A huge part of a coach's job is to evaluate our swimmers' technique and make corrections. One thing that some age group coaches fail to keep in mind is that we shouldn't be correcting a swimmer's stroke to make him faster NOW, but rather guiding his technical progress so that he can succeed in reaching his potential in the long term.
One illustration of the importance of this concept can be seen in the video below. The swimmer in the video is a distance freestyler, and she was fantastic as a 10 & Under. Later in her career as a senior swimmer, she is still quite good but improved only marginally since the age of 12.
Notice how her stroke is extremely short and choppy. As a 10 year-old, she used this stroke and her coach actually encouraged it. This technique was reinforced as she steamrolled the competition and beat everyone her age. No need to change, right? Wrong.
Had her coach begun to emphasize stroke length, kicking, and reducing drag, I believe she might have continued to improve infinitely into her teens. Instead, she became stuck with her technique and stuck at a particular speed. In a future post, I will discuss this further from a coaching standpoint.
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