Archive for October, 2009

News For

SWIM PARENTS

Pub­lished by The Amer­i­can Swim­ming Coaches Association

5101 NW 21 Ave., Suite 200

Fort Laud­erdale FL 33309

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The Ten Com­mand­ments For Par­ents Of Ath­letic Children

Reprinted from The Young Ath­lete by Bill Burgess

1- Make sure your child knows that win or lose, scared or heroic, you love him, appre­ci­ate his efforts, and are not dis­ap­pointed in him. This will allow him to do his best with­out a fear of fail­ure. Be the per­son in his life he can look to for con­stant pos­i­tive enforcement.

2- Try your best to be com­pletely hon­est about your child’s ath­letic abil­ity, his com­pet­i­tive atti­tude, his sports­man­ship, and his actual skill level.

3- Be help­ful but don’t coach him on the way to the pool or on the way to the pool or on the way back or at break­fast, and so on. It’s tough not to, but it’s a lot tougher for the child to be inun­dated with advice, pep talks and often crit­i­cal instruction.

4- teach him to enjoy the thrill of com­pe­ti­tion, to be “out there try­ing”, to be work­ing to improve his swim­ming skills and atti­tudes. Help him to develop the feel for com­pet­ing, for try­ing hard, for hav­ing fun.

5– Try not to re-live your ath­letic life through your child in a way that cre­ates pres­sure; you lost as well as won. You were fright­ened, you blacked off at times, you were not always heroic. Don’t pres­sure your child because of your pride. Ath­letic chil­dren need their par­ents so you must not with­draw. Just remem­ber there is a think­ing, feel­ing, sen­si­tive free spirit out there in that uni­form who needs a lot of under­stand­ing, espe­cially when his word turns bad. If he is com­fort­able with you win or lose; he’s on his way to max­i­mum achieve­ment and enjoyment.

6- Don’t com­pete with the coach. If the coach becomes an author­ity fig­ure, it will run from enchant­ment to disenchantment…with your athlete.

7- Don’t com­pare the skill, courage, or atti­tudes of your child with other mem­bers of the team, at least within his hearing.

8- Get t know the coach so that you can be assured that his phi­los­o­phy, atti­tudes, ethics and knowl­edge are such that you are happy to have your child under his leadership.

9- Always remem­ber that chil­dren tend to exag­ger­ate both when praised and when crit­i­cized. Tem­per your reac­tion and inves­ti­gate before over-reacting.

10- Make a point of under­stand­ing courage, and the fact that it is rel­a­tive. Some of us can climb moun­tains, and are afraid to fight, but turn to jelly if a bee approaches. Every­one is fright­ened in cer­tain areas. Explain that courage is not the absence of fear, but a means of doing some­thing in spite of fear of discomfort.

The job of the par­ent of an ath­letic child is a tough one, and it takes a lot of effort to do it well. It is worth all the effort when you hear your child say, “My par­ents really helped and I was lucky in this respect

News For

SWIM PARENTS

Pub­lished by The Amer­i­can Swim­ming Coaches Association

5101 NW 21 Ave., Suite 200

Fort Laud­erdale FL 33309

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Cof­fee and Caffeine

By Keith B. Wheeler, Ph.D.

And Ange­line M. Cameron

Q: Will a cup of caf­feinated cof­fee enhance ath­letic per­for­mance? Does caf­feine have any unde­sir­able side affects? Why do so many peo­ple drink coffee?

A: No, con­sum­ing one cup of caf­feinated cof­fee will not enhance ath­letic per­for­mance. Some stud­ies have sug­gested that caf­feine will enhance per­for­mance under cer­tain cir­cum­stances (ie, short-term high-intensity or long-term moderate-intensity exer­cise). How­ever, most stud­ies have demon­strated no effect of caf­feine on endurance and per­for­mance. In the stud­ies that sug­gest an effect, the caf­feine con­sump­tion usu­ally exceeded 400 mg before exer­cise. To get this level of caf­feine, you would have to con­sume approx­i­mately 4 cups (5 oz) of caf­feinated cof­fee, 12 cups (5 oz) of tea, or 3 quarts of cola.

Con­sum­ing caf­feine can have some unde­sir­able side effects, includ­ing increased heart rate, diges­tive secre­tions, breath­ing rate, and urine out­put. Caf­feine also affects the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem by increas­ing rest­less­ness. Other side effects include headaches, irri­tabil­ity, insom­nia, diar­rhea, hyper­ac­tiv­ity, and depres­sion. Keep in mind also that caf­feine is rec­og­nized as a stim­u­lant by the Inter­na­tional Olympic Com­mit­tee, and if present in exces­sive amounts is con­sid­ered a banned substance.

