How much swimming is too much for kids

Private lessons? I understand the idea of hard work, but at such a young age, it seems to only provide more pressure.

Maybe a suggested maximum might help kids avoid burnout and give parents a better guide of what is necessary for the younger kids? You bring up a great point. If you have a decent coach, they will have guidelines on how many practices children should attend based on their age and maturity.

Coaches are interested in having kids stick with swimming and not burn out. No two kids are the same and there can be big size and maturity differences between children the same age. Some coaches may have strict age group requirements for number of practices and levels or instead may look at swimmers individually. When kids are younger, the focus should be on having fun with friends in a positive learning experience where they are developing new skills and technique.

Our kids had private lessons and it was a positive experience. The coach who taught private lessons was very good at teaching technique and keeping it fun. Private lessons were motivating and fun. I think signing kids up for private lessons depends on whether or not kids are getting the skills they need at practice. Our coaches have guidelines of how many days per week kids should practice according to their age. If you have great coaches and you trust them, then follow their practice schedule.

You can read more parenting tips on her blog. There are no easy answers, but I think we first have to address the systemic barriers that prevent that more inclusive definition of success.

Hello sir your article is much appreciated really by me! Will on my way of trainings sometimes we go home with medals in some competition but very often as i said i want it long term success for me theres always a proper time. I can give them loads of thousand of meters of trainings 10k meters in morning 8kmeters in afternoon if i want but i did not, will my concern on own way of teaching is that the parents of my swimmers they always questions me and they always compare me to some other coaches they said why is that they practice early in the morning everyday and in the afternoon 7times a week why can we do that also?

Can u share me your thoughts on how to explain it with the parents on how to deal with them? Some parents started to say that they want to transfer with the other coach because they want intense training for their kids.. Hoping for ur thoughts on this matter RVE…. Hi RVE, Congratulations on not bending to peer pressure and parental pressure regarding your swimmers.

As for explaining this to parents, I have two suggestions. The choice is between pushing them to get fast now, and probably quit later, or allowing them to grow and get faster over time. And there are many other non-swimming blogs about the perils of pushing young kids too hard, and giving them too many early morning practices.

Walker is one of the leading experts in sleep research and sleep effects, and a passionate advocate for teens and adolescents needing far more sleep. There are also many studies that show when schools move start times earlier, students get worse marks, and later start times lead to better marks. Thanks for that! I want to change the way of coaching here in the Philippines but no one believes in me. It would be an honor for me to learn from a good coach like you… Can you be my mentor?

Hehehe just asking. Ask away. My son also Swimming Started at age 9,but his swimming three or two days for week and no restriction for my son doing everything as free child,amazing thing is on 26th June he done meet 50m breaststroke time is I must say that this is one of the main issue that all over the world Swimmers face. If we can stop extra pressure putting on our lovely children these issues will minimize and will have lot of healthy swimmers which will go to the senior national levels,International and wins.

I am glad to have read your article regarding youth training for swimming applies to any sport really. Our daughter seems to naturally love being in the water and she has been taking lessons now for about a year. My wife and I agreed to let her join and she is very excited. For now things will be very laid back. My son decided he wanted to join a swim team shortly before he turned He only had 1 swim lesson when he was little.

He was either under the water or having to sit on the side for causing such a disruption. I took him swimming all the time when he was little but never took him to another lesson. He just wanted to play. The summer just before he joined a swim team, I suggested he might want to breath under his arm when he swam.

He was doing his own version of freestyle….. There was one team starting a month earlier than the others. I chose the team for that main reason of start time.

My son just really wanted to get started with a swim team. My son had to be taught to do all the strokes. Diving is another thing he never wanted to be taught. What he does have is longer than average arms…. I believe starting at an older age was the only way my son would have become a swimmer. He would have driven coaches nuts. From my sons experience, starting at an older age was not an issue. He might have had the benefit of tons of time in the water but he had no early instruction.

He started learning strokes just before he turned My daughter never had swim lesson when she was little either. I paid a retired high school coach one summer to help her with something on her stroke when she was It might have been just underarm breathing or flip turn.

I think both my kids probably had that ability from being taken to the pool so often. The time spent in water might be important, but from our experience the rest can be learned at an older age and apparently you can do a quick catch up by working hard and paying attention to coaches instructions. Hi Meg. I love your story! There are many ways to approach sports, and we seem to get stuck into the same old ways all the time. Your story shows that late starters can still love the sport, and do well.

Sometimes I think we forget that this is all supposed to be about the kids. Great article and comments. This is incredibly destructive behavior for both parents and swimmers. Most leave and move to a club where this will be done for them. We have seen that the more we can let kids develop their own goals with guidance and grow into the sport, the greater their chances for success.

In fact, I start out each year with a blog post about how parents should interact. Their involvement needs to be pure support and love. As good as the swimmers may be, the departure inevitably is better for our team. We feel bad for the swimmer, as they end up leaving as well, but the proper team environment is more important than any one swimmer or parent.

My son is 13 and has been swimming competitively since age 10, but only in the last two years has he started dual workouts summer, evening during summers. The team is high intensity year round, 5 to 6 days per week, 2 hours per day including 30 minute dry land.

Yes, it takes on average 4 years of year round intensity for a swimmer to sprint a 50 on a single breath. Worse still, he would lose that advantage if he took more than a week off, and it could take at least another 2 months to build it back. His first two days back were hell: his endurance was off, technique fell apart, flip turn timing all wrong, etc. This article was spot on — only 5 days from the pool and my son felt like he lost 3 months of training.

