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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A 13 year old should not be specializing.  But it is also true that too many coaches in the DMV area don’t understand that we run off too many swimmers in this sport by trying to make them distance or mid distance athletes.  There needs to be more options for kids who enjoy or have a talent for sprinting 50/100s.

Also sprinters are the most valuable commodity for a college program, so it’s kinda crazy how so many local programs deemphasize sprint training.  Lol at a coach saying by training for distance then they will still have a great 100.[/quote]
I haven’t seen 13 year olds specializing at our big club. Are the coaches obviously aware of what a kid’s strongest events are, sure, but they don’t allow them to compete in just their strongest events. Sometimes they may compete in their strongest events more because they are making champs cuts or working toward making champs cuts, but their training isn’t exclusive to those events. The strokes that a kid is strong in also make a difference. Non-freestylers are generally not doing more than 200s (the 400 IM being the exception) so you’re not training for those the same way. My kid is not a freestyler and has never been pushed to compete regularly in distance freestyle events or the 200s of the specialty strokes (they are still an 11-12 swimmer). They have to do the 500 free and each specialty 200 at least once a season, but that’s it. When they hit 13 there are no more 50s except in freestyle, so the 11-12s have to start getting used to the 100 and 200 of the specialty strokes.[/quote]

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