Last Updated on August 6, 2024 by admin
In this article, we will provide advice, hacks and tips on the special considerations that should be given when coaching age group swimmers.
A child’s growth and development
Between the approximate ages of 2 to 10 years, most children will grow and develop consistently.
- As most children start puberty, somewhere between the approximate ages of 9 and 15 years, they undergo a significant growth and development spurt.
What are age group swimmers?
Although the age guide for age group swimmers can vary from country to country, in the UK it is typically from the ages of 9 to 14 years.
- During this period in a swimmer’s life, they undergo significant physical, technical and psychological development.
- Therefore, special consideration should be given to younger age group swimmers (pre-puberty) and young teens (puberty)
Younger age group swimmers (pre-puberty)
Typically – boys aged 9 to12 years and girls aged 8 to 11 years
Please note: Girls tend to mature quicker than boys.
For younger age group swimmers, the following considerations should be observed
Physical changes
- During this period many swimmers will experience a significant growth spurt
- With some beginning puberty.
- Late developers/late bloomers will stay longer in this group,
- This may cause them to become frustrated and/or demotivated.
- As they find themselves trailing the more mature, faster and stronger swimmers,
- Who quite often do not have a great stroke technique.
- During this period coaches should encourage late developers,
- Highlighting that their late development allows them the opportunity to improve their technical ability even further.
Training considerations
- When coaching age group swimmers during this period the training programme should have an individual medley base,
- With the 200m Individual Medley being the major training and competition event.
- This can provide several significant benefits, including,
- The acquisition of a broad range of strokes and competitive techniques, including starts, turns and finishes.
- It can help to develop a base endurance
- The individual medley can also help to develop overall muscular conditioning and flexibility.
- It can also add variety and an extra stimulus during training.
- The rotation of the competitive strokes can help prevent overuse injuries such as swimmer’s shoulder
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- The individual medley can also delay early stroke specialisation.
- Allowing the swimmer to develop a good all-round stroke technique
- The training programme should also contain the following
- Mixed and single-stroke work
- Freestyle distance sets, starting at 800m
- Quality kick sets
- Younger age group swimmers should also start to learn how to race
- Many coaches introduce negative split sets into their training programme.
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- Some coaches introduce relay races to ensure training is carried out at a race pace.
- Which they often refer to as fun with a purpose.
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- The training programme should also include introductions to the following,
- Competitive warm-ups (including pre-pool warm-ups) and cool-downs
- Understanding the benefits of good hydration and nutrition
- The importance of recovery, rest, relaxation and sleep
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Other considerations
- Swimmers in this group should start to take responsibility for aspects of their training, for example,
- Packing their kit for training or taking the responsibility for getting their parents up for morning training
- They should also start to develop psychological techniques to be able to cope with the pressures of competition or when inevitably things don’t go as well as planned.
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Young teenage swimmers (puberty)
Typically – boys aged 12 to 16 years and girls aged 11 to 15 years
Physical changes
All swimmers during this period should significantly develop their strength, particularly their skeletal and muscle mass.
- This can result in swimmers sometimes experiencing muscle pains.
- Therefore, they must maintain their flexibility and mobility
- To help alleviate the situation, the coach may need to reduce the swimmer’s workload.
- They may also need to introduce more recovery sets both in the water and as a part of their land training programme
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Training considerations
When coaching age group swimmers during this period the training programme should continue to have an individual medley base,
- With an increase and focus on aerobic training
- While continuing to maintain and develop their stroke technique and competitive skills
- With the 400m individual medley now being the major training and competition event.
Other considerations
Swimmers during this period will begin to develop psychologically.
- With an increase in the ability to problem-solve and think logically
The importance of nutrition
To help support a child’s growth and development, they should be provided with a wide range of ever-increasing healthy nutrition.
- Ideally, swimmers should get into the habit of eating healthily from an early age.
- The necessity to increase their nutritional intake most often occurs during the growth spurt at the beginning of puberty
- However, it’s common for the required nutritional intake to differ for each child.
Diet
A poor diet often affects a swimmer’s ability to focus and concentrate, both in the water and at school.
- A poor diet can also make a child more vulnerable to sickness and disease.
- The key to a day of good nutrition is breakfast.
- This should be packed with a range of good healthy foods to help energise and sustain them throughout the first part of their day.
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Coaching Age Group Swimmers: Takeaways
In this article, we will provide advice, hacks and tips on the special considerations that should be given when coaching age group swimmers.
Although the age guide for age group swimmers can vary from country to country, in the UK is typically from 9 to 14 years.
- During this period in a swimmer’s life, they undergo significant physical, technical and psychological l development.
- Therefore, special consideration should be given to younger age group swimmers (pre-puberty) and young teens (puberty)
Swimming Publications
EatSleepSwimCoach produces a growing range of publications on a wide-range of swimming subjects.
- These include competitive swimming drill publications for backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle.
- Which are now available in both Amazon Kindle and paperback formats.
For information regarding our portfolio please follow the Swimming publications link on our website https://eatsleepswimcoach.com/publications/
Recommended swimming equipment
We have provided a recommended swimming equipment page.
- It contains the swimming equipment that we and our swimmers use and recommend.
- You can access this page by clicking on the following link: recommended swimming equipment.
The Competitive Swimming Exchange – Facebook Group
We are members of the Competitive Swimming Exchange.
- This is a competitive swimming Facebook group to help exchange ideas and information to collectively improve the sport we love.
- It’s an international group for all swimmers, coaches, teachers, masters, triathletes and swimming parents. It’s for all those who are interested in competitive swimming, either in the pool or in open water
For more information about joining this group please use the following link: The Competitive Swimming Exchange