Today's modern times with the great influence of technology in people's lives and physical passivity, which is greater than ever, indicate the extreme importance of training for human health in every sense.
For children who compete in a sport, training is even more important. From my personal point of view, and from my point of view after the COVID crisis in which the whole of humanity was caught, training for a man is the most important element for his health and success in life. My intention is to discover all its benefits and the best ways to use it for our goals.
After a short summer break, I am returning to the role of a swimming coach and instructor. My current focus is on training the youngest age groups (three to five years old) and children who are underdeveloped in certain aspects. I am currently dedicated to studying this area in depth, as this has been assigned to me by the team. I am thinking about the best solutions and the most effective exercises that engage children through play, and help improve movement and develop basic swimming coordination and physical abilities.
As for the slightly older age groups I’ve been working with in recent months, who are already involved in semi-professional swimming or intend to pursue it in that way, I have already researched a great deal and know which strategy is the most efficient for young swimmers aiming for top championship trophies.
There are many well-known exercises, widely available to the public, that are commonly used, and you can find them on the internet. These exercises are undoubtedly useful. However, I believe that simply generalizing exercises according to a model and training framed by program plans is not going to benefit anyone who aims for more than mediocrity unless your basic goal is simply to learn to swim well.
Again, I repeat for the umpteenth time: a good coach adapts training individually to the swimmer's abilities and biomechanical characteristics, not the other way around.
Exercises commonly used to develop movement patterns in swimming disciplines are universally accepted in all swimming schools. However, you cannot train the same way once a child learns to swim without errors, and especially not in the same way when, after several years, these children become stronger and learn to swim both correctly and efficiently.
It is normal that with age and maturity, swimmers will achieve better results, but these will still be within the average range for their age group. If you want more than that, you must find a coach who is meant for this and who knows the real magic.
Swim coaches typically impose longer sets on swimmers, which is usually done according to the program for each age group. The result is improved performance in the completed sets. However, these children are not swimming faster. They swim at the same pace that is normal for their age. The difference is that when they swim longer sets, they become more durable, and at that same pace, they can swim for longer periods because they have built endurance. As a result, their overall time improves.
You cannot achieve increased speed and explosiveness in rotations and strokes by training this way.
Every training session has its benefits, but sometimes it results in something that doesn’t lead to championship-level performance but only mediocrity because the training methods used are not the most efficient way to achieve that level.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of vanity among coaches and they do not accept this truth easily.
Because of this, many young, talented swimmers, who are destined to achieve great results, end up swimming in mediocrity, comparing themselves to others who do not have their physical and genetic predispositions.
Again, the truth is that just as you have to be born with a talent for the sport, you also have to be born with a talent for the coaching job. I don't like writing this now, but if after a few minutes, you see what is wrong and how this mistake can be corrected most effectively and quickly, and someone doesn't see it even after many years... Further text is superfluous...
The most effective movement!
This is a secret that is very important in sports, and perhaps the most important in swimming. Sports biomechanics is the science that is most important for sports swimming and requires the intuitive talent of the coach in today's age of electronic technology and cannot be learned from books. You simply have to be born with this feeling.
you see...
Today's modern freestyle swimming implies that all swimmers take the air on the second stroke if we exclude sprints in swimming at 50 or 100 meters. The very fact that the swimmer always takes air on the same side automatically means that the way of competitive swimming today is completely asymmetrical. The science of biomechanics, or virtual intelligence, will give you all the answers to what movements you need to do to swim as efficiently as possible, but only if you have the ideal build, or the ideal asymmetrical constitution for the freestyle swimming you are competing!
For all other competitors, and that means almost everyone, because it will be difficult to find the ideal asymmetry, the feeling of a coach who has it in him as something most natural, is the most important thing if you want to achieve top results in this sport.
You can be the greatest doctor of science and have all the knowledge in the world (but I must say that it is absolutely necessary to have scientific knowledge), but if you DO NOT have a sense of biomechanics and functional efficiency, as something that is naturally instilled in you, that science will not be of any use to you if you want to create a top competitor in swimming.
There is no other way to put it.
There is no way to express this differently.
Apart from the last few training sessions where my engagement has increased a bit, because I think it's now clear to everyone what I'm writing about (it's possible that reading this blog has its purpose), in the current environment I'm not getting the necessary understanding or any real opportunities for any significant changes. It's truly sad to see someone who is once again going the wrong way towards complete mediocrity, even though they have far greater potential. Unfortunately, that's the historical karma of many swimming champions — finding the right coach.
Knowledge can be found everywhere on the Internet, but the innate talent, knowledge and experience that a person acquires in life is something that everyone tries to keep to themselves. It is unlikely that you will share it in its true size if this is your advantage, especially if you know that this is precisely the most valuable gift from God for you and opens up the brightest prospects for your future as a coach.
Maybe your colleagues can copy some of this, but if it is useful to young swimming competitors, then your heart is full because it proves all your claims and quality, but your gift and talent cannot be stolen because it is simply a part of you.
In coaching understanding, it is a great thing to start the right mechanisms at the right time, which leads to champion levels and top results. It is devastating when politics and vanity cripple many young talents from a bright future and perhaps champion achievements in sports. And I have been watching this constantly for as long as I can remember.
Imagine a state-of-the-art intergalactic spaceship that can travel at the speed of light, but you use it as if it were an ordinary tractor...Illustrative
Unfortunately, sometimes you can do nothing but do your best for these children.
This text was written in November, but it represents the basis for systematic progress in swimming and a summary of the entire past year.
Further progress and the final reach of a competing swimmer depend solely on the coach and how the coach understands the whole story of training.
I enjoy doing work that fills me with happiness and broadens my horizons about training.
There is no greater reward than a sincere child's greeting and smile that clearly tells you of gratitude for the help and valuable advice that opens up their potential.
I have no power or position to change methods that have not changed in the last fifty years.
However, I feel that I must open the truth that many see but are afraid of and do not use, partly because of vanity and fear of the truth, which I have insisted on from the beginning.
The functioning of modern life clearly reveals all true values. It is also a time of great opportunities. As if by some rule, when you work diligently and gather a critical mass of quality content, it will surely reward you with the complete magnificence you deserve, with full strength and a richly fulfilled life.
It always happens that way...
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