Is Swimming Eating Its Young?

Not me, Santa. :rofl: I only get huffy when someone insults my user name or my fly technique. :rofl: Now, if someone insults my avatar, I might get really cross ... In my examined reading of the fine purple prose on this forum, however, I think men may be huffy too.

Glenn, You are correct that the sport should be fun and kids should be exposed to different physical activities while growing up......... HOWEVER...... this does not lead to better training and aerobic advancement over time at a national level. Pick a sport for pleasure or general physical fitness.... but don't expect talent to overcome lack of training over time when other kids are truly hammering out yardage at a young age. Certainly, quality of training and coaching are paramount, but the fact is, no 14 year old is going to make the top 10 national rankings in their age group in Swimming World magazine if he/she isn't pounding out some early yardage. I have heard several college coaches complain in recent years that kids coming out of highschool don't have the "base" in training yardage they once did in the late 1970s and mid 1980s. The coaches have to spend several years to try and catch them up to where they should be..... if this is even possible by the age of 18 and 19. I hate to say it, but if you don't do a decent amount of yardage (particularly long course) when you are young (9-14) you will have MCUH more difficulty rising to the top of the sport. Then again, if you are just in it for the fun and the general physical fitness...... so be it. John Smith If kids are not getting the early training they need then why are records continually being broken? :dunno:

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.

The way I see it kids do not have childhood's anymore due to all the pressure that get's placed on them for sports AND academics. There seems to be no time off for these guys. Are they better off? Who knows? That's a personal question, in my opinion. Grooming kids to be the next superstars is always a risk. Risk to them, risk that the prospects don't pan out etc. If the kids wants to work that hard at something then it's fine as long as their health is not being impacted negatively. If so, someone has to be the parent and say "you have to stop for a while." If it's parent's pushing their kids for their own pride, then that's a separate issue. Don't get me started on pushin them to get scholarships for college for financial reasons either. :) Rich :dedhorse:

Some guy: Since the other post we were conversing on was closed, I just wanted to tell you that my daughter did not kick my butt in the 50 fly. :groovy: Ha, ha, ha. I might still have one year left. :yawn: Fortress, I want proof of this. What's your daughter's name?

Glenn, You are correct that the sport should be fun and kids should be exposed to different physical activities while growing up......... HOWEVER...... this does not lead to better training and aerobic advancement over time at a national level. Pick a sport for pleasure or general physical fitness.... but don't expect talent to overcome lack of training over time when other kids are truly hammering out yardage at a young age. Certainly, quality of training and coaching are paramount, but the fact is, no 14 year old is going to make the top 10 national rankings in their age group in Swimming World magazine if he/she isn't pounding out some early yardage. I have heard several college coaches complain in recent years that kids coming out of highschool don't have the "base" in training yardage they once did in the late 1970s and mid 1980s. The coaches have to spend several years to try and catch them up to where they should be..... if this is even possible by the age of 18 and 19. I hate to say it, but if you don't do a decent amount of yardage (particularly long course) when you are young (9-14) you will have MCUH more difficulty rising to the top of the sport. Then again, if you are just in it for the fun and the general physical fitness...... so be it. John Smith The head coach of our swim team agrees with this statement. He says that, for his senior and national teams, he views his goal/coaching role as building their "cardio machines" to prepare them for college. 9 sound a little young. But I think by 12 they're really starting to crank it up. How else can you swim events like the 200 fly and 400 IM?

I am not retracting what I wrote earlier about children being pushed too early and too much. My concern was who was doing this: the child or the parents or coaches? And to what degree was another thought I had. Being the best I could be was my own doing because I found something I was finally good at (self-confidence was gained). I was swimming at age 3, but not competitively until 9 or 10. When a child has a dream, it should be taken as far as possible within safety considerations. When I finally started making my mark in the swimming world, I was around 13. At my request, I had my dad make weights for me using bricks on pulleys in the garage. The next year, I set a national record in the 100 yd backstroke at Kerr-McGee in Oklahoma. I was stronger is how this came to be. This experience instilled in me a desire to see how far I could take my dream. My schoolwork never suffered and swimming was something that made me happiest. I, on my own, had my mom drive me to the YMCA on some off-days, and I would swim piles of backstroke. So even though I was just entering my teens, I was lifting weights and doing more yardage, more than the other kids. Hard work in physical strength, stroke technique, and aerobic conditioning did pay off. And if children today have a dream to see how far their swimming can take them, then they should pursue that. Being able to pay a physical price in effort to obtain a dream is a good thing. I never suffered burnout even given all the hard work I put into the sport. But no one pushed me but myself. And the Fortress is correct, developing an aerobic base does pay off later as we age. It seems that many discover that they can always get in shape faster later and their conditioning stays with them a little longer than the person who is not aerobically sound. :groovy:Donna

Fortress, I want proof of this. What's your daughter's name? It's Lil, Lil Fortress! Thank you, thank you...available for Weddings and Bat-mitzvahs! I'm here all week! :rofl:

I know one parent some years ago who took their 12 year old to senior nationals after she swam a 1:05 in the 100 ***. The kid couldn't take the pressure, freaked out and never really recovered to swim anywhere close to that elite level again. Very sad. And I know of a 12-year-old who went to Olympic Trials with a cut in the 100 Fly after beginning year-round swimming less than a year earlier. She did well but 4 years later she had the confidence and experience to qualify for the Olympic team to final in an individual event and take gold/WR on a relay.

That is such a great new avatar. I can tell what you've been watching on TV. Are you gonna keep it for more than a day? My daughter would be quite huffy... Well for the avatar..you'll just have to check now won't you? Your daughter gets huffy? So you mean, girls get huffy? lol