All About Competitive Swimming

[laikiasu]

Thank you all for your posts and advice.

Yup, I finally found a club in the North. They are not so uptight about performance for younger kids. They concentrate more on strokes. Only when the strokes are good enough will the kids be promoted to be trained on speed and endurance.
I do agree that some clubs (or could be parents) push their kids very hard and cause overstrains. Some kids even get injuries from swimming before they are in Secondary schools!
I’m sticking to 3 times a week. Anyway my kiddo not that good nor competitive, so this arrangement works fine with our whole family.

[3kidsmum2]

we live in killiney road and looking for a swim club for children training. prefer clubs accessble by public transportation.


thank you

[sammifan]

Try swimfast at ACS Baker or APSC, which is either at Farrer Road or Dover Road, not so sure.


Good Luck

[2bbtang]

sammifan:

Try swimfast at ACS Baker or APSC, which is either at Farrer Road or Dover Road, not so sure.


Good Luck

Does anyone know the fees for Swimfast @ ACS Barker?
Anyone of your child @ there? Any feedback?

My kids are currently @ APS but I find it very inconvenience, parking is a distant away. And the lesson are very short. I'm considering looking for alternative. Appreciate anyone feedbacks and reviews of Swimfast. Thanks!

[ruohoo97]

Hi, Swimfast at ACS Barker is about 120/per month for beginner competitive swimming training, and 130 and higher for more advanced ones. The additional stoke checking is 100/per four one hour lesson.

[sensugan]

My DS is intrested in learning swimming.I am staying at Commonwealth.Can anybody suggest for a good coach.Thz in advance

[mymelody]

Any competitive swim school to recommend in the east. I am not so interested in signing up for membership. Thanks

[jasonchow]

My elder son is having it’s competitive swimming. The training was 2 hours a day, 4 times a week. 50 meter freestyle timing down from 40 seconds to 30 seconds in 3 months.[/quote]

[cimman]

it's not just training long hours and swimming laps after laps. Most people just swim laps to train, but that is wrong. In competitive swimming, you don't swim laps, you swim at the fastest speed you can.

Swimming laps helps you to perfect your technique, swimming sprints will help you win competitions. Swim as fast as you can for a lap, rest for a minute or 2, then sprint for the next lap. Do this for as many laps as you can take it. This will help build up the short twitch muscles which is essential for speed.

Strength training helps, but here again, just blind strength training has very little gains. Focus on dips and pull ups to help in the front crawl. However, the gains from this pales in comparison to swim sprint training, which is a form of High Intensity Training (HIT). Adults use HIT to slice body fat. This is the most effective way to drastically reduce body fat, not slimming pills.
HIT is very demanding on the body, and it's best you provide protein/whey supplements or a high protein diet to augment the high demands for nutrients from the body. Drink lots of water when on HIT. Give the protein/whey nutrients within 2 hours of the training, this is when the body needs it most. If the body doesn't get enough protein, it draws it from the muscles, which results in decreased muscle mass, and is detrimental to your swimming performance - you need all the muscles you can get.

Intensive training before a swimming competition is counter productive. Your child will tire out before the competition. Train intensely for about 3 to 4 weeks and then tail off about 2 weeks before the competition to give the muscles a chance to recover and be at their top form just before the competition.

workingmom:

sammifan:

[quote=\"twilight\"]There's a club that trains in Singapore Sports School. Not north east, but north.

I think the club is known as Speedi Swim.

BTW Workingmom, how is your daughter taking to the competitive training and how often is she training? There is a lot of pressure to send the kids down for very very regular training like 5-6 times a week, but as parents we will need to moderate the frequency and ensure they lead a balanced life.
My 2 DDs are in competitive swimming and my elder daughter did not swim more than 4 times a week in Primary school. I believe they have to lead a balanced life. My younger daughter is in P4 this year and she swims an average of 3 times a week.

Good Luck!

She is doing ok, gone for a couple of competitions and is improving her personal best every 2-3 months. She swims around 3 times a week regularly, more just 2 - 3 weeks before a meet and maybe once/twice 2-3 weeks before and none during exams. I think this is about as much as we can handle. Of course now is school holidays but we haven't really made her swim a lot more as she has other activities and has to catch up on her piano as well. We are still of the view that her studies is more important and cannot take a back-seat to the training.

I think the pressure is to get better faster and I suppose the only way is to train more often ! When she just started training for the initial few months, no real pressure, just slowly getting up to speed with the rest as her peers all started well before her. Being keen to train was good enough for us. Now that she has improved a lot more and can swim more strokes there is a push to want to do well enough in her club to get a chance to represent the club in meets. I think all swimmer parents can identify with this dilemna ! My hubby wants to look long term though as he swam when he was a kid, did really well in Pri school, over trained resulting in him retiring from competition in Sec 2 as he was jaded and tired. Overtraining affected his performance and he could not improve much further.

The sport is really competitive though ! Other clubs are rather good nowadays and I heard they do strength and endurance training during land ex for the very young ones (p2s and below) - it gets results by our club's coaches dont recommend it for very young kids.[/quote]

[sammifan]

"However, the gains from this pales in comparison to swim sprint training, which is a form of High Intensity Training (HIT). Adults use HIT to slice body fat."


Hi Cimman, I have been told such HIT cannot be done too often, esp if the kids are still growing. Is this true?
How many sprint should be done per week for girls of 11-14 years.