Is Swimming Eating Its Young?

Some girls are going to be ready for elite competition at quite an early age, with some 14-year-olds who final at the Olympics. Should they have been "held back" to avoid "burnout" if those were their goals and they agreed on the workload they needed to make those goals ? The difference between the top kids and those who are "almost" there is pretty small and you may not know who is going to be the next one. You never know what cards you'll be dealt. In four years you can be out of the sport for other reasons unrelated to burnout or swim injuries -- car accidents, injuries from other sports, illness. Puberty can also be unkind to some of the kid's swimming just from the body changes. Or you could have the bad luck to specialize in a certain event just at the same time that another superstar emerges who wasn't on the scene 4 years earlier. You can't assume that whatever conditions you have today will be the same in 4 years. A good program is going to focus on technique and having fun at the early ages, while increasing training to provide them with good progression and to prepare them for elite competition if that's the swimmer's goal. If the kids just want an excellent swim team experience without the performance emphasis, that's fine -- but they shouldn't detract from the kids with talent and ambitions making it worthwhile to do more. It makes no sense to combine two high school kids in the same practice structure if one just wants to stay in shape and have a little competition and the other wants to swim in college and needs to be physically prepared to make the Senior National cuts, earn a college swim scholarship and be able to cope with doubles in college. In no way am I recommending that a swimmer should be doing doubles at age 12. On the flip side, there are certain years where the biggest gains can be made in aerobic capacity. Most of the craziness I've seen is originating from the parents who insist that their kids should do more work. I've seen coaches fired because their team didn't place high enough at the age group championships (based on the parent's idea of what the kids should have been doing). Some of these parents will trot their kid out to a meet every weekend, then by the time they are older the whole family is burned out and the kid has plateued. If you're 12 years old, "stuck" not getting faster, and are already doing 10 workouts a week, there's not much place to go to get faster. A kid who doesn't make a group's attendance recommendations is not going to do well in the group. They generally don't keep up with the group and don't advance to the next level when their teammates are "promoted". They don't form the same close friendships with the others. These make swimming just as "not fun" as if they were swimming too much. Finally, not sure who I'm swiping this from, but swimming is not just about being in the small group that goes to the Olympics each 4 years. It would be pretty meaningless if that were true. It is about setting goals for yourself and finding that when you dedicate yourself towards your goals, how much you can achieve that you may have thought impossible. Every swimmer at every level can benefit from that lesson through the rest of their life.

Some girls are going to be ready for elite competition at quite an early age, with some 14-year-olds who final at the Olympics. Should they have been "held back" to avoid "burnout" if those were their goals and they agreed on the workload they needed to make those goals ? The difference between the top kids and those who are "almost" there is pretty small and you may not know who is going to be the next one. You never know what cards you'll be dealt. In four years you can be out of the sport for other reasons unrelated to burnout or swim injuries -- car accidents, injuries from other sports, illness. Puberty can also be unkind to some of the kid's swimming just from the body changes. Or you could have the bad luck to specialize in a certain event just at the same time that another superstar emerges who wasn't on the scene 4 years earlier. You can't assume that whatever conditions you have today will be the same in 4 years. A good program is going to focus on technique and having fun at the early ages, while increasing training to provide them with good progression and to prepare them for elite competition if that's the swimmer's goal. If the kids just want an excellent swim team experience without the performance emphasis, that's fine -- but they shouldn't detract from the kids with talent and ambitions making it worthwhile to do more. It makes no sense to combine two high school kids in the same practice structure if one just wants to stay in shape and have a little competition and the other wants to swim in college and needs to be physically prepared to make the Senior National cuts, earn a college swim scholarship and be able to cope with doubles in college. In no way am I recommending that a swimmer should be doing doubles at age 12. On the flip side, there are certain years where the biggest gains can be made in aerobic capacity. Most of the craziness I've seen is originating from the parents who insist that their kids should do more work. I've seen coaches fired because their team didn't place high enough at the age group championships (based on the parent's idea of what the kids should have been doing). Some of these parents will trot their kid out to a meet every weekend, then by the time they are older the whole family is burned out and the kid has plateued. If you're 12 years old, "stuck" not getting faster, and are already doing 10 workouts a week, there's not much place to go to get faster. A kid who doesn't make a group's attendance recommendations is not going to do well in the group. They generally don't keep up with the group and don't advance to the next level when their teammates are "promoted". They don't form the same close friendships with the others. These make swimming just as "not fun" as if they were swimming too much. Finally, not sure who I'm swiping this from, but swimming is not just about being in the small group that goes to the Olympics each 4 years. It would be pretty meaningless if that were true. It is about setting goals for yourself and finding that when you dedicate yourself towards your goals, how much you can achieve that you may have thought impossible. Every swimmer at every level can benefit from that lesson through the rest of their life.