Anyone one care to discuss the hows and whys of swim team training? There’s an aspect I just can’t understand. I’ve been swimming most ofmy life. I began just after high school. I graduated in 1979. In h.s. I was across-country and track distance runner. I’ve never been on a “swim team,” and other than the few open/masters swim meets I’ve participated in…my only competitive swimming has been for triathlons and open water events. I did get a bit of knowledge about swim teams when my daughter was on her h.s. swim team. But what confounds me about swim team (in h.s. anyway) is how the longer swims are handled (500/400 freestyle, and to some extent the 200 freestyle). Frequently it seems that none of the swimmers what to swim in the long events. I’ve even seen on several occasions where the 400/500 isn’t even competed due to lack of interest on both teams. Dumb if you ask me! If I was coach I’d just put someone in there that could finish and get the points. And of course the entire team trains the same way at practice. Why? I guess it’s because of my running/track background. A distance runner doesn’t need to hurdle so there’s no need to train at hurdles. Similarly, in my mind, a (h.s.) distance swimmer (freestyle events) wouldn’t need to butterfly so why train at it? Personally, if I coached a (h.s.) swim team, I’d find a couple of swimmers that would want to train only for the longer events. They’d swim a seperate workout from the rest of theteam, and would always swim the long freestyle events. Why don’t swim coachesdo that?
Dan
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
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
