Top 10 Questions and Answers for all Swimmers and their families!

1. How involved do we need to be?

Swimming is one of the special sports letting parents and families choose how much or little they would like to participate. Families have control over what swim meets they attend. Families can also take leave of absances from swimming for either medical or personal reasons, this is a great time for swimmers to participate in other sports that only happen for a short period of time. Although we do recomend swimming in a few meets per season we understand the financial and time strain this causes, so if your swimmer only want to attend practice and our home meets we have that as an option.

2. What apps do we use to communicate as a team?

We recomend all families to joing our Band group, https://band.us/n/a9a9beB0d2N4D We use this group to share picture from meets or team events, organize team suppers and notify parents of any schedule changes not marked on the monthly calendar.

Sports Engine: Motion is also a free app you can use to track your swimmers times and register for upcoming events. You will use the same login information as our website.

Meet Mobile is a paid subscription app. Many meets update their times and postings within the app, This is helpful for friends and families who might not be able to come to the meet to check in on your swimmer(s) and get updates on their standings.

3. When should my child specialize in a stroke?

 

Kids need to grow into their specialist stroke! That is, when swimmers grow and develop physically and mentally, they will be naturally drawn to a particular stroke. It is common for a child's best stroke to change from year to year but once they hit middle to late teens, the nature of specific events will become more appealing. Real talent in any one stroke is harder to hide than it is to find! There is no need to encourage kids into one stroke or another – it will just happen!

 

4. Do swimmers need a special diet?

 

No. Not unless they have a medical problem or diet related condition that has been diagnosed by a nutrition professional. As a general rule, top swimmers follow a "4 MORE 4 LESS, 4 ME" diet:

More – complex carbohydrates like rice, bread, pasta.

More – lean quality protein like chicken, meat, fish.

More – water, fresh juices.

More – fresh fruit, nuts and vegetables. Less – take away food.

Less – saturated fats and oils.

Less – processed and pre packaged foods.

Less – sodas.

 

5.School, swimming, social life.....what's the right balance for my child?

 

Your child is not a swimmer....they are a child first and foremost: a child who just happens to swim. But they are also a student, a brother or sister, a son or daughter, a member of a youth group, maybe someone who players another sport – they are a young person who has the potential to be anything they choose to be.

Kids are drawn to the things that:

1.They enjoy;

2.They have friends;

3.They are learning by because their hearts and minds are engaged in the activity.

So if your kids are having fun with their friends and love what they are doing, chances are the balance is right. If your kids start finding excuses not to train, don't want to get out of bed to go to the pool, show poor training habits and want to avoid going to meets, they are telling you, "mom and dad – the balance is not right and I want to change it". Listen to your kids.

 

6.What can I do to be the best swimming parent I can be?

 

Give your child that which only you can give! Unconditional love, total support, compassion and unwavering belief in them as human beings. In the long term, whether your kids become world record holders in swimming, lawyers, doctors, teachers...it is not their talent that defines them or makes them successful – it is who they are. And no one helps kids to develop values, virtues and characteristics like their family. 6 feet tall 12 year old kids with large feet and strong muscles are great, but give me intelligent, honest, hard working kids with a real sense of self belief, courage and integrity any day! Develop the person first – then the swimming power!

 

7.How do I find the best coach for my child?

 

The best swimming coaches demonstrate the FIVE Cs:

Calm – they remain calm and composed on and off deck and set a great example for the kids they coach; 

 

Confident – they display a "humble confidence" – they believe in themselves and coach because they love coaching – not for any ego stroking reason;

 

Close – the pool where they coach is close to home or at least on the after school "route" – e.g. Pick up the kids from school, drop them to basketball practice, pick them up and take them to swimming, pick them up and drop them to music lessons.....

 

Caring – they are interested in kids becoming great human beings – not just fast swimmers.

 

Credible – they have the appropriate experience, qualifications and understanding of swimming. There is an old saying in coaching..."kids don't care how much you know, they want to know how much you care!"

In swimming, this means asking the coach four questions:

Will you inspire a lifelong passion for the sport of swimming in my child?

Will you engage my child's heart and mind and respect them as an individual?

Will you teach my child the importance of swimming skills and technique?

Will you encourage my child to learn, be patient with them when they fail and above all help them to develop a real sense of self confidence and self belief?

Think about your own sporting career. Remember that coach who took a real interest in you as a human being and changed your life – whose lessons you still remember even now 20 years later? That's the type of coach you want to find for your kids!

 

8.How many training sessions should my child do each week?

 

There is no magic number of training sessions for every swimmer. Even at elite level, some swimmers swim 7 sessions a week, some do nine, others 11...there is no magic number.

It all comes down to the FLAG principle:

 

Fatigue – if a swimmer is swimming 3 sessions a week and as a result is always tired, irritable and their grades are falling, then doing more swimming does not make sense. So the optimal number of sessions for any individual swimmer is largely based on their ability to adapt to and recover from their training load.

 

Level of performance – training sessions should also be based on the level of performance being targeted. Chances are swimming two sessions a week will not get you selected on the next Olympic team and similarly 14 sessions a week is a little too much just to achieve a PB time at the under 9 state championships meet. As a broad benchmark, world class swimmers spend one day per week, i.e. 24 hours per week training and the rest of the time eating and sleeping so the higher you want to go, the harder you have to work.

