and regional runs their competitions. Makes it even more exciting at nationals!

DS luckily started growing after covid so we don’t think he was too affected. He grew as the training intensified but girls generally develop earlier and therefore would have lost out in that.

@itsgettingweird but no one else of her age including at the local city of club swims all the strokes at all distances.

It really isn’t working for her as there is too much to think about, it’s too overwhelming. She’s been massively struggling to swim 200s which she needs to do to get faster for sure.

DD also find the whole consideration times thing a bit daunting. As the slowest time accepted in most events this year (in 11-12 anyway) seemed to be a lot faster than the consideration time!

Is there any possibility that you only enter her in events she wants to do rather than all of them? We did start being a little selective on our entries and does the less favoured events at meets when he doesn’t do the others

I don’t enter her in everything every time and obviously ask her. It’s more about the prep and her getting her head in gear. If you end up with a weird mix it’s hard.

We’re going to go with different strokes at different meets plus 50’s as they come up. She needs to prioritise free and back though for sure.

It’s weird because if she was actually bad at the other 2 no one would question it.

See how she gets on with that then 🙂

Yeah you’d hope that, wouldn’t you? This guy (Level 3 so should have known what he was doing) was just all long slogging sets and no technique work. There was an exodus to the other club, which resulted in a couple of Commonwealth selections.

They don't necessarily do them all in one competition! Our coaches have heavy input into what swimmers swim at comps and will possibly put in 2 200's in a day and something else (like a few 50's or a 100). And then next time do an 800 and a few 100's.

Stroke wise they'll train free and a second stroke (no 1) on some sets and other sets will be form stroke.

Our 15yo girls are just starting to specialise now over stroke as well as distance but some are still trying to work out what their best stroke and distance is. Generally they train as distance swimmers if that's their specialist distance from a younger age.

I don't think there's any hard and fast rule about the age this happens. I just know our coaches say if they specialise too soon (some try and only swim their fave strike from 11/12!) they miss out on discovering that another stroke may be better for them as they grow and develop.

That's why we have sets where we have distance, mid distance and sprinters. Because the training is all different.

At ds club he started at they had 1 squad stream and were allowed to specialise earlier and all of the squad did the same sets.

I couldn't tell you if one approach is better than the other or advise as I'm not a coach! All I have is the information about what ds club do and why they say they do it.

Whenever ds says to me "should I......?" About anything swimming related I always reply "ask one of your coaches!" 🤣

They have changed the way they do entries in SE this year as well as our county doing the same.

You use to have automatic times, consideration times and accepted number of swimmers.

Now it's just consideration (and slower times than previously from what I'm told) but equally the same number of accepted entries as previously.

An L3 certainly should know that!!!

@Glittertwins yeah but they don’t have times on 12 month rankings so some events they aren’t swimming at all is what I mean.

We don’t do distance so that is a cross as she doesn’t like it.

Having thought about it for a few minutes specialisation is surely gradual. Only swimming 4 events for example is proper specialisation. Also girls plateau earlier than boys because of earlier puberty. The other girls are definitely further down the line.

In correct tagging there sorry 🤦🏻‍♀️

Yes from what I've observed it's gradual. More like a natural progression as they get stronger at some things and stall at others and as you say the effects of puberty settle down.

My ds is really only a freestyler. Mainly 100m but still always competes in 50 and 400. And chucks a bit of 100m fly and back in when necessary!

And currently he's mainly focussing on 100m free because that's his stroke he needs for summer!

DS was anything but breaststroke. He'll swim them all now bar that and IMs but will pick and choose event and meet

My ds is certainly not a breastroker! His legs just won't allow it and so doesn't do IM either.

That only leaves the 3 freestyles and 100 back/fly 🤷‍♀️🤣

My DS also hated breaststroke - but by age 15 / 16 found he was quite good at it so you never know. He was sticking to 50s and 100s only at that point.

I think his coach would drop dead of shock if he did turn out to be good at it, the talent is certainly very well hidden right now!!