I just became the coach of my first swim team, and I, being a male, am having a hard time with the whole period thing. My girls are middle school level, and a little shy about the subject, as am I. Now, I know that you can swim on your period by using a tampon, but they cringed at the idea. However, on a 20 girl team, I've got as many as 6-7 girls sitting out daily because of it. I know that's far FAR too high. I'm about this close to going out and buying a box of tampons to shove in their face if they don't dress.
So my questions are:
How necessary is it that you wear a tampon? Is it an every day thing? are there times when it's worse than others?
And, how can I easily make the lives of the swimmers who don't swim (and keep in mind it has to be for a group of 6-7 people) a living hell. I need a dry land work out that can be done on the pool deck that takes little effort to watch (so I can coach the other girls) and something they can't really slack off - I keep giving them push ups and they barely go down.
I really can't think of anything outside of making the actual swim session fun, so if you guys have ideas on how to do that too it might work, too. It need to work on something important though.
Parents
Former Member
I found this age group the trickiest to coach. I was at one club where a group of five girls were giving me a hard time at every workout. Their parents were never at the pool and didn't know what was going on. Also, I was never comfortable with the period problem. One evening, I'd arranged for an international female swimmer to come to the club. She was the local hero - everyone knew her, and looked up to her. While I took the session with just the boys, she took the girls upstairs to a room over the pool. She explained everything to them, and covered all subjects. She was very complementary about me too, which helped enormously.
From that day on I never had a problem with these girls. They changed their attitude completely. I also changed my approach. I made the workouts much more fun than I had done before. It's worth remembering that swimmers of all ages do not have to come to the pool. They have a choice. Make the sessions enjoyable and interesting, to the point that they don't want to go home and you will have a great team, and a great time too.
I found this age group the trickiest to coach. I was at one club where a group of five girls were giving me a hard time at every workout. Their parents were never at the pool and didn't know what was going on. Also, I was never comfortable with the period problem. One evening, I'd arranged for an international female swimmer to come to the club. She was the local hero - everyone knew her, and looked up to her. While I took the session with just the boys, she took the girls upstairs to a room over the pool. She explained everything to them, and covered all subjects. She was very complementary about me too, which helped enormously.
From that day on I never had a problem with these girls. They changed their attitude completely. I also changed my approach. I made the workouts much more fun than I had done before. It's worth remembering that swimmers of all ages do not have to come to the pool. They have a choice. Make the sessions enjoyable and interesting, to the point that they don't want to go home and you will have a great team, and a great time too.
