training muscle groups

[lincoln]

Bearing in mind the golden rule used with other forms of training, i.e. you shouldn't train the same muscle groups two days in a row, is it safe for young age group swimmers (or anyone for that matter?) to swim a set late one evening, then swim again early the next morning? Surely in swimming you can't avoid using the same muscle groups each time?

[lane4]

Its very safe indeed.

[lincoln]

Can you explain why it's safe in swimming but not in other activities?

[swimfizz]

I feel as we are expecting more milage out of our younger swimmers we must take care to ease the strain on their bodies as much as possible. Sensible precautions must be taken such as changing the Main Sets from one session to the next so emphysis is put onto a different muscle group
eg. if the evening session involves a lot of frontcrawl pull ,change the morning to back, IM's or kick.
I am encoutering more injuries with young age group swimmers (10 - 13 years) than ever before. Most are not serious but if allowed to develop could affect their swimming careers.

[lincoln]

Thanks - that's what I'm worried about! How do we ensure our age groupers get the pool time we are told they need without putting too much strain on their developing bodies? Does anybody reading this think they have got the balance right and if so, would they like to share their programme?

[Pete]

The main problem areas are shoulders and knees. Over rotations in one direction swimming freestyle and fly means that the joints are used in one direction only. Interspersing backstroke into the the long freestye sets puts the swimmer less at risk. I put 200 loose backstroke onto every long freestyle set at the middle and end. Ensuring rotation in the opposite direction, helping avoid repetitive strain injury.
Breaststrokers swim, kicking dolphin kick (with or without fins) to take the strain out of the knee area when doing long breaststroke sets.:wave:
I also try to alternate freestyle and IM as main sets in my sessions. It also keeps the swimmers happy with less repetition; therefore less boredom factor.:read:

[lane4]

I tried it, did 25m in 22.8 seconds. Is that any good?

[Steve]

Originally posted by lincoln
Can you explain why it's safe in swimming but not in other activities?

Getting back to the point ;) I think that there's an important distinction to be made between muscle building work and cardio vascular exercise. In weight training for example I would agree that you shouldn't train the same muscle groups two days running, but this is becasue you are actually 'damaging' the muscle (tearing the fibres - hence the stiffness that can be associated with weight training) and you need to allow them to recover before repeating the trianing. In cardio training, like swimming, it isn't so critical because you are training the muscle (and heart and lungs) to work more efficiently under different loads. Of course all of the comments made are very sensible for injury prevention, but there is no reason why you shouldn't swim two sessions so close together.

I'm sure someone who knows more about this might point out a flaw in this, but it's what I was always taught :)

[Bazza]

Yeah, I believe that to be accurate Steve.;)
At the end of the day, Lenny Krayzelburg used to train for 4-5 hours a day, even when he was young. I know it's a very extreme example, but I don't believe he would have used different muscle groups every time. That would have meant one session on each stroke :confused:
It hasn't appeared to do him any harm either!:D

[mammamedley]

Soap Box!!! :rolleyes:

Here goes! Lovely Lenny got me thinking! :king:

Injuries I have experienced from swimming have been the shoulder and knee. However, injuries I have experienced from badly managed land work are too many to mention. Most injuries to swimmers originate from land conditioning or the lack of knowledge of how to prepare the body for the 'overload' in the pool.
On land! I have seen so many land training sessions that have made me cringe! I have even been present at an ASA Club Coaches Land training session that made me cringe! Coaches should also be aware of what land based work the children are experiencing at school. How does that fit in with not training the same muscle groups two days in a row? How many of the exercises swimmers are asked to do are NOT recomended by Physios etc.? Are our swimmers told not to increase work load until the exercise is comfortable and then increase only by 10 percent?
As each swimmer in the team is such an individual how can coaches set a large pull set with paddles or breast kick set and expect that ALL those swimmers' shoulders or knees would cope? All programes ideally should be individual to that swimmer. As above - the overload should only increase by 10 percent.

Only today I was at a pool and a well known team of swimmers were waiting in the entrance for 20 minutes before their session in the pool. Not only were they quiet and subdued but none were preparing for their session. They just sat there, waiting! With pool time so precious, and some sessions only an hour - forget the 20 minute swim warm-up, and get hot and stretch on poolside for 20 minutes prior to session, and build into session straight away.
Swimmers would also cope better with muscle overload if they stretched after working out too! When do we see that? I don't! Tell a lie - I did once! Portsmouth Northsea session at Aldershot!
Are their 10-13 year olds coping with muscle overload two days in a row?
I think it is perfectly reasonable to swim two sessions 'back to back' so long as swimmers are prepared in a professional manner any overloading on the muscles is carefully adjusted for each individual swimmer.
I know myself, I can't manage a 'back to back' session right now - but I will get there eventually! As for land training - learnt my lesson the hard way - never again!

