Swim Training Guidelines

[Anonymous]

I have heard it mentioned but cannot find it. USA Swimming has training guidelines, correct? We are with a club and I am concerned about the yardage the kids are swimming. We had a 12 year old go out with a shoulder injury after the first month.

What is too many yards by age?

Does it make a difference if you swim five days a week with less yards vs three days a week with more yards?

When does it become garbage yardage? Because garbage yardage definitely will make the kids fast by strength/endurance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have heard it mentioned but cannot find it. USA Swimming has training guidelines, correct? We are with a club and I am concerned about the yardage the kids are swimming. We had a 12 year old go out with a shoulder injury after the first month.

What is too many yards by age?

Does it make a difference if you swim five days a week with less yards vs three days a week with more yards?

When does it become garbage yardage? Because garbage yardage definitely will make the kids fast by strength/endurance.

First, not all kids/teens are in the same practice groups; yardage/intensity/no. practices per week can very a lot. And if there are multiple practices, what's the focus of the practices - is it varied? do they have stroke work versus conditioning days? Second, among kids, there are differences, too. Some kids thrive on more intensity/yardage, some don't. Third, what are kids doing outside the pool - are they working on flexibility/mobility and general athlete training? Are they involved in another sport? Also, factor in mechanics, too. Certain ways of swimming lend themselves to greater risk of injury.

So short of extreme examples like the 14 year old who is training 10,000 yards per day for 7 practices per week, then it's difficult to say.