traying to coach! I need help

Records typically belong to to swimmers who excel rather than those who are "not so good but decent times". He needs about a 15% drop in time for most events. By percentage 400 & 800FR are closest, requiring a still rather significant ~8.5 & 9.5% drop.

Event SCM........ His time...........club´s record 50 free............30"41............25"52 100 free.......... 1'05"............ 56"75 200 free......... 2´26"16......... 2´10"20 400 free......... 05'02''68......... 4'36"95 800 free.......... 11'17"04......... 10'12"91 I agree with some of the other comments about his times being far from the records, but it's hard to tell what he really trains for based on all the times you gave. As much fun as club records can be to have, it's better your swimmer set up goals in baby steps. in the 400 he could first try to go under 5:00.00, then maybe look at the splits and compare to his 100 and 200 times and see if 4:50 is within reason. in the 800 first try to get under 11:00.00. But if your swimmer really wants to break a record, and it's not just you, my suggestion would be to try for the 800 record, since that is the event easiest to make up time. when I swam my first 400m march 2008 I had a time of 5:02 the night before I swam the 800m in 10:26. so if you swimmer would work on long distance training and thinks the longer events are fun and challanging then that is your best bet with him. in Sept I swam my second 400m at a meet and was able to go 4:41. with 6 months of really working distance and pace during my workouts. I will swim the 800m again at the end of March and I am hoping to go under 9:45.00 even though he will be working on a distance record, I think he will still have to get is 100 time down around 1:00 in order to be able to average the 1:16 needed for 10:12

We talk a lot about swimming and his goals, but the idea of breaking one of his age group records is probably my own selfish challenge as a new coach. He actually came up to me because he saw me training hard in the pool several times, and told me he didn’t like his coach’s way of training. I showed him what I do, and if he wanted to train hard, I could help him. Therefore, he left the club’s team 2 weeks ago, and seems serious about getting better. The point is, I want him to really improve, and I won’t let him down. I really wish I had a coach that pushed me to the limit when I was 15, and really put time and effort thinking about training structure. I have free time while working there, so I can do it. You guys are probably right, I might need to find lower goals for him first, (since he is far away from those times). I probably watched MP too many times saying “shoot for the stars” haha. However, I do have to disagree on something, 15 years old guys most of the time have no idea what they really want, because they still looking for their identity, sometimes they need strict guidance to get on their path. For the next months, we agreed that his 100 free has to go down (as one suggested 1:00), It will be good to mix workouts with distance and broken swims to improve 200/400/800 free. I also think he has some potential as an IMer so he will keep doing some IM work, and he is definitely not a sprinter. I don’t think I’m going to discuss with him about his workouts, Im just going to see how he responds in the water, and go from there. thanks

I think starting a coaching relationship by emphasizing breaking records is really a cruddy idea. Obsession with times is destined to fail.

Surely this should be about his swimming and his enjoyment of the sport, not you pushing him to get a record!? What strokes / distance does he enjoy? Also, he's miles away from any of them records. By the time he gets close he'll be in a different age group with no doubt faster records to beat - a no win situation that will mentally defeat him. Is continual personal improvement not enough? it is for me. I'm nowhere near age group records but as long as I'm improving my times then i'm happy.

Why don't you sit down with him (since he is 15) and discuss which events he thinks he has a chance at making (or improving). He needs to have some decision in the game at this point or there will be no emotional attachment, but more of a "my coach is telling me to do....". Just my opinion on the whole goal setting with that age group.

yikes seems to be lots of negativity on the forum today. I agree that he is pretty far from all the times, but if you have lots of big mechanical things wrong with your stroke a few seconds of gain can be achieved relatively quickly. I would def recommend having him set goals/steps to get there so he is taking charge of his direction in swimming. Things like pwolf suggested are good places to start. I personally would start with helping him learn feel and basic technique. I started in high school and had no concept of feel or technique... just had a little raw ability that helped me swim pretty good times. My biggest and drops started coming with consistent focus on mechanics and consistent effort in practice. From here you can then move onto more specific even training, but w/o the base foundation set there will always be a big limiter.

I posted this on February 2nd, 2009. He still far away from the club's records, but improved a lot in the past few months, so I'm very proud of him (and of ME! as coach :)) I just wanted to post the progress: Here his last times SCM Event SCM........ His time (February 2009).....His time (June 2009)....club´s record 200 free............... 2´26"16............ 2´14"47.................2´10"20 400 free............... 05'02''68............04'56''07................ 4'36"95 100 back..............1'18"54 ..............01'15"67........ ........1'03"66 200 IM.................2'46"24...............02'38"75................. 2'21"56 400 IM .................5´54"16............. 05'51"52.................5'00"03

Not having seen this kid swim or practice its tough for me to really say accurately, but based only on the times above maybe really start focusing on the middle distance events in competition. Seems like the longer IM and Free seem to have a bit of a drop off. In practice keep working on back half of races. Maybe do things like 3 x (3 x 100) on dexcending intervals. or 200 with the intent of negative splitting the second hundred. Longer kick sets and consistently working the underwater part of each turn in practice will also go a long way to helping the middle to distance kind of swimmer. Might be a good idea to re visit and evaluate the goals you set back in feb as well.

Seriously, it is about having fun, getting exercise, learning an exercise that you can enjoy for a lifetime, and making friends. Don't burn the kid out. If he really gets into it, let him make that decision for himself. And why do I have that Garth Brooks song in my head, "I went to work for her that summer..."