How was the spelling????!!!!

[Julia]

Warning Children are children and not miniture adults. Therefore they must be coached in that way, and not to an adult programme. I know of one parent of a 12 year old who is thinking of suing the coach (ASA senior Coach) for the damage incurred from repeated over training. He had promise at a high level, but now must rest for at least 12 months.

[swimfizz]

]In cardio training, like swimming....

With my coaches "hat "on I can see where you are coming from as Cardiac fitness in most cases, probably wins the race.

However with my physio " hat" on I have to question this. Swimming to your potential relies equally on muscle and cardio vascular fitness. ie
CV fitness without muscle strength = muscle fatique as the fibres are unable to move fast enough = injury
Muscle fitness and lack of CV finess = muscles do not get enough oxygen = muscle fatigue (injury?)
(Apologies to the sports scientists- this is very over simplified.)
With growing age groupers, more than older swimmers I think we have got to get it right ..
I totally agree with Mammamedley regarding swimmers and exercise. It is important it is done and done correctly!!
I think it is perfectly reasonable to swim two sessions 'back to back' so long as swimmers are prepared in a professional manner any overloading on the muscles is carefully adjusted for each individual swimmer.
I am slightly concerned at the emphasis given to the amount of distance expected of age groupers
Looking at swimmers at the last few meets I attended it was interesting to see the finalists in the middle age groups all mainly of a similar type and build - small to middle height and well developed for their age.Is this because they are the ones who can cope best with this sort of training? The long lankey ones tended to be more in evidence in the older ages. Are we losing the tall ones to injury,lack of motivation, problems with the (type of) training, or are they waiting in the wings to appear in the future .Any thoughts!!?
:devil:

[lane4]

Originally posted by Julia
Warning I know of one parent of a 12 year old who is thinking of suing the coach (ASA senior Coach) for the damage incurred from repeated over training. He had promise at a high level, but now must rest for at least 12 months.

What damage has arisen (specifically) from the training programme?
How will it be proved that this damage was actually from the training programme?
What exactly is "repeated over training"?
How does one measure what is overtraining and what is not?
What exactly does "promise at a high level" mean and how would such promise be proven?

So many questions, so few answers.

[mammamedley]

Soap Box again!!! :rolleyes:

Children may not be minature adults however they can be given the respect that an adult swimmer demands. I know one local coach who admitts that they do not like coaching masters as they are so demanding!! Adult swimmers can not be manipulated like age groupers!!
As for the Senior Coach who may be 'in trouble', he or she needs to learn the hard way and cover themselves 100 times over!
Had that coach spent the time to sit down with swimmer and parent pointing out acheivable goals and going through in detail the programe to acheive the goals, with all the demands of ASAs 'Bill Sweetybum', it would have given the child and parent a clear vision of what to expect. Communication is open between coach, swimmer and parent giving the opportunity to discuss any weaknesses that need to be overcome in the preparation of the programe. There should also be a report written from this meeting and swimmer, parent and coach sign. This gives the swimmer an amazing 'sense of purpose' towards their training what ever age. It makes them more responsible for their training giving them them more satisfaction, self-esteem and confidence. This also gives the parent an understanding in what their child requires to do to get their goal and also the feeling that the coach is approachable as the workload increases, checking to see the swimmer is not stressed beyond reasonable levels. Too many parents just drop and go scared of being labelled 'pushy' if they are watching or supporting.
I have a 13 yr old 6 ft tall daughter who should have been a swimmer but chose ballet! She now puts her size 10 feet into point shoes! Her toes are sometimes so sore however the communication between teachers, pupil and myself as a parent is such that I trust and support the programe she is working towards. Her body was prepared before she was allowed to go onto point - her shoes are regularly checked for weaknesses. Her programe towards her exams is clear and precise! She knows exactly where she is going and how she is going to get there! I do not have to wake her up to get out of bed for her ballet lesson. She wakes me up!


