Kid swimming slower every meet

[Anonymous]

Totally normal. They are tired out.

[Anonymous]

I have multiple kids, all club swimmers, ranging from not at all to highly competitive. Some of my DC swim club in parallel to summer swim and one doesn’t. All of them have gotten progressively slower over the summer swim season, as they have since they were little. Usually they’ll bounce back and drop time at Divisionals and/or IAS if they qualify. As others have said, I think it’s the heat, summer diet, later nights, endless social activities, etc. IME, it’s not a barometer of their potential to get faster. Also, it’s worth it for my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm pretty new to swimming, second year of summer swim for my DD. She is swimming slower each meet than the last. She is going to practice every day. What could be the reason for this?

Same. One reason I think is that they tend to swim faster in cooler water and as temperature rises up they swim slower. This was obvious for my kids in one week that A meet was cold and B meet is super hot. The time differences are very noticeable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the poster who talked about sleep and nutrition. Summer leads to later nights and more junk food. Neither is ideal for peak athletic performance. Focus on earlier bedtimes and filling, nutritious foods.

Ugh, no. Summer is supposed to be fun! Who cares about stupid times? Your kid isn’t going to the Olympics.

[Anonymous]

If your child is swimming in dual meets (scored meets), then the goal is to earn points for the team. (My child is also a club swimmer which is far less team-points driven, so we get excited about helping toward a team score in summer.) If my child is seeded first, then my child tries to get first because those are the points the team needs. Last week, my child added 3 seconds to 50 breast. It didn’t matter because my child won and earned 5 points. It’s actually freeing *not* to worry about times and to think more about team contribution. This changes at individual divisionals and IAS, but most kids swim the best they can at divisionals anyway (barring something like illness, etc, that could set them back).

[Anonymous]

Mine is a year round swimmer who drops time pretty consistently over the course of the year but struggles with this same issue during summer swim. First meet of the season, they had several all star times, now usually just gets one. I agree it’s the pace of practices, meets, pep rallies, weather, camps, etc. that burn the kids out during these short 8 weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the poster who talked about sleep and nutrition. Summer leads to later nights and more junk food. Neither is ideal for peak athletic performance. Focus on earlier bedtimes and filling, nutritious foods.

Ugh, no. Summer is supposed to be fun! Who cares about stupid times? Your kid isn’t going to the Olympics.

It is supposed to be fun. But it’s not all that fun when you feel like despite your hard work, you’re not only not going anywhere, but going backwards. That kind of thing can be really demoralizing to a kid. Heck, it can be really demoralizing to an adult.

I’m going to flip the question a bit - those of you who ARE seeing improvements over the season, what are you doing? Using babysitters or SAHM and no camps? Skipping practices? Focusing more on club or lessons? Early nights?

We’re doing what we can to get our kid out of the heat before meets and ensure proper food/hydration, but it’s clearly not enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh, no. Summer is supposed to be fun! Who cares about stupid times? Your kid isn’t going to the Olympics.

Some kids really care though. I prefer that my son is focussed on his times and not on where we ranks against others. And it's great for him to see improvement in his times. I try to focus him on the strokes where his times are improving (IM) and ignore where he's going backwards for some reason... (Free).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the poster who talked about sleep and nutrition. Summer leads to later nights and more junk food. Neither is ideal for peak athletic performance. Focus on earlier bedtimes and filling, nutritious foods.

Ugh, no. Summer is supposed to be fun! Who cares about stupid times? Your kid isn’t going to the Olympics.

I’m the person you’re responding to. My kids are B meet swimmers, I actually don’t care about the times. But for those who DO care (and a lot of parents and kids do) then this is two areas to look at.

I do think it’s possible to have a fun summer with a balanced diet. Healthy foods for meals—then snack bar junk and ice cream trips here and there. If your kid is aiming for competitive times, try packing them a healthy meal for the meets instead of getting them hot dogs and donuts. It’s worth a try. We are all busy so it’s hard to fit in packing food, but if THEY care about their times, have them help out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the poster who talked about sleep and nutrition. Summer leads to later nights and more junk food. Neither is ideal for peak athletic performance. Focus on earlier bedtimes and filling, nutritious foods.

Ugh, no. Summer is supposed to be fun! Who cares about stupid times? Your kid isn’t going to the Olympics.

It is supposed to be fun. But it’s not all that fun when you feel like despite your hard work, you’re not only not going anywhere, but going backwards. That kind of thing can be really demoralizing to a kid. Heck, it can be really demoralizing to an adult.

