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[quote=Anonymous]I have one son who started at 9 and one who started at 7. I think 10 and under is ideal, 11 is ok, and 12 and over is challenging, but not improbable. All of our sectionals/futures/jr nat swimmers started between 6 and 10 years olds. We have one 14 year old girl who started as a 12 year old, and she is close to sectionals.

There are some swimmers who are such exceptional athletes that they excel despite very limited club swimming backgrounds, for example, McKenzie Siroky and Liberty Clark. These types of swimmers are almost always single stroke sprinters, which narrows their utility on a swim team.

As for the underlying question of why you need an early start in swimming is because swimming is about athleticism, aerobic conditioning, strength, and coordination like all sports, but it also relies on the swimmer’s position, balance, and instinctive feel in the water. Ask a triathlete that never swam competitively how hard it is to improve on swimming and they will tell you that a started as a 12 year old. They will tell you that an out of shape former club swimmer who is 50 lbs overweight and hasn’t done a lap in 20 years, can easily out swim them. That would not be true of an out of shape former runner or cyclist. Knowledge of streamline, how to pull water, how to keep hips high are all things that swimmers learn at an early age. [/quote]

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