;)

[lincoln]

Good advice, which I thoroughly agree with. I only wish our other coaches were reading this (maybe they are!). But reading is one thing - action is what matters!

[lane4]

Originally posted by lincoln
Good advice, which I thoroughly agree with. I only wish our other coaches were reading this (maybe they are!). But reading is one thing - action is what matters!

Who are your other coaches??????

[Bowly]

When I was a wee nipper, I was always taught by my parents and coaches alike, that because i was a swimmer (and not a bad one at that!), that i should be much more mature that other people (non-swimmers) my age. Afterall, not many people that I went to school with could cope with going training (whether runnning, football, hockey etc..) 9 times a week, and especially not before school, and then get school work done! With that in mind, it was very clear in my mind what a) I had to do to get good results; and b) what I didn't have to do, ie when I felt I may have been pushing it too far and risking injury. Unfortunately, because I was so lazy, and I had a very good coach I never got to this stage, but nonetheless I do feel that young swimmers, because they have to be much more mature than, dare I suggest, we give them credit for, they will know if they are going too far. As for land work, I personally think its highly irresponsible for anyone to take anyone below the age of 14 into any sort of weights session. What could you possibly hope to achieve by ripping some young lads muscles as he's struggling to bench press 10Kg?
Just a thought!

[Unfit]

on the subject of youngsters doing weight training -
my brother did alot when he was young (14-16). it didn't seem to harm him at the time, in fact since he was a flier he needed the strength and it served him well.
the interesting thing though is what happened later. he had to be medically discharged from the forces because the heavy pack numbed a nerve in his shoulder. the doctor said they'd seen this before in people who had developed their muscles at an early age; ie their shoulders had developed differently from everyone elses!
in other words my point is - do we really know the long term implications of weight training and other high intensity training on kids? are there any studies on this - ie following kids from an early age right up to middle age?
just a thought!

[swimfizz]

:D
Had that coach spent the time to sit down with swimmer and parent pointing out acheivable goals and going through in detail the programe to acheive the goals

Hear! Hear!

Too often I have heard parents referred to as interfering busybuddies who are expected to taxi, pay on request and preferably stay out of the way.
Parents often do not understand what is involved in coaching a swimmer and a simple explanation can prevent a lot of grief!
Getting a swimmer to achieve their potential involves a team which must include parents!!
:)

[Steve]

I agree entirely that parents should be brought on baord with why certain aspects of training are being employed, but if it is going to work it still relies upon the parent trusting the coach and therefore letting him get on with it. Many parents who know little about swimming are far too eager to criticise the training methods being adopted and this is why, in my experience, coaches don't enter into such consultation as much as they should.

[swimfizz]

do we really know the long term implications of weight training and other high intensity training on kids? are there any studies on this - ie following kids from an early age right up to middle age?

I think this is something the sports medical profession is becoming aware of. However it is a major issue in other sports where athletes start young such as Gymnastics ,football etc.
It is probably just filtering down to Swimming as there is not a large medical input to the sport at "grass roots" and it is not been seen as a risky sport.
This may change however as younger swimmers are training more . As I have said previously myself and colleagues are seeing more young swimmers with injuries than before.

[mammamedley]

Are the youngsters of today really training more than top youngsters from the past? Brings me back to 'lovely Lenny'! Not sure that they do! I used to do more than they swim now - but the difference being that we weren't ploughed up and down with bad techniques as even then we knew the imperfections caused injuries. I remember planning the year's training and with the coach and my parents! Alot of what 'Sweetybum' is asking for is what we did then - it feels full circle! Got log books to prove it!

do we really know the long term implications of weight training and other high intensity training on kids? are there any studies on this - ie following kids from an early age right up to middle age?

We were careful with weights but the landtraining buggered my back for life - incidently both my older brothers have back problems! Phil had major op on his back the year prior to LA Olympics, and we all have back problems today! It has been sugested that this might also be due to all the fly kick with a float we did as well. However, for me, it was the landtraining - I am useless on land - pathetic!