 

Available time – if your child is in junior high, playing basketball, learning piano, doing special projects on weekends for extra credits, playing tennis and in the school choir...and......swimming five sessions each week, then it is safe to say, adding more swimming sessions is not going to do anything other than make them tired and fatigued. Keep in mind your child's total commitments across all areas of their life before adding more training time. And – never, ever forget that some days they need to just hang out with their friends, play and enjoy life. They are only kids once!

 

Goals – if your child sets high swimming goals, then naturally the time, effort and energy to achieve them must also be high. As a general rule, as kids progress through each level of swimming they need to add an extra pool session or gym workout to learn the skills, develop the fitness and build the technical abilities to be successful at the next level. 

 

9.My child is 10 and is a great freestyler. What does she have to do to make it to the top?

 

The first thing to accept is that there is no such thing as a champion ten year old freestyler. Swimmers who experience success pre-teenage years generally do so because of accelerated growth, i.e. they are bigger and stronger than the other kids!

Another common situation is that as kids grow, change and develop, their ability to swim the competitive swimming strokes also changes – this year's backstroker could be next year's freestyler and then the following year they are great at swimming fly.

In the long term, the factors which determine success as a senior swimmer are the 5 Ps:

 

Perseverance – the ability to try and try and try and try – and to never give up;

 

Patience – it takes time to become a great swimmer – about ten years of consistent hard work;

 

Physical training – great swimmers are usually the best prepared. It takes a high level of physical fitness, technical development and skills refinement to make it to the top;

 

Personality – world class swimmers demonstrate some common personality traits – none the least being determination, commitment, the ability to overcome adversity and the capacity for accelerated learning; 

 

Passion – Swimming is like anything else in life: you have to love it to do it well!

 

10.What can I do to be the best swimming parent I can be?

 

Give your child that which only you can give! Unconditional love, total support, compassion and unwavering belief in them as human beings. In the long term, whether your kids become world record holders in swimming, lawyers, doctors, teachers...it is not their talent that defines them or makes them successful – it is who they are. And no one helps kids to develop values, virtues and characteristics like their family. 6 feet tall 12 year old kids with large feet and strong muscles are great, but give me intelligent, honest, hard working kids with a real sense of self belief, courage and integrity any day! Develop the person first – then the swimming power!

 

 

 

 

Bonus terms to know

There are a lot of terms to learn when your child becomes a swimmer- here’s a run down of terms you need to know. More information on some of these will be provided as you read through the guide.

  • Strokes – There are four main strokes your child will learn as a swimmer. The freestyle, backstroke, breast stroke, and butterfly. These are often shortened to free, back, breast and fly.

  • Races - Your child will swim one of the four strokes in each race. The only exception is an IM (individual medley) where they’ll swim all four strokes in one race. The races are numbered with event numbers, and often there are multiple heats (or smaller races) within an event followed by your swimmers lane number.

  • Flip Turn – If your child is swimming freestyle or back stroke they’ll learn to perform a flip turn at the end of each lap. Rather than coming up they’ll flip and kick off the wall.

  • Disqualified or DQ’d – There are officials that follow the swimmers alongside the pool making sure they follow the rules. They can be disqualified for a variety of things- touching the bottom or sides of the pool, adjusting their goggles during a race, doing a different stroke then they’re supposed to be doing, or going too early in a relay. The coaches are notified during the race and will address any issues during practice. Please don’t let your child (or you) obsess over being DQ’d - it is a right of passage and a bridge we all must cross as we are learning. Our favorite motto - if your child is DQ'd they get DQ!

  • Fly Over Starts – During a meet, to make things go quickly, they’ll do fly over starts, except for the backstroke. What that means is that the swimmers who have just finished their race will stay in the water, while the swimmers getting ready to race step up on the block, and start their race “flying over” the swimmers still in the water. This helps keep the meet moving along and the swimmers have less time waiting for their events.

  • The Block – Just another name for the platform the swimmers dive from.

  • Seed Time - This is the best time your swimmer has for the event they’re swimming in. For instance, if they’re swimming the 5o freestyle for the second time, the time they had the first time they swam it will be their seed time. This is their best time ever and what they’ll be trying to beat! Often heats are organized by seed time putting the fastest swimmers against each other. If your child has never swam, they will have “NT” listed on the heat sheet. This simply means “no time” - they will also have an NT if they have swam it before but were DQ’d.

  • Heat Book / Program – When you go to a meet you can usually buy a heat book for around $10. This is a listing of all of the events, who is swimming and their seed time. It’s not necessary to purchase them but they can be nice to have to keep track of what your child is swimming, and see what their current record time is. Some parents prefer to share. Some teams send these out to print prior to arrival. More on this below under the “Meet” section.

  • Declaration - For each meet, you will need to decide if your swimmer will commit or decline the meet. There is a registration deadline to attend meets. An email typically goes out a week or two before the deadline to remind you to commit or decline each meet. Please remember to log in to the website to declare. OnDeck, while wonderful, doesn't always get the declarations correct.