Hi,
I've been following this forum for more then a year and this is my first post here.
My daughter is 9 years old and she has been swimming for 2 years. For the last 8 months she's been training 4 days per week; half-hour dryland, one hour pool. She is a happy swimmer and they have great friendship within the team. Her free and breaststroke styles are quite fine. Her short-course(25m) 50meter times are: Free 40 ; Back 48 ; *** 51 ; Fly 50
But whenever she's in a meet, her stamina drops clearly at around 35m. As for the freestyle, her 25meter time is around 16 seconds. She usually turns before her friends, falls behind at last 15meter. It disappoints her.
How can we help her to build up her endurance?
What should we have her eat before the meet? Should we take her out for jogging, hiking, biking or any other physical activity? All suggestions and hints are appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Thanks for the update on your daughter's progress, astro! I wouldn't completely abandon the idea of getting a private stroke analysis or lessons just yet, however. Even if your daughter would not be able to practice the drills she will learn during her team workouts, there is still the potential for her to improve with even just one private session per week...with the right coach, of course. At 10-11 years old, swimmers can still absorb new technique without requiring a tremendous amount of repetitive effort.
In looking at the times progression that you submitted, you can see that your daughter hasn't dropped as much time in the butterfly as she has in the other three strokes. Butterfly is all about timing, and in this case her timing might be off, which points to technique-related issues that she can work on outside of the team-based practices. I wrote a piece on why swimmers should get their stroke analyzed, and I think the advice in the article holds true for swimmers of all ages: www.swimspire.com/get-stroke-technique-analyzed/
Now is the time for your daughter to build a good technique. Later, she will continue to increase the speed and interval work and if she builds up a solid technical foundation at this age, she will have less of a risk of injuries and more of a chance of making swimming a life-long sport.
Good luck!
Thanks for the update on your daughter's progress, astro! I wouldn't completely abandon the idea of getting a private stroke analysis or lessons just yet, however. Even if your daughter would not be able to practice the drills she will learn during her team workouts, there is still the potential for her to improve with even just one private session per week...with the right coach, of course. At 10-11 years old, swimmers can still absorb new technique without requiring a tremendous amount of repetitive effort.
In looking at the times progression that you submitted, you can see that your daughter hasn't dropped as much time in the butterfly as she has in the other three strokes. Butterfly is all about timing, and in this case her timing might be off, which points to technique-related issues that she can work on outside of the team-based practices. I wrote a piece on why swimmers should get their stroke analyzed, and I think the advice in the article holds true for swimmers of all ages: www.swimspire.com/get-stroke-technique-analyzed/
Now is the time for your daughter to build a good technique. Later, she will continue to increase the speed and interval work and if she builds up a solid technical foundation at this age, she will have less of a risk of injuries and more of a chance of making swimming a life-long sport.
Good luck!
