Swim coaches

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Comment by John Coffman on November 4, 2009 at 10:43am

If she enjoys swimming and doesn't mind 20+ hours of practice - with meets on top of that when in-season, then go ahead and visit D1 schools. She is fast enough (and I would think your club coach would have communicated this - yes?) for many D1 schools or most D2 school right now. I say right now because things can always change... she starts to like another sport more, as she matures her times stagnate, etc etc. There are a bunch of solid D3 swim programs/schools in Ohio, too, and I would not discount them (no athletic $ but many times can find academic $ for the right athlete).

Keep in mind that she will be a STUDENT athlete, and that aspect should be front and center in your decision making process, as well as the feel for the coach, the team, and the campus when she does official visits her senior year. Training between schools can vary A LOT - so a standard list of any and all questions you may have would be a good idea. Don't bombard the coach all at once, obviously, but do ask what you want to know and keep the info written down to easily refer back to.

Good luck, and most importantly - HAVE FUN with the whole process. It should be exciting for her, so keep it relaxed.

Comment by Angela Francis on November 3, 2009 at 10:02pm

I'm not a coach, just a mom. Trying to learn more about the sport and If my swimmer should think about swimming in college. She's a young spohmore in high school (just turned 15)but she holds her own. She just won summer USA league states for Ohio in the 50 meter free with a 27.73 for the 14 and unders (not her best). Being 5'4 and 115 lbs, we were happy though. She was also part of 3 or 4 USA nationall ranked relays. She really wants to swim in college. Is there any hope of a D1 school or should we look at a D2 for college visits next summer?

Comment by Magnus Agren on November 22, 2008 at 4:50am

I agree that you need standards. But I would say that standards and tests should be specific to what you want the swimmer to be good at. Not just general conditioning! A lot of trainer use to much testing and guidelines, sometimes they rely so much on it that the "nature" of the swimmer get lost.

One thing that is of utterly importance is the balance between diffrent muscles, both strength wise and flexibility wise. You need to conserve energy, and not have to use it just standing up...

To be continued I am sure :-)...

Comment by John Coffman on November 20, 2008 at 12:17pm

Agreed, it is individual as to who can transfer what qualities, and we do have some standards that we feel it's important to work toward so that general strength requirements are filled.

This is even more so for dryland/energy-system work. For instance, we expect our upper-level swimmers to be able to complete this set:

Squat Thrusts 3 x 2:00, 1:00 rest between 60+ per each 2:00

It is non-specific in regard to swimming, but I think has great general conditioning and work capacity carry over to swimming. We have standards for about 9 +/- strength and conditioning values.

As a side note, we've had athletes do as many as 90 per 2:00 on the above set, and all of them were faster in the water when able to do so...

Comment by Magnus Agren on November 20, 2008 at 12:04pm

Depending on the athlete this standards will vary! Each athlete will have different length of limbs and so on, this will make them more or less good at any movement. So standards are individual, at least by my way of thinking. You can not say that if an athlete does so and so in the PC he will do so and so in the 100meters freestyle.

When I started training Stefan, the year before Sydney, I trained him at the same time as a female swimmer, she outlifted him in the PC :-) But she didn't have the ability to correlate her strength to her swimming! So it is a bit more complicated than that we would like it to be sometimes...

But I will get back to this a bit later, now of to work again...

Comment by John Coffman on November 20, 2008 at 11:15am

Magnus -

Wondering if you had standards for strength (PC, Bench Press, Squat, etc) and/or conditioning that you expect your athletes to meet?

Comment by Magnus Agren on November 20, 2008 at 10:58am

I am the strength and conditioning coach for, amongst others, Stefan Nystrand -if anyone here recognize him!? And would gladly discuss strength and conditioning for swimmers.

Comment by John Coffman on November 20, 2008 at 10:57am

Glad to be here - this site is a great idea!!! For anyone interested, I've coached HS and Club swimming (and Diving) for almost 20 years. We've had pretty good success at the HS level and above incorporating more S&C than most programs, and slightly less (though very fast) yardage.

Questions, comments, discussions... let me know!

Comment by Keith Wheeler on November 14, 2008 at 12:22am

I coach my youngest son's rec league swim team.. we only have 6 weeks with them in an outdoor pool and we usually take the league every year.

Comment by Bill Vasko on November 13, 2008 at 9:59pm

Keith, do you coach swimming?