"Swimming Away from Success"

News For SWIM  PARENTS Published by The American Swimming Coaches Association

By John Leonard

This morning i want to talk about a subject that is important to understand, and, i am sure "counter-intuitive" for parents.

The most common reaction we have as parents when our child is very successful in an event, is to want to see them swim it "right away" again in the next meet, anticipating watching our child once again shine. Its something we ALL want to see happen.

But most of the time, its the worst thing we can do.

To understand the process, lets consider why a swimmer improves:

1. Growth. As they get bigger and stronger, they should get faster, unless the coach really does a poor job!
2. Training. A well designed training program in congress with good goal setting will produce improvement. But TTT. (Things Take Time).
3. Technical improvements. Better strokes, better starts, better turns. Again. TTT.

So on Feb. 24, Geena Squartino drops 11 seconds in the 100 backstroke, from 1:29 to 1:18. Great swim Geena! I enter her at Division II's, "hoping against hope" that there will be another big drop of 4 seconds and she'll make JO's. (not likely, but what the heck, take a shot, right?) Two weeks later, Geena has a very nice swim, but turns her head three times in the last five yards looking for the wall, and goes 9 tenths of second slower. THATs NATURAL! Nothing she nor i should not expect.

1. She didn't grow much in those two weeks.......(Gee, no, really?)\
2. Two weeks of training didn't help her much. TTT.
3. Her coach, (me) didn't have enough time to help her make any real technical improvements. TTT.

Geena understood and handled it well. Mom and Dad handled it well. Coach John sort of handled it well, but grumped at himself a little bit about being dumb enough to hope she'd drop another 4 seconds!

So what is the lesson here? Counter-intuitively, when a swimmer has a good sized drop, we "swim away from success" and concentrate on other areas that are more "ready for improvement"....in this case, the freestyle (nice meet, Geena) and NEXT, in the early spring we'll concentrate on her breaststroke and butterfly which can use lots of improvement. Meanwhile, we'll continue to train in free and back and work on the technical aspects of those events. By the time she returns to those in a meet in later spring, she'll once again be ready to improve! That's the best, non-frustrating, continual improvement strategy for long term career success! Keep developing everything and "train and compete away from success" and always remember TTT (Things Take Time.)

In two weeks Geena has JO's. We'll concentrate on better breathing patterns, better kicking and faster turns, and be very happy if she has a small improvement at JO's!

Thanks Geena for letting me use this as a great learning reminder! Parents, all the best, and thank you for allowing me to coach your children! JL.