Anonymous wrote:Stroke clinics are a good idea. Can help build confidence with good instructor. And try to focus your swimmer on setting goals such as “drop 2 seconds from my 50 free personal best” or “swim the fly without dq” or whatever fits. Take the focus off place. No shame in being last.

This!

Summer swim is 25s and 50s technique and turns matter a lot. Do a stroke clinic to work on technique. They obviously need endurance, but that can be built over the season. Summer swim tends to focus more on endurance than technique so best to work on technique outside of practice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can't get in the pool to start laps, your kid can run to improve overall cardio. Swimming and running are the ultimate compliments to one another. So running and sprints will help for swimming - it translates. If he can start doing situps, pushups, and pullups that will help as well because it will increase his strength and his pulls for swim.

Finally, there is very little substitute for kick drills in the water. So important for swim but he could practice "kicking" sitting on a chair.

Swimming isn’t like running where everyone kinda sorta knows how to do it. Endurance from running doesn’t translate to endurance in swimming. Ask former runners who are turning into triathletes and have incredible cardio, but are gassed after 100 yards when they first start swimming.

Even if it did translate, if OP’s child is on the slower end of the spectrum in 50 yard races, it’s not primarily due to a lack of endurance or muscular strength. It’s technique. There’s no short cut to technique instruction. You could have the endurance of a Sherpa and the strength of a weightlifter, but if the technique is bad, you won’t go anywhere.

It’s like saying a beginner tennis player can improve by working on cardio, pull-ups, and bicep curls without hitting the ball. Technique is essential for both sports.

+1. Cardio endurance on land doesn’t carry over to swim very well because there’s so much more resistance in the water. Any inefficiencies in your movements get magnified 100 times more than on land. I am in great shape on land but so, so much slower isn’t the water than I used to be because I don’t swim anymore. That being said, someone who is swimming a bit and has some sort of training base can get a boost from high intensity interval training on land. Swim training is more like HIIT than distance running unless you’re a distance swimmer. Explosiveness training and building strength will help with shorter races, starts, and turns. But all of this is better as supplemental training for someone in the water regularly. There’s really no substitute for swimming, unfortunately.

OP I would look for some sort of summer prep program if your child has time. If they spend a month getting their feel for the water and stroke technique back, they’ll be that much further along by June. If they’re not a little kid, HIIT and strength/explosiveness training wouldn’t hurt. But don’t do this if your kid is like 9, of course.

What have you been doing for the past nine months?

Stroke clinics are a good idea. Can help build confidence with good instructor. And try to focus your swimmer on setting goals such as “drop 2 seconds from my 50 free personal best” or “swim the fly without dq” or whatever fits. Take the focus off place. No shame in being last.