Just read an article about Early Specialization. I also read the comments for the article, and this is quite the topic. As more sports are moving to being a year round sport, I can see how more people would defend early specialization, even though the anecdotal evidence says that it may not be the best thing for young athletes.
As a professional swim coach of young athletes, it would be in my best interest to defend early specialization, but really I am torn on the subject. I do believe that 12 and unders should participate in multiple activities, but at the same time, for those kids who really do enjoy a single sport, or if the family can only afford or have time to do a single activity, then I am ok with that as well.
Parents ask me when a child should start deciding what they want to participate in. My answer is this, for 10 and under athletes a wide range of activities is fine. They may not excel at any one sport or activity due to this, but if you keep that in perspective it'll be ok. At 11 a child should narrow down the sports or activities that they enjoy the most, and begin to concentrate more on those few activities. Here is where you should see some progress towards the higher levels of the sport for their respective age. Between 12 and 13 a child should come to decision on the few things that they wish pursue. This could be two activities, and you don't have to focus on a single activity.
I give this as a generalization in terms of swimming. Other sports are going to tell you different things because there are still those sports that believe that if you aren't at a high level by 9, then you won't make it in their sport. Swimming is not this way. Staying active throughout the year and getting skill development and maintaining adaptation to the water helps build skills. At the ages around 11 or 12 the swimmer will begin to take those skills and strengthen them. They will also begin to get a little more aerobic training which will increase the repetitions of the skills previously developed. At 13 or 14 is when the aerobic training is needed and a bigger time commitment is necessary. Looking at the development you can see how I came up with the narrowing of activities by age according to the time needed to progress in swimming. This is assuming that they have been doing skill development since they were 7 or 8 years old. Joining swimming later will delay the development, as they will need to develop the skills before high repetitions, or you could develop bad habits and continue to increase the myelin sheath for that particular incorrect movement.
Now back to my thoughts on early specialization in general. I think that programs need to design themselves with early specialization child in mind. This means recognizing the appropriate skill development and physical development good for various ages. Not enough training is incorporated with child development, rather sports just see training as training, regardless of age. This is not the case, and this is where sports get in trouble and create the mental or emotional "burn out."
Developing young athletes is to prepare them for when high performance matters. We over emphasize youth sports and create national competitions of youth sports spectacles and high moments of a child's life. I like the idea of localized development with the occasional travel to get some new competition. It is as the Senior or High School level where traveling to more national like events is best suited. High School age is when the swimmer will either be ending their swimming career or showcasing themselves to be able to compete at the next level. So in the development process of a young athlete you must spend years developing skills; years strengthening and refining those skills; years developing the body physiologically; years of competitions to prepare them for what it is like in a race; and mentally preparing the athletes for the roller coaster ride that a swim career is like and the work ethic and mind set to deal with those ups and downs.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Blog Preface and what I have learned
I should have begun my blog with a preface. I think it may make some of my posts make more sense. You'll have better understanding of where I came from, and what I have learned along the way to come up with my reasons for some of my posts.
I just read an article of a talk that Teri McKeever gave at a clinic. If you don't know who Teri McKeever is; she is the Head Women's Swim Coach at Cal Berkeley having coached the likes of Natalie Coughlin and Haley Cope. She mentioned about how she felt bad for her former swimmers because she felt like she could have done more if only she knew what she knows now. We don't here coaches say this very often, so I found myself feeling bad that I felt very similar. Reading that Teri McKeever had similar feelings made me feel a lot better. It makes sense though, we are always striving to be better at what we do, and we care a great deal about our athletes, so the response to those two things should lead to the feeling of regret of what you did with former swimmers. You know you did your best at that time, but you have now become a better coach, so you know more now.
This leads me to my preface, and me willing to admit where I was wrong and have since grown as a coach. I began with a novice development group. All I did was stroke work (not exactly the best stroke work, but stroke work none the less). I committed myself to studying and becoming better at developing strokes. At this level you can get swimmers to continue to become faster with stroke work alone, so since I was successful I believed that is all we needed to do even as I began to take more developed groups. I became very strict and precise about my swimmers strokes, and completely ignored the physiological aspect. My brother and I both had this really bad habit of talking too much at workouts about stroke work, and it consumed our workouts.
About 4 years into coaching I began to study the physiological side of training. I began to adopt some form of physiological development, but stayed tried and true to the belief that all the swimmers needed was stroke work. I developed very good 10 and unders before, and now I was starting to develop better 11 - 12 year olds. In my final year at Raisin Country Aquatics (now merged with Tule Nation Tritons), I began to study not just physiological development of the body in general, but the different phases of physiological development in regards to child development. This was the year that I truly began a different level of coaching. Now at Conejo Simi Swim Club, I do a much better job of incorporating the mix of Stroke work and physiological development that is geared towards my groups target ages. This has lead to me now developing the fastest swimmers I have ever developed myself (I get some credit for two faster swimmers while with RCA in my first year as Head Age-Group Coach, but I pretty much just coached them for about a season, and really didn't develop them myself).
