Phase Two: 11 to 14 Year Olds
The 11 to 14 year olds are the swimmers that start to swim for their coach. It is a well known fact that Age Group Coaches get more gifts at Christmas than Senior Coaches (just kidding, I love my group).
This stage involves athletes beginning to trust their coach and "buying" into what they are "selling". Normally great strides or time drops happen during this stage. We coaches would love to claim this was all our own doing, we have ego's you know. Actually the athletes growth along with a good technique base (not aerobic base) are the main reasons time drops occur. We have the Early matures and Late matures in this group of athletes and this is a whole other topic I hope to get to in a later T4L.
The 11-14 year olds start to understand teamwork and setting goals. They are very self conscience and want to be a part of something. I believe swimming is probably the only sport that has boys and girls together during training and competitions. To me that is awesome for our youngsters, to get to know and respect each other through our sport. This stage is often called the "learning to train" stage in athlete development. That doesn't mean swim more yards. It means we have to set the athletes up with the correct tools , so they can move into the next phase of their development.
I strongly believe that a successful athlete has to go through each of these first two stages to reach the senior groups, otherwise they will never reach full potential. The next stage is 15 & older, I'll write about that soon.
New things are coming to the RAYS Nation
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