I’m going to flip the question a bit - those of you who ARE seeing improvements over the season, what are you doing? Using babysitters or SAHM and no camps? Skipping practices? Focusing more on club or lessons? Early nights?

We’re doing what we can to get our kid out of the heat before meets and ensure proper food/hydration, but it’s clearly not enough.

OTC supplements. Lots and lots of supplements.

[Anonymous]

This happens with my 8 year old too. She swam club over the winter and made big progress but has kind of stalled in the last few meets. Definitely think the schedule burns kids out, and I think focus is a big issue for her too. The summer meets are big fun, especially the B meets - candy at the snack bar, hanging with friends, feeling cool being with the teen coaches. I get a little frustrated because I think she could do better but it is her swim season, not mine, and at her age it is better to have fun.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I agree with the poster who talked about sleep and nutrition. Summer leads to later nights and more junk food. Neither is ideal for peak athletic performance. Focus on earlier bedtimes and filling, nutritious foods. [/quote]

Ugh, no. Summer is supposed to be fun! Who cares about stupid times? Your kid isn’t going to the Olympics.[/quote]

It is supposed to be fun. But it’s not all that fun when you feel like despite your hard work, you’re not only not going anywhere, but going backwards. That kind of thing can be really demoralizing to a kid. Heck, it can be really demoralizing to an adult.

I’m going to flip the question a bit - those of you who ARE seeing improvements over the season, what are you doing? Using babysitters or SAHM and no camps? Skipping practices? Focusing more on club or lessons? Early nights?

We’re doing what we can to get our kid out of the heat before meets and ensure proper food/hydration, but it’s clearly not enough. [/quote]

The kids on our team who make big drops are the ones who don't swim year round. I am a team rep so I see the times. Most of our year round kids did their best in the first couple meets.

We have several kids who don't swim except summer and are regular A meet swimmers, especially under 12. We are a lower division pool though.

I have observed that they tend to be kids who are super athletic in general (so they aren't swimming in winter because focusing on another sport) and/or come from families of athletes and are pretty competitive people. Summer swim is sprints so at least until puberty is a big factor, kids who are simply athletic can do pretty well!

[Anonymous]

Ha mine too! I could have written this. But trials were cool and it’s been 90plus every meet. Super hot lots of waiting plus a long warm up. The last meet they did the IM first and my poor 6 year old was just doing freestyle at 8pm well past his bedtime. What gives making these youngest kids wait. All the 8u events should go first, let them get to bed. Bad timing of these meets.

[Anonymous]

OP here - appreciate all the responses. I think you all may be right that she’s just tired. She is never cold and prefers cooler weather and really gets worn out from the heat.

I also wondered if it might be about swimming with minis and not getting many opportunities to swim fast in practice. When she swam in the year it was with much faster kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO the coaching and crowded pools aren't good for kids' strokes. At least at our pool. If you took lessons they'll have a pretty good base. The problem is kids learn defensive swimming. EG they look up to see if someone is in front of them. That and bad technique isn't discouraged. Early in the season they'll get a bump from conditioning but then at the end of the season technique is bad.

I kind of think this has happened with my oldest. The coaches this year are not as on top of things compared to last year's coaches. He dropped a lot of time from beginning to end of summer last year, and I think it was because the coaching was more solid and there was more discipline and better drills at practice. Now he has barely dropped time from last summer. He had a private lesson for the first time in awhile and the assistant coach who gave the lesson pointed out so many things wrong with all of his strokes. I certainly don't expect coaching to fix all of it, but it's frustrating to hear all this for the first time at this point in the season. The assistant coach pays a lot more attention to detail than our head coaches and would probably do a great job if given more responsibility for correcting strokes during practices. But it's hard when head coaches don't empower assistants to do this. I think our head coaches are great at bringing spirit and fun, but the kids are not improving like they did last year and the team as a whole has had some bad losses. Last year's head coach was more strict, which rubbed some people the wrong way... but she was more effective. Oh well.

This is the problem with many summer swim teams that have turnover in their coaching. Good, strict coaches help summer swimmers improve significantly, but they often alienate kids who aren't serious about swimming and screw around during practice. This in turn leads those kids to complain to their parents, most of whom want to blame anyone else but their kids. Less strict, more spirited/fun coaches don't help summer swimmers improve and are more like energetic camp counselors. This is why it can be extremely frustrating to parents of year round swimmers when their kids are expected to pick up the slack. They can't because no single swimmer or even group of good swimmers can make up for the rest of the team. This leads to the team losing meets and can frustrate those parents who want to win AND have fun competition (it's more fun to win).