My blog posts about being careful about over coaching, or when to allow the swimmer to develop through repetition rather through explanation may make more sense now. Deep down, all I want to do is stroke work, but I have learned that as a coach we must develop every aspect that is needed to be successful in this sport. I now coach a "gateway" group. Most teams have one, it is the group that they still need to develop strokes, but you are also introducing the work and training that will be asked of them at the higher levels.
I will continue to grow as a swim coach because I know there is a lot more to learn, and that there are new developments all the time. I sometimes do wonder what I could do now at RCA, Selma High School, and the Aqua Bears with my new knowledge of how to develop fast swimmers. Would I be successful? or would I scare away so many who wouldn't accept the change and therefore kill off the swim programs? Who knows. I do know this though, I am now developing swimmers better here at Conejo Simi, and will probably continue to get better through the years here as we grow stronger and faster.
I just read an article of a talk that Teri McKeever gave at a clinic. If you don't know who Teri McKeever is; she is the Head Women's Swim Coach at Cal Berkeley having coached the likes of Natalie Coughlin and Haley Cope. She mentioned about how she felt bad for her former swimmers because she felt like she could have done more if only she knew what she knows now. We don't here coaches say this very often, so I found myself feeling bad that I felt very similar. Reading that Teri McKeever had similar feelings made me feel a lot better. It makes sense though, we are always striving to be better at what we do, and we care a great deal about our athletes, so the response to those two things should lead to the feeling of regret of what you did with former swimmers. You know you did your best at that time, but you have now become a better coach, so you know more now.
This leads me to my preface, and me willing to admit where I was wrong and have since grown as a coach. I began with a novice development group. All I did was stroke work (not exactly the best stroke work, but stroke work none the less). I committed myself to studying and becoming better at developing strokes. At this level you can get swimmers to continue to become faster with stroke work alone, so since I was successful I believed that is all we needed to do even as I began to take more developed groups. I became very strict and precise about my swimmers strokes, and completely ignored the physiological aspect. My brother and I both had this really bad habit of talking too much at workouts about stroke work, and it consumed our workouts.
About 4 years into coaching I began to study the physiological side of training. I began to adopt some form of physiological development, but stayed tried and true to the belief that all the swimmers needed was stroke work. I developed very good 10 and unders before, and now I was starting to develop better 11 - 12 year olds. In my final year at Raisin Country Aquatics (now merged with Tule Nation Tritons), I began to study not just physiological development of the body in general, but the different phases of physiological development in regards to child development. This was the year that I truly began a different level of coaching. Now at Conejo Simi Swim Club, I do a much better job of incorporating the mix of Stroke work and physiological development that is geared towards my groups target ages. This has lead to me now developing the fastest swimmers I have ever developed myself (I get some credit for two faster swimmers while with RCA in my first year as Head Age-Group Coach, but I pretty much just coached them for about a season, and really didn't develop them myself).
My blog posts about being careful about over coaching, or when to allow the swimmer to develop through repetition rather through explanation may make more sense now. Deep down, all I want to do is stroke work, but I have learned that as a coach we must develop every aspect that is needed to be successful in this sport. I now coach a "gateway" group. Most teams have one, it is the group that they still need to develop strokes, but you are also introducing the work and training that will be asked of them at the higher levels.
I will continue to grow as a swim coach because I know there is a lot more to learn, and that there are new developments all the time. I sometimes do wonder what I could do now at RCA, Selma High School, and the Aqua Bears with my new knowledge of how to develop fast swimmers. Would I be successful? or would I scare away so many who wouldn't accept the change and therefore kill off the swim programs? Who knows. I do know this though, I am now developing swimmers better here at Conejo Simi, and will probably continue to get better through the years here as we grow stronger and faster.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Improvements
Many believe that swimming is a constant, and that it will always be the same as their athlete grows in the sport. They know the meets change, and the training changes, but the approach is the same. The problem is that the approach does change, and a lot of frustration comes from not knowing that the changes are coming.
When the swimmer begins, it is all about developing skills and technique. Many times we are asked why we do so little laps, and the reason is that a lot of laps of doing bad habits may help them get faster right at that moment, but it makes it harder to make changes later in their career when they need to change to be able to get to the next level.
At this time the swim meets are different. We tell the kids not to worry about everyone else; just do your best, and try to do what you have learned. Many times this ends up with time improvement. Of course they are normally little kids at this time and their skills are not locked in, so consistently at high rates are not always there. This is the level where the swimmers can literally drop at every meet, even though as coaches we hope that they don't.