This subject has produced some really cool stuff!
;)

Its the thought of 'Lovely Lenny'! :p

[Bazza]

I've only ever known a couple of people at our club do butterfly kick with a float. I've always been rubbish at fly kick over any distance anyway - I can manage an underwater section and that's about it!:D I guess the advantage of this is that when I do fly kick it's as part of an IM, so with backstroke coming up, I never bothered using a float. I've never had a 'serious' injury as a result of swimming, weights or land-trianing. This could be luck, but surely alot of it comes down to technique, workload, etc.
I would definitely agree that there seem to be more injuries among younger memebers of our club than when I was their age (hardly any of my friends ever had problems at a younger age, mostly when mature). I couldn't say why this is though!:confused:

[Unfit]

i've got a bad back and was a butterflier for a while - maybe they're connected? i'd never thought about it. i do know though that i completely ****ed up my knees as a result of being a breastroker (and hence why i had to turn to butterfly). i reccon i used to do about 1-2hours a day of breast-stroke when i was about 11/12. i had to have physio for a year to get my knees not to hurt anymore!

[Steve]

Originally posted by bazzaroodoo
I would definitely agree that there seem to be more injuries among younger memebers of our club than when I was their age I couldn't say why this is though!:confused:

Maybe its 'cos you never trained hard enough when you were their age..:devil: ;)

[lincoln]

Should we be on a new thread here? (moderator please advise) - all of this prompts me to ask - can anybody give me clear guidelines as to the number of hours' training a competitive age group swimmer should do, assuming they will be working on all strokes?

Once these youngsters have moved onto a certain level of training ( often, in my opinion, too soon) - they either get bored or tired or both, and give up, or are afraid to drop down a gear and go back to more technique-based training with a 'lower' group for a period, for fear of falling behind their peers. This is often beyond the control of younger, less experienced coaches who tend to be given the lower groups to teach and initiate into the world of competition, and then have to watch as their carefully nurtured charges are slowly but surely damaged and demoralised by an often out of date 'serious' training programme.

We can only hope that with the advent of more stringent CPD requirements, the 'upper' end of the equation will slowly die out and standards and understanding will rise.

Is it likely that the ASA will eventually make it compulsory for registered clubs to be run by people with up to date knowledge that has to be kept up to date?

[swimfizz]

Are the youngsters of today really training more than top youngsters from the past?

Probably not the 13 and overs where they have chosen swimming as their main sport.
I am seeing kids under 10's in regular training (up to 5 times including mornings) who are juggling swimming with a variety of other sports-rugby, ballet etc. It seems a lot for their bodies to cope with.This may be why more injuries are occuring and they are sickened of swimming by the time they are 13?
It may be the parents who have to choose as they seem to want the kids to do as many sports as possible.
I do feel the kids are pushed up the ladder too quickly now and do not have the "depth" in stroke and stamina.

[Bazza]

Originally posted by swimfizz
I do feel the kids are pushed up the ladder too quickly now and do not have the "depth" in stroke and stamina.

I would definitely suggest our club doesn't have the 'depth' it used to (in terms of ablilty or 'strength' of the swimmers at the bottom end), but there could be any number of reasons for this. Also it tends to be 'cyclical' in the first place, so...
5 times a week at 10 seems alot, although thinking about it :idea: our top 10 year olds probably do that amount. the difference is it wouldn't be more than 5 hours. How long are the sessions you are referring to?

Finally, and this is addressed to Steve; What do you mean "When I was their age"?!?!:devil:

[swimfizz]

Not sure length of sessions although got impression it was longer than 1 hour. May be mistaken as I am not working in the pool with them - just trying to fix the sore bits !!
;)

[Steve]

Originally posted by bazzaroodoo
Finally, and this is addressed to Steve; What do you mean "When I was their age"?!?!:devil:

...so you admit that you still don't train hard enough :p , I'm sure graham would be very interested to hear that...;)

[mammamedley]

Do you think 5 x per week is too much for 10 year old? My 9 year old can't get enough of it.
His strokes are stable (must have something to do with his mother!!!;) ) and he has alot of fun - there is rarely much pressure. The work is drills and learing to perfect the race skills. His hardest session is on a Friday evening , 1.5 hours, however the last half an hour is working on race skills. He loves it! If he doesn't do his homework he is not allowed to go! He is focused and we have noticed an improvement in his self discipline and confidence. He is not overtraining as he does not stop talking in the car on the way home about his training.
He is a happy chap right now! I'll keep you posted!

[mammamedley]

Spoke to a lady today who's son is 9 and is training in gymnastics at a local club. He trains 18 hours per week! I thought she said 8 but it was 18!

[Bazza]

Originally posted by Steve Buckley
I'm sure graham would be very interested to hear that...;)

I'm sure he would, but I'd appreciate it if he didn't find out!!:chainsaw: