The Club’s coaches are Swim England qualified and are experienced in implementing training that is in line with the Club’s agreed annual training plans.

As swimmers start to improve their training will change in order to accommodate for this progression. Once they are judged to be ready by one of our talented coaches, they may be moved to a different lane or squad to further challenge them. The decisions involved in this are entirely at the coaches’ discretion and will vary from swimmer to swimmer. It is important to understand that the coaches always consider what is best for each individual swimmer at their particular stage of development.

Long-term success, although not necessarily instantly gratifying, should be the goal of all competitive swimmers. It is always tempting to view the 'next' race as the most important; however, if Olympians had this mind-set they would not be Olympians! Without a solid foundation of aerobic, technique and skill development at the right times young athletes will never reach their full potential in the long term.

Technique

'Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.' Abraham Lincoln

As with all 'closed skill' sports, development of technique is vital in swimming, this is commonly understood. What is often underestimated however is how much the water magnifies the importance of efficiency to swimmers.

According to Gary Hall Sr. (former US Olympic swimmer and coach at the elite US Race swimming club) 'Frontal drag is the number one enemy of the swimmer.' As water is in the region of 800 times more dense than air, the frontal drag forces that slow swimmers down come into play at much slower speeds than all other sports on land. Consider a golf ball that is hit with a slightly open club face, the resulting spin on the ball, creating a variation in air pressure either side of the ball will cause the ball to 'slice' (in line with Bernoulli's principle). Now consider the effect of that 'slice' if the air were 800 times denser, and had 800 times the drag forces!

Swimming techniques for all four strokes and the competitive skills are constantly changing and evolving. The strokes and skills coached today are very different from those coached previously such as to parents and it is critical that ALL parents, who may once have been swimmers themselves, encourage and support their swimmers despite their performance, and leave the coaching to your child's coaches.

Many techniques work better for some swimmers than others due to an individual’s strength, flexibility and 'feel' for the water. Swimmers need to experiment with different techniques and work, with their coach, to find what works best for them. It is important to understand that junior swimmers in particular need to spend a great deal of their time in the water experimenting with and refining technique, improving 'feel' and efficiency. Great improvements in time will come from training at low speed, focusing on style rather than speed.
In particular, drills are important. Drills are simply the isolation or exaggeration of part of a stroke. By taking the time to perform drills properly the whole stroke will improve. It is not important to finish your drills first, coaches are far more impressed by swimmers who pay keen attention to these swims, listening to the aim of the specific exercise and executing them mindfully.

Endurance

Young swimmers are almost entirely aerobic, with an undeveloped anaerobic energy system lying dormant. Attempting to superimpose an adult training programme on these swimmers will not result in speed development, instead causing aerobic fatigue and resulting in a breakdown of technique.

Senior swimmers need to train their anaerobic system with repeat swims at high intensity, the individuals ability to recover between these swims is essential to completing the training at the required effort. As such, the ability to train correctly at this level is dependant on the work done developing the aerobic energy system throughout their time as a youth swimmer – there are no short cuts!

Without any doubt the best way for a swimmer to develop endurance is swimming. Other activities such as running or aerobics will improve an athlete’s cardio-vascular endurance but not the pool endurance that a swimmer needs.

Strength

Strength helps you to perform strokes correctly, and increases the power of each stroke. Butterfly is particularly demanding of strength. Swimmers need strength in the back, shoulders, triceps and stomach. The strength a swimmer needs is different to the explosive strength needed in other sports and this can be seen in the physiques of elite swimmers – long loose muscles, as opposed to the shorter, tighter muscles of runners.
Weight training can be used to increase strength in older swimmers. Swimmers need sustained strength rather than sheer power so the type of training performed involves relatively high repetitions with relatively low weights. At the point that Rebecca Adlington won her two golds in the 2008 Olympics it was reported that she had only ever performed body weight exercises!

The best way for a young swimmer to develop the strength required for swimming is... swimming! The specific movements and loads required for swimming are difficult to recreate on land, and for the young swimmer the loads involved in the pool are sufficient to achieve the required physical adaptations.