This is when coaches may have swimmers try to go to meets very close together, so that they are setting the swimmer up to not improve, and then they can learn how to deal with those times when the swimmer doesn't improve. Recognizing the things they did wrong and the things that they did right, and preparing to go to practice to put a better race together for the next time.
As the age-group swimmer now becomes faster, things change. Now there are championship meets they qualify to compete. The improvements become smaller, as time drops less when you are already fast. The small victories should be enjoyed, but always looking for the things they did well, and what they still need to do better. This level is also the level that we still don't taper swimmers. We may rest for one to three days, but that is not a taper. Without tapering, the swimmer can still do lifetime bests in season, and the small rest and the excitement of a championship meet is what gets them to swim faster at the rest meets.
Then comes the time when your swimmer begins in a group that actually tapers. This means that they will attend meets through the season that they may not be ready to do their lifetime best times. These meets are crucial to get better at strategy; skills in a race environment; learning to swim with fatigue; and taking chances on races. Many people ask, why don't you just taper for every meet? The answer is because then there isn't enough time to really develop the muscles and develop the anaerobic and aerobic systems to reach ones potential. Why do practice with T-shirts on? Why do we wear drag suits? It is a form of resistance to help make ourselves better. Swimming in a meet broken down is the same thing. Getting close to your bests times is normally a good indication that you are ready for a big drop when the taper does come around.
At this time, many swimmers learn their in-season times. Trying to improve on those times while in season, knowing that last time they were in-season, they were just as broken down. That is comparing apples to apples. Comparing life-time bests with in-season swims is like comparing apples and oranges.
These shifts in attitude and approach to training and meets are not common sense. They are learned and can be very hard to deal with the first couple times the swimmer and their parents have to go through it. Hopefully the swimmer has had plenty of meets in their age-group career where they didn't improve, and they have learned to cope with the disappointment in a good and productive way.
For those parents who keep their kids from competitions. Please don't! It is good for them to see their improvement while they are in the development phases, and it also good for them to have some bad meets. Prepare them to be able to handle what will be coming in their future at the higher level of the sport.
When the swimmer begins, it is all about developing skills and technique. Many times we are asked why we do so little laps, and the reason is that a lot of laps of doing bad habits may help them get faster right at that moment, but it makes it harder to make changes later in their career when they need to change to be able to get to the next level.
At this time the swim meets are different. We tell the kids not to worry about everyone else; just do your best, and try to do what you have learned. Many times this ends up with time improvement. Of course they are normally little kids at this time and their skills are not locked in, so consistently at high rates are not always there. This is the level where the swimmers can literally drop at every meet, even though as coaches we hope that they don't.
This is when coaches may have swimmers try to go to meets very close together, so that they are setting the swimmer up to not improve, and then they can learn how to deal with those times when the swimmer doesn't improve. Recognizing the things they did wrong and the things that they did right, and preparing to go to practice to put a better race together for the next time.
As the age-group swimmer now becomes faster, things change. Now there are championship meets they qualify to compete. The improvements become smaller, as time drops less when you are already fast. The small victories should be enjoyed, but always looking for the things they did well, and what they still need to do better. This level is also the level that we still don't taper swimmers. We may rest for one to three days, but that is not a taper. Without tapering, the swimmer can still do lifetime bests in season, and the small rest and the excitement of a championship meet is what gets them to swim faster at the rest meets.
Then comes the time when your swimmer begins in a group that actually tapers. This means that they will attend meets through the season that they may not be ready to do their lifetime best times. These meets are crucial to get better at strategy; skills in a race environment; learning to swim with fatigue; and taking chances on races. Many people ask, why don't you just taper for every meet? The answer is because then there isn't enough time to really develop the muscles and develop the anaerobic and aerobic systems to reach ones potential. Why do practice with T-shirts on? Why do we wear drag suits? It is a form of resistance to help make ourselves better. Swimming in a meet broken down is the same thing. Getting close to your bests times is normally a good indication that you are ready for a big drop when the taper does come around.
At this time, many swimmers learn their in-season times. Trying to improve on those times while in season, knowing that last time they were in-season, they were just as broken down. That is comparing apples to apples. Comparing life-time bests with in-season swims is like comparing apples and oranges.
These shifts in attitude and approach to training and meets are not common sense. They are learned and can be very hard to deal with the first couple times the swimmer and their parents have to go through it. Hopefully the swimmer has had plenty of meets in their age-group career where they didn't improve, and they have learned to cope with the disappointment in a good and productive way.
