Parent-Coach Communication Key to Navigating Age Group Maturation Process

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Photo Courtesy: BW Media

By Dave Crampton

Some parents and swimmers struggle to understand the sport of swimming due to a lack of communication. Parents are excited when their pre-teen wins. They push their children harder to swim even faster in the hope that one day they`ll represent their country at the Olympic Games.

Some do. Most won’t. Those that will have talent and the desire to work hard.

Swimming is not just about getting into the water and swimming fast. It is about understanding people. Without this, relationship difficulties occur, affecting all aspects of the swimmer’s performance and development.

The most vital relationship in swimming is not between the young swimmer and his or her club, regional association, federation, teammates or sponsor. The key relationship is the “CAP” – between the coach, the athlete and parent. If a swimmer- or indeed a parent – has a strained relationship with a coach, they must switch coaches to reach anywhere close to their potential.

Relationships break down to just three reasons. Communication, communication and communication. If you address and fix the first in the CAP relationship, the others will follow. If you do not, and do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got – and you`ll find it difficult to make progress.

Indeed, many young swimmers don’t understand themselves or simply do not have a long term approach to their sport. They are just content chasing the next win, the next medal or the next personal best. Their focus is not deliberate practice, it is on swimming faster for competition and perceived success.

But it is during training that technique is mastered. Long-term results come after technique is mastered. Technique is mastered through hard work and deliberate practice. At junior and age-group levels, every swim should be focused on technique enhancement whatever the speed or distance of the swim.

Swimmers who have a longer term approach based on deliberate practice to enhance technique and develop skills will understand themselves better and will be more likely to progress as a swimmer with good results through the latter stages of the age groups as they are focusing on the process of swimming, not the outcome of their next big event.

Deliberate practice is not just about total distance in a weekly program, it is a focus on what is done at speed, and the necessary amount of low-level recovery, technique and stroke work.

As only a small proportion of young achievers carry through to be high achievers at senior levels, technique and physiological factors, such as motivation and mental toughness should be of greater importance than the engine work of conditioning.

The sport of swimming does not retain enough young people with swimming talent, as too much of a focus is on perceived talent – seen as winning. Winning is not a reflection of talent – it is merely a reflection that a swimmer can swim faster than others in a particular pool on a given day.

Hard work beats talent every time, and hard work is the basis of good training. In training, it is better to do what your coach says, to the best of your ability – and more. The hard way trumps the easy way every time.

When young swimmers are told to win, and then stop winning a few years later for reasons such as late maturation, or weak training practices, they get discouraged – some plateau as a result. Plateauing in this way is the worst form, as swimmers are not only unable to keep up with increasing performances of their competitors, their training doesn’t pick up, they are unable to swim personal bests and keep up with their own top performances.

In short, commitment falters.

As a result, many quit the sport at this stage as they, their parents – and sometimes their own coaches – have little understanding of a long term approach to swimming success.

Success for young swimmers comes down to doing two things well in competition.

Those two things: having fun and doing your best, year after year.

This is more effectively achieved through an understanding and application of a strategic long term development approach, which will minimize disappointment, assist in achieving realistic goals, and keep more top swimmers in the sport as they enter their late teens with the associated post-puberty distractions of car fumes and perfumes.

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Malik Chakalaka
8 years ago

Ser ut som gollum me svømmebriller på Njord Bjørn Oda Halvor

José Virgílio Santos Silva

…como isto é importante!!!!

Kelly Gilmer
8 years ago

Eugene Collins Fiona Collins

Paula Manns
8 years ago

Devin Kellett & Kenyon Kellett

Paula Manns
8 years ago

Devin Kellett & Kenyon Kellett

Wayne Burrell
8 years ago

Nice when you finally find it

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