Now, I practically have to force him to take a week off for family vacations. I hear about this kind of early start philosophy a lot. That much training in a young swimmer can cause shoulder problems in a few years. On the other hand, your son might be one of those extremely rare athletes who just keep getting better even with significant early training. Why should your son miss out on the joy of playing other sports or other school activities for a while while young.

And lastly, why so much emphasis on not breathing for a 50? Thanks for the feedback, Rick. I spoke to him about concerns related to overdoing the breath control and to my surprise, the coach has already advised him to take at least two breaths on the back 25 now because his tempo clearly slowed due to the oxygen deprivation.

As for other sports, believe me we have enrolled him in a diversity of sports between age 9 to 12 before he chose swimming as his only sport. But apparently to these hyper competitive boys who also participate in elite club soccer, basketball, football, etc. Swimming is where my son feels he has control over his own decisions and not subject to the tyranny of alpha males. Like many of his swim friends, he enjoys the single minded focus of swim sets where he just has to concern himself with the specifics of that set, no constantly changing variables.

He also likes running cross country, fencing and badminton for similar reasons but now he just wants to focus on swimming. Having a second opinion like yours is reassuring. Please continue posting your helpful articles. Thank you again. This appears to be similar to the reason why people climb Mt. Thank you again for bringing up this topic — I would not have had this discussion with my son had it not been for your comments.

Teach excellence and heroism from the day they walk on your pool deck. They will take those lessons through life. If they learn that fun is reaching for improved stroke, fitness, planning, goal setting and achievement of the zillions of elements that can and should be modeled, taught, measured and reinforced every day their lives will be better.

But every swimmer and swim program has an opportunity to teach excellence, including mileage excellence at a young age if the swimmer is ready. You have to make it fun, but there are a lot of ten year olds who can swim a perfect fly and I. Coyle is right when he states that it has to be the right practice. Most of my ten-year-olds who went 3, I.

M for time re still swimming for fitness into their forties. They find other things they can win. Hi again Steve. I agree with most of what you said. In fact the only real disagreement I have is that I think the truly self-motivated, tough-as-nails, genetically gifted athletes will find ways to achieve success in any program except the destructive ones. Especially as they age up and get exposed to other coaches. You raise a fantastic point about the coaching philosophies at the young ages.

Not all of our athletes are bound for swimming glory. But the lessons they learn can help them succeed in later life. One clarification. That path to greater training hours and intensity provides a system to try to minimize burn out. Swimmer B is even swimming s at 8 years old! My son just recently did the IM Long course lol! I want him to be able to enjoy his childhood and is actually busy doing other things soccer, piano, guitar, etc But my son definitely loves to swim and compete.

He is that type of person and such a good boy. But I feel so tired just looking at him practicing and competing! But so far he has no no complaints and really enjoys it. We have always told him and he acknowledges and understands that with everything he does school is still the 1 focus.

Which is another thing how can one become an elite athlete AND the demands academics whether its middle school, high school then college. In other swimming meets, I met one parent who also has a fast swimmer daughter and she tells me that she home-schools her kids AND they practice about 6 days a week!

So then I wonder about my own son what his potential would be too if he too had the same opportunities as them. Would love to hear opinions in general about this. Thanks for reading this long post! Hi JK. Wow, what a post. There are so many things that truly bother me about the pressure for 8-year olds to train hard and swim fast. Sounds to me like another cog in the commercialization youth sports machine. Year round at that age?

First of all, I believe you have the right approach with your son, and you could even dial down the swimming even more. A swimmer at 8 is too young to know anything about their future, other than pushing hard now will almost surely cause a significant plateau in the early teens, which increases the chances of them quitting. There is absolutely no reason to push them at a young age. That should be reserved for swimmers doing well at the senior level. Fast young swimmers may be fast due to early physical maturity or excessive training.

Finally, you are absolutely right in that your son should be exposed to an incredibly wide variety of activities in order to help him be a well-rounded person. Hello, I love your comments. I have a 9 year old who seems to be good at all sports. He loves swimming, but he also loves team sports. We have kept him in a recreational swim team for the last 3 years, swims 3 days a week for about 8 months a year.

He is by far the fastest swimmer in his age group in our little team. There is a USA swim team in our area, which is much more competitive. This can cause problems for our kids. Because our kids are still growing and developing they are more prone to stress fractures, tendinitis, degenerative conditions and damage to growth plates in their bones. And young athletes should have at least one to two days off per week so they can recover. Too much of one sport or of any one thing!

Sport should be about having fun and learning, not about being the best or even good! Unhealthy competition can negatively affect our kids as well. For me this is one of the critical considerations. Studies show that competitiveness can undermine resilience as kids judge themselves on their ability to be better than others. There is also the risk of burnout. And kids who specialise in a single sport before the age of 16 have a much higher risk of burnout. Watch for signs of burnout — inconsistent performance, lack of motivation, lack of enjoyment and being uncooperative with coaches and other players.

Also more generalised signs like fatigue, depression, anger, irritability, lack of ability to concentrate, not wanting to engage with friends or family and difficulty sleeping or eating can indicate a child who is burning out. As a baseline rule, before the age of ten participation in sport should be limited and all about fun.

This is when it becomes our job to help them balance the competing demands of sport and the joys of being a kid. Further, avoid specialisation. Encourage them to play a variety of things to see what they like most. Then if they want to get serious, they can do so from about Grade 8 or 9.