For those parents who keep their kids from competitions. Please don't! It is good for them to see their improvement while they are in the development phases, and it also good for them to have some bad meets. Prepare them to be able to handle what will be coming in their future at the higher level of the sport.
Monday, January 6, 2014
The Novice swimmer and Swim Meets
The question comes up many times, "When do I know my child is ready for a swim meet?" First of all this question can be answered fairly easily; if they're on the swim team they are ready. Many teams make sure that the swimmer can swim without the assistance of a coach in the water, so then they are ready.
Is it a good idea to wait? Yes, but not too long. I believe the swimmer should have a foundation that will allow them to be ready for a race. This should be from 3 weeks to 6 months. The first meet should be selected by the coach. There are some meets that aren't great for new swimmers. When I began coaching we had the Olympic League in Central California which was designed for new swimmers, now in Southern California Coastal Section we have Novice Meets. These may have a few ringers, but for the most part they are new swimmers.
I feel like my swimmer is going to feel bad about themselves because they get beat. This is a common feeling from parents. It is important that all around them realize that the swimmer wins just by doing the race. They have accomplished their first swim race and their first swim meet. This is a victory. The young swimmer went up to the block, went into the water, and did their best in front of hundreds of people. They did great. Don't mention anything else. Nothing about their time, nothing about winning, nothing about losing, and nothing about what they did wrong. Allow the coach to talk to them about what they need to work on at practice. This will make it a good experience and establish good experiences at later meets.
Don't be afraid of your child competing. We live in a competitive world, they need to learn some competitiveness. The first meets are looking for improvement, and hopefully they will later develop the desire to race their heat, and then even later down the road; compete against all in the event. Competition in swimming is a development process that begins with the competition against oneself for self improvement, and then progressively to compete against their peers. This process takes years, so that is why I promote even new young swimmers to compete at meets. They learn self improvement through work and practice; perfecting skills. This is pretty much the process for all age-group swimming. Sure we like to see some desire to beat someone in their heat, but winning the event for an award is far from what should excite the young swimmer.
There are some very competitive parents out there. I recommend to you to be a timer for the whole meet, or get trained to be an official. This will force you not to impose your competitiveness on your child while they are in the developing stage of their swimming. There are some parents who don't want their child to be put in a competitive environment because of what it will do to the child's psyche. These are the kids who probably need to go to a swim meet the most. Go in with the right mentality and it will normally be a good experience. If you fall in the middle of these two that's great, and take what is in this article to think about your swimmer competing.
Age-Group swimming is all about development. There is very little to being a great 10 and under swimmer if you aren't great at 17 and 18 as well. It is a process, don't try to rush it, and definitely don't try to postpone it.
Is it a good idea to wait? Yes, but not too long. I believe the swimmer should have a foundation that will allow them to be ready for a race. This should be from 3 weeks to 6 months. The first meet should be selected by the coach. There are some meets that aren't great for new swimmers. When I began coaching we had the Olympic League in Central California which was designed for new swimmers, now in Southern California Coastal Section we have Novice Meets. These may have a few ringers, but for the most part they are new swimmers.
I feel like my swimmer is going to feel bad about themselves because they get beat. This is a common feeling from parents. It is important that all around them realize that the swimmer wins just by doing the race. They have accomplished their first swim race and their first swim meet. This is a victory. The young swimmer went up to the block, went into the water, and did their best in front of hundreds of people. They did great. Don't mention anything else. Nothing about their time, nothing about winning, nothing about losing, and nothing about what they did wrong. Allow the coach to talk to them about what they need to work on at practice. This will make it a good experience and establish good experiences at later meets.
Don't be afraid of your child competing. We live in a competitive world, they need to learn some competitiveness. The first meets are looking for improvement, and hopefully they will later develop the desire to race their heat, and then even later down the road; compete against all in the event. Competition in swimming is a development process that begins with the competition against oneself for self improvement, and then progressively to compete against their peers. This process takes years, so that is why I promote even new young swimmers to compete at meets. They learn self improvement through work and practice; perfecting skills. This is pretty much the process for all age-group swimming. Sure we like to see some desire to beat someone in their heat, but winning the event for an award is far from what should excite the young swimmer.
There are some very competitive parents out there. I recommend to you to be a timer for the whole meet, or get trained to be an official. This will force you not to impose your competitiveness on your child while they are in the developing stage of their swimming. There are some parents who don't want their child to be put in a competitive environment because of what it will do to the child's psyche. These are the kids who probably need to go to a swim meet the most. Go in with the right mentality and it will normally be a good experience. If you fall in the middle of these two that's great, and take what is in this article to think about your swimmer competing.
Age-Group swimming is all about development. There is very little to being a great 10 and under swimmer if you aren't great at 17 and 18 as well. It is a process, don't try to rush it, and definitely don't try to postpone it.
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