Swimmers Doing Multiple Sports

[Anonymous]

DS just chose a swim team that was less competitive. Coaches knew he was doing another sport (rec soccer) and was fine with it. He swam 3 days/week + 2 soccer practices + 1 game.

During HS swim season, he didn't play soccer, but had 2 HS practices + 2 dryland days + 1 meet + 3 club swim practices.

Thankfully, he can drive!

[Anonymous]

The practice schedule for high level competitive swimming in 13+ is just so crazy. Most clubs seem to want 5 or 6 days a week of practice. I don't know of any other club sport that is that demanding. Most of them are like 2 practices a week and a game, and often less when out of season.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The practice schedule for high level competitive swimming in 13+ is just so crazy. Most clubs seem to want 5 or 6 days a week of practice. I don't know of any other club sport that is that demanding. Most of them are like 2 practices a week and a game, and often less when out of season.

Yeah, swimming is weird that way. That's what it takes to be truly outstanding, but in reality, someone can be a darn fast swimmer if they do ~3 days/week until high school and then ramp up. You don't *have* to do 5-6 days week starting at age 12 and frankly, doing that much that young increases risk of burnout.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD is into swimming, but also enjoys other sports. She's 10 now, so we can balance the 3 swim practices a week with other sports. But her club expects 4 practices from 11-12 year olds and 5-6 per week from 13 and up. At some point, it's going to be impossible to juggle that. At what point did your swimmer give up other sports and just go to swimming (or give up swimming for other sports)?

Multi sport athletes doing very well at the HS swim level. Those who specialize early usually lack athleticism and explosiveness. Develop the athlete now, specialize later. Also helps reduce burnout

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The practice schedule for high level competitive swimming in 13+ is just so crazy. Most clubs seem to want 5 or 6 days a week of practice. I don't know of any other club sport that is that demanding. Most of them are like 2 practices a week and a game, and often less when out of season.

The only sport I can think of is gymnastics (elite Level 4-6 gymnasts practice 20-25 hours per week). In terms of commitment to practice, playing an instrument and high-level dance require similar hours to swimming. But swimming is unique because even a short time away can result in significant regression.

[Anonymous]

I think it is the nature of pool time that requires so much practice. Older kid plays a field sport and while her club team practices so much less than swim there is an expectation you are getting reps on your own daily. Cant really practice on your own with swimming unless you are fortunate enough to have a competition pool.

Also, we are noticing a huge difference in practice load between clubs. My kids’ club does a lot more dry land than it used to and my understanding is the top HS group has at two days a week of dry land instead of pool time. They are also not swimming the yardage that her friends are swimming at other clubs.

One last point, I think diversification of sports is great (particularly through middle school) and I have always held my kid to the lowest level of practices allowed for their group. But in a vast majority of cases, the best swimmers (kids winning championship meets) are those who are in the top groups that practice a ton. I am thinking through the metros winners off the top of my head and those kids are all committed to swim in a top club practice group and have been for a long time. Sure, multi sport athletes can be HS contributors but the elite swimmers do the full club practice schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is the nature of pool time that requires so much practice. Older kid plays a field sport and while her club team practices so much less than swim there is an expectation you are getting reps on your own daily. Cant really practice on your own with swimming unless you are fortunate enough to have a competition pool.

Also, we are noticing a huge difference in practice load between clubs. My kids’ club does a lot more dry land than it used to and my understanding is the top HS group has at two days a week of dry land instead of pool time. They are also not swimming the yardage that her friends are swimming at other clubs.

One last point, I think diversification of sports is great (particularly through middle school) and I have always held my kid to the lowest level of practices allowed for their group. But in a vast majority of cases, the best swimmers (kids winning championship meets) are those who are in the top groups that practice a ton. I am thinking through the metros winners off the top of my head and those kids are all committed to swim in a top club practice group and have been for a long time. Sure, multi sport athletes can be HS contributors but the elite swimmers do the full club practice schedule.

What is a metros winner?

[Anonymous]

Isn't that really the case with any elite athletes? They practice a lot with the top training groups. You can't do that if you play another sport, which is OK with me. It is just reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't that really the case with any elite athletes? They practice a lot with the top training groups. You can't do that if you play another sport, which is OK with me. It is just reality.

No, not really. The top lax, soccer, bball, etc clubs don’t have 5-6 practices per week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't that really the case with any elite athletes? They practice a lot with the top training groups. You can't do that if you play another sport, which is OK with me. It is just reality.

No, not really. The top lax, soccer, bball, etc clubs don’t have 5-6 practices per week.

DP - they don't have them at 12 or 13, when it starts for swimming. That's the biggest difference - swimming is one of the few other sports where the serious commitment starts young, at least for kids aiming to be super elite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't that really the case with any elite athletes? They practice a lot with the top training groups. You can't do that if you play another sport, which is OK with me. It is just reality.

No, not really. The top lax, soccer, bball, etc clubs don’t have 5-6 practices per week.

They don’t have organized “team practices” 5-6 days a week but they are absolutely practicing that sport in some capacity 5-6 times a week if they want to be elite (e.g. hitting/pitching lessons with private coach for bball and softball)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is the nature of pool time that requires so much practice. Older kid plays a field sport and while her club team practices so much less than swim there is an expectation you are getting reps on your own daily. Cant really practice on your own with swimming unless you are fortunate enough to have a competition pool.

Also, we are noticing a huge difference in practice load between clubs. My kids’ club does a lot more dry land than it used to and my understanding is the top HS group has at two days a week of dry land instead of pool time. They are also not swimming the yardage that her friends are swimming at other clubs.

One last point, I think diversification of sports is great (particularly through middle school) and I have always held my kid to the lowest level of practices allowed for their group. But in a vast majority of cases, the best swimmers (kids winning championship meets) are those who are in the top groups that practice a ton. I am thinking through the metros winners off the top of my head and those kids are all committed to swim in a top club practice group and have been for a long time. Sure, multi sport athletes can be HS contributors but the elite swimmers do the full club practice schedule.

What is a metros winner?

Metros is the biggest HS swim meet in DC/MD area: championship meet for all Maryland publics and privates (bigger than MD state champs bc includes private schools/akin to Va state champs, imo).

[Anonymous]

You are kidding yourself if you think only swimmers practice that much. My 8 year old DD was on a soccer team where kids trained 5 days a week plus games on weekends. Kids and parents were all in. We left but there were tons of kids to take that spot.

[Anonymous]

And training is private sessions, strength and agility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is into swimming, but also enjoys other sports. She's 10 now, so we can balance the 3 swim practices a week with other sports. But her club expects 4 practices from 11-12 year olds and 5-6 per week from 13 and up. At some point, it's going to be impossible to juggle that. At what point did your swimmer give up other sports and just go to swimming (or give up swimming for other sports)?

Multi sport athletes doing very well at the HS swim level. Those who specialize early usually lack athleticism and explosiveness. Develop the athlete now, specialize later. Also helps reduce burnout

On the flip side, swimmers can do training that will improve their athleticism and explosiveness without necessarily playing a different sport. I played a team sport at school and swam club through 10th grade, before focusing on just swimming. The team sport wasn’t hard enough to make me a better athlete. We spent a lot of time waiting in line doing drills. The focused dryland training done with my swim coaches in late HS and then in college was MUCH harder and better for developing my athleticism. We would do very high intensity work in a short time. We would also combine it with swimming sometimes for example sprint a 25, get out and do pushups, dive back in and sprint a 25.