Question about summer swim/progress

[Anonymous]

So I can barely swim, please be nice to me if this is a stupid question. My 10 yo and 8 yo dds did swim team at our neighborhood pool for the first time this year. Its a big swim team-around 200 kids. From the time tryouts to the last B meet yesterday, they both improved around 3 seconds each in freestyle and backstroke. Is this a normal amount of progress? They only missed a few practices and went to all the meets. They started as the slowest 10, 8 year old and also ended as the slowest. For instance the 8 year old started backstroke at 59 seconds and ended the season at 56 seconds (for one way).

[Anonymous]

Yes. Did great.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately at a lot of pools with big swim teams like that, newer swimmers in older age groups are pretty much left to flounder. And 8 is older at some of these pools, crazily. Your girls were probably practicing the strokes incorrectly all season with no instructions. Otherwise, they would have improved a lot more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Did great.

Hmm, I kinda disagree. The one time given, the 8 yo's backstroke---with decent instruction, a reasonably athletic child should have improved down to around 35 seconds for 25 meters. The little kids with these high times are usually going criss cross instead of straight and that's a pretty simple fix if anyone is paying attention.

[Anonymous]

What were the rest of the times, OP?

[Anonymous]

the 8 year olds time seem pretty slow for going to practice every day?

Are your kids athletic? Did they learn to swim this summer or were they able to do the backstroke before the swim team started?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What were the rest of the times, OP?

For the 10 yo, she started at 1:05 for backstroke and ended at 1:02. For freestyle, she started at 1:01 and ended at 58 seconds.

For the 8 yo, she started at 32 seconds for freestyle and ended at 28 seconds.

They are both athletic and do well at other sports (soccer, basketball, gymnastics).

[Anonymous]

As a mother of two swimmers around the same ages (9 and 11) my questions would be:

Did they learn something? Did they try something new? Did they have fun? Did they make new friends? Learn to ask a coach a question? Enjoy the spirit activities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Did great.

A few seconds at those times is basically no progress at all (think how much the mechanical timers vary).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a mother of two swimmers around the same ages (9 and 11) my questions would be:

Did they learn something? Did they try something new? Did they have fun? Did they make new friends? Learn to ask a coach a question? Enjoy the spirit activities?

NP-I think someone should be able to ask a technical sport question on here without a comment like this. I am sure her daughters had fun, but OP can still wonder why they didn't seem to make any improvements to their swimming after what, 8 weeks of swimming every day? 6 weeks?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately at a lot of pools with big swim teams like that, newer swimmers in older age groups are pretty much left to flounder. And 8 is older at some of these pools, crazily. Your girls were probably practicing the strokes incorrectly all season with no instructions. Otherwise, they would have improved a lot more.

This.

[Anonymous]

If your kids never did swim team before I think that’s fine.

Just focus on personal bests for them - if they get a personal best what more can you ask?
It’s possible that once they’re even more used to it, it will click & they’ll knock even more time off.

My 7 y/o went from 34 to 27 in fly last night. It was a new stroke for him this season and I think it just kind of clicked for him last night. At our pool he doesn’t swim A meets this summer - thought he probably will next summer when he’s 8.

[Anonymous]

These times for that young age mean little to bone improvement. Strength doesn’t matter much at that age so likely technique is not good.
My son went from 31 to 28 sec on 25 meter breaststroke around age 8 in summer league, prior to joining a year round team. We took private lessons since age 6.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mother of two swimmers around the same ages (9 and 11) my questions would be:

Did they learn something? Did they try something new? Did they have fun? Did they make new friends? Learn to ask a coach a question? Enjoy the spirit activities?

NP-I think someone should be able to ask a technical sport question on here without a comment like this. I am sure her daughters had fun, but OP can still wonder why they didn't seem to make any improvements to their swimming after what, 8 weeks of swimming every day? 6 weeks?

I don’t think the comment was out of line - just a way of saying times don’t show everything. They don’t. My year round swimmer actually gains time in the summer. During winter they take a day or two off before big meets and this just isn’t possible with summer swim. No one can gauge over the internet whether they really improved or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These times for that young age mean little to bone improvement. Strength doesn’t matter much at that age so likely technique is not good.
My son went from 31 to 28 sec on 25 meter breaststroke around age 8 in summer league, prior to joining a year round team. We took private lessons since age 6.

That’s just not a fair statement to make.