Swim team training for the longer events

Why don’t swim coaches do that? Dan Good ones do. If you watch most UT mens team practices they all usually do the same warm up, then Eddie gives each group of swimmers different main sets. Distance free & Middle Distance free, Sprint Free, IM, Back, ***, & Butterfly But the work outs a coach assigns can be based on: 1) His knowledge about swimming & coaching swimmers, along with his bias and core philosophy on how to best train swimmers, along with where in the season the swimmers are relative to their focus meets, 2) the Lane space he has for the team, and 3) the age, ability, commitment and talent of the swimmers he coaches. There are many swim coaches who, bless their hearts, don't know that much about swimming or coaching.

Dan, I do not think that you can lump swimmers into the distance/sprint categories. If you did then mid-distance swimmers would be an anomaly. My personal opinion and from experience, swimmers during their teenage years should be as well rounded as possible (leave the specialization for the college years). I have been a life long distance freestyle swimmer, but also excelled in the 100 and 200 butterfly. At the beginning of the season everyone on the team swam the 500 freestyle (even the hardcore sprinters). We were not allowed to choose the events we wanted to swim during dual meets and were only allowed to select events during championship meets. In fact I had a few opportunities to swim the 100 and 50 freestyle and IM events during dual meets. During my highschool years there was one practice for the entire group for the majority of the season. About 3/4 of the way through the season three groups were separated (sprinters, mid-distance, distance) and each group had a different main set. The workout swam together were typically 6000-8000 yards/meters in length and had both aerobic and anaerobic sets. The specialized workouts varied and had more race prep work (coach called this quality swim time). It wasn't until college when I truly started specializing in the 1650, 1000, and 500 yard freestyle with some butterfly in the mix

One reason is that there are quite a few states where high school swimming is kind of a joke. All the good swimmers swim on club teams leaving the high school swim teams small and populated with swimmers with little or no previous competitive swimming experience. The other factor is coaching and facility space. Most high school teams just don't have the space available to have multiple training groups. I also think there's some desire in the sport, especially for young or inexperienced swimmers, to make them "well rounded." You don't really want to take a new swimmer and plunk them into some set role as a "distance swimmer" or "breaststroker," etc.

I also think there's some desire in the sport, especially for young or inexperienced swimmers, to make them "well rounded." You don't really want to take a new swimmer and plunk them into some set role as a "distance swimmer" or "breaststroker," etc. But why not? Is that a point of contention in swimming? Referring back to my days on the track team in h.s...you were either a sprinter, middle distance, or a long distance runner. There would be runners who'd crossover to either to the next closest group (up or down distance-wise). But 100 meter sprinters wouldn't train with the long distance runners. You would specialize and that's where you would stay...for the rest of your running career. Obviously there are exceptions. But generally you stick with your group. Dan

WOW! As a H S coach with 34 seasons of swim team both girls & guys, I would have really liked the numbers of swimmers to do this. I guess if you had a really large team of talented swimmers you could have distance -fly -back -*** swimmers to do ONLY the races needed, but in the real world we do not.Some swimmers can do short & long races. I have never had a race go empty because , I as a coach , did not put a swimmer in the event.

I can see your point...if you don't have many kids on the team....considering everyone can only swim a certain number of events. Maybe it's just something seen up here in New England. I had seen it happen in meets when my daughter swam. And just this morning while reviewing h.s. swim meet results in the local newspaper...there were a couple of meets that listed no results for the 500 free (that kind of prompted this threat post). But...again recalling the team my daughter was on...they had (and still have) lots of kids on the team. So many that many couldn't swim competitive in every meet. Opponent teams were like that too. It would be frustrating when they'd have kids swimming for non-scoring exhibition in the non-competitive lanes...and then have no one at all entered to swim the 500, and then get beat in the final meet results by 2 points. That seemed so backasswards to me. Take the kid(s) out of the exhibition event and put him/her in the 500 and get the points. Dan

And many coaches demand that they train ONLY in their sport & forget the others. I do agree that at a certain age (heading into the teenage years) the child has to make a decision on what sport they want to focus their attention on. I am of the belief that if you aren't 100% committed to something then you probably shouldn't be doing it. Plus with all the morning/afternoon swims and dryland training their really isn't time for another sport.

OK...but I'm talking about specialization at the high school level here...not grade school/youth levels. In most other sports, during their h.s. years is when an athlete choses their speciality. So...aside from the team size and pool space that knelson brought up...why not let a high school kid specialize? I'm not real familiar with grade school/youth swimming, but if a kid has been swimming from an early age, wouldn't they know by the time they're in h.s. whether they like or excel at a particular stroke/discipline? Dan

Here's the other thing, Dan. High school swimming is really focused at sprinting and middle distance. Other than the 500 free (which is really just a long middle distance race) every other event on the HS order of events is 200 yards or under. Eight of the eleven events (including relays) involves swims of 100 yards or less. With that kind of schedule it doesn't make much sense to train kids for endurance. Swimming, in general, is a sport that values athletes who excel in multiple strokes and distances. If you look at the list of all-time Olympic summer medalists you'll see the top spots are dominated by swimmers and gymnasts, two sports that value well-rounded athletes.

I do agree that at a certain age (heading into the teenage years) the child has to make a decision on what sport they want to focus their attention on. I am of the belief that if you aren't 100% committed to something then you probably shouldn't be doing it. Plus with all the morning/afternoon swims and dryland training their really isn't time for another sport. Sure, in high school you should only focus on one sport per season because of time restraints and demands. But coaches are demanding that kids focus on that same one sport all year. Specialization is beginning at the grade school level. I know kids that are in baseball year 'round in 1st grade. When I was little, baseball, softball and the like were spring only sports. So to answer the original question in this post, I knew many kids that never swam a competitive stroke before high school, and ended up being great swimmers. How would these kids know if they were sprinters or IMer's, etc. unless they were forced to try all the different events? High school meets and workouts should be able to introduce the kids to a wide variety of events. At the same time, the practices can still be scaled to cater to abilities (just like clubs and masters do). Pigeon hole-ing should be reserved for college when the kid is being paid to be there (i.e. scholarship). And at my son's school, he was not permitted on the high school swim team because a) he was not a club swimmer, and b) he has a commitment to a community orchestra that would make him miss Saturday practices (even though I assured the coach that I could get him into a pool later in the day). It's the same with other sports in our district as well.