Most peo­ple drink cof­fee because they like the taste, and it is a socially accept­able ritual.

News For

SWIM PARENTS

Pub­lished by The Amer­i­can Swim­ming Coaches Association

5101 NW 21 Ave., Suite 200

Fort Laud­erdale FL 33309

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The Pur­pose of Travel Meets for Swim Teams

Many par­ents do not under­stand why coaches want ath­letes to travel to “away” meets, some­times includ­ing overnight meets. There are sev­eral rea­sons, but one very large per­for­mance rea­son. Let me explain.

The key is to watch what your child does when they attend a local swim meet. The first thing they do, is go and get a… heat sheet… right? And then they scour the heat sheet for their own names and their posi­tion rel­a­tive to their com­peti­tors. Because… they know who their com­peti­tors are… they see them meet after meet, after meet. And what goes on in our swimmer’s head (let’s call her Betsy) when she does the heat sheet scour…???

“Well, lets see. Suzie’s here, Mary is here, oh my gosh, Sarah is here, I can’t stand that girl… and she always beats me… and here’s Kelly, seeded below me, why would she put in that slow time? She usu­ally beats me, so let’s see, I’ll be… fifth.”

Now, an hour or two later, and our hero­ine dives in the pool in the 100 free. With bril­liant coach­ing and an even more impres­sive gene selec­tion from Mom and Dad, she exe­cutes a per­fect rac­ing dive and streaks to the 25 turn wall, where she turns first, then sneaks a quick peek… “wow! I’m ahead.” Then pushes on towards the fifty wall… amaz­ingly, our Betsy is still on the lead. Now, off the 50 wall, she is so amazed by her own per­for­mance she takes a slightly longer look at her no-longer-so-commanding lead, so she can reas­sure her­self that she is still “out there.” By the 75 wall, her lead has shrunk to inches, as the other swim­mers real­ize that the estab­lished peck­ing order is being dis­rupted and swim harder. Betsy, now won­der­ing exactly what she will say to all these acquain­tances of hers once she has beaten them, and “will they still like me any­way?,” begins to lose focus and slide back into her accus­tomed place in the pack. By the end of the race, she has cre­atively found a way to slide all the way back to 5th. She gets out happy to have led for awhile; she has that to talk about, but is hap­pier that the nat­ural order of fin­ish in the king­dom of pre-adolescent girls has not been dis­rupted. In other words, she is com­fort­able once again.

Mom and Dad say, “dang, if only she was get­ting a lit­tle bet­ter coach­ing, she’d be beat­ing all those girls.” Coach says, “dog­gone, with all those sprint genes from mom and dad, it’s hard to get her to fin­ish a race big.”

And Betsy says “that wasn’t so bad, sort of fun, really. Now, where is Suzie, I really ought to go con­grat­u­late her.”

Now, after some of this, the smart coach will say to the par­ent group, “par­ent group, it is time to go to an out-of-town meet.”

“A what?”

“A meet out-of-town. You know, we get a bus, the kids all travel together, and we go as a team to another area and swim in a meet.”

“Isn’t that expensive?”

“Well, it will be about $20 a child for the bus, another $25 a child for Sat­ur­day night in a hotel, and maybe $50 for food, so all in all, just about a hun­dred dollars.”

“A hun­dred dol­lars! Heck, Betsy can’t beat the other girls here in our local area, what does she need to go to a meet like that for?”

Now the coach needs to know the answer… and here it is…

When Betsy swims against peo­ple she knows, she has pre-ordained expec­ta­tions. And she finds ways to make those expec­ta­tions come true. What she needs, is a chance for a break­through per­for­mance, to let her believe some new things about her­self. So how does a travel meet do that?

Betsy reads the heat sheet… “yup, here I am, Betsy Woran­gle, 100 free, at 57.89, just a lit­tle slower than my best time… yep, I’m in here.” And then what?

She doesn’t know another name in the pro­gram. She has no idea where she fits in. So she does what? She just goes out and swims as fast as she can… no pre-conceived notions to live up to… just swim fast. Lo and behold, 56.44, 2nd place.

56.44 would have won at home. But Betsy could not get that out of her­self when she had social and ath­letic expec­ta­tions to live down to in the meet at home. On the road, she can just “go for it.” And she does. The tremen­dous advan­tages of swim­ming where you don’t know anyone.