|
How Your Training Changes as
You Progress Through the Sport
How Your Training Changes
as You Progress Through the Sport Knowing what to expect through
different phases of your training as you progress through the sport
can help you understand how your training should be structured for
optimal performance in each phase and as you move from one stage to
the next. When you’re very young (age 6-14) athletes are in
what we call the generalized phase. In this phase, coaches are
trying to build base fitness and endurance while focusing on proper
technical development of strokes, starts and turns. This
pre-pubescent and pubescent stage of growth and development is the
aerobic and technical foundation for more intense and specialized
work in the next phase.
During the generalized
phase, especially for the younger athletes (6-10 years) structured
play, games, establishment of rules, how practices are structured,
and gaining more experience at swim meets are some of the major
focuses. From age 11-14 swimmers may hit their growth spurt if they
are going through puberty. This is when you may see changes in your
body and when you may even feel more clumsy or uncomfortable in
your own skin. You may seem sudden performance gains or just the
opposite: a plateau or even see a decline. It’s especially
important in this phase of training that you focus on technical
development, off-events, or even other sports to enhance
athleticism outside of the pool.
The second phase of
training is Specialization. By the time you get to this phase you
may be on the tail end of puberty or have entered adolescence. In
this phase, you can start to work at higher intensities and put in
higher quality workouts, if you have a strong aerobic base. You
really begin to refine race strategy and take more responsibility
for your own training. Because you may be more physically developed
you may even begin a structured dryland program. This is also the
point where athletes choose one sport to focus on and will put more
time into that sport.
The final phase of training
will hopefully take you to the end of a very successful and
satisfying career and where the fully mature as an athlete.
Athletes in this phase are really ready to put on more muscle mass,
train at top end speeds with the balance of recovery, and also
realize the importance of other training factors such as sleep,
nutrition and psychology. Athletes in this phase are expected to be
highly motivated and take an active role in planning their
training.
Although these phases are
generalizations you can often see characteristics overlap into
different phases. Depending on the rate of your own growth and
development, you may see some characteristics occur either or
earlier or later. What’s important is to know the progression
that usually occurs and to be able to apply it to your
swimming.
|
