Student where targeted as the AIS believe these students will be around at the top of their level for longer as they had age on their side.
They also targeted sport in which athletes can have a long future in i.e. swimming.
The AIS took this approach, as they didn’t believe the other method was working. The other method was to use natural selection, this is where coaches notices a talent and they then can compare them to another athlete of the same age. This is ok to some point but it doesn’t take into account the different way athletes mature.
Through this Australia has now become one of the world’s strongest sporting nations. In sports like swimming they have moved on leaps and bounds and this looks like if Britain doesn’t follow the Australia example we will never catch up with them never beat them.
Drawbacks to talent identification are that it doesn’t happen over night. It takes a long time a lot of money and effort. I believe to start with you need people who are willing to back a project like this and have people who are willing to put the effort in. In this country I don’t believe that people are willing to back projects like this but they want the success if and when it happens. After the Olympics in Sydney when GB came back with no swimming metals the British public criticised swimming in this country. The people who criticised swimming did nothing to turn it around.
Another drawback is that it takes a lot of money to set up a programme like what the AIS did, and people in this aren’t prepared to inject money into a sport like swimming, as they don’t see it as a glamour sport like football.
I think that a problem with this programme in the UK would be founding young athletes who want to do anything other than play football. Most young people have a dream to play football for England. A programme based on football would in my opinion be a great success but getting 14-16 to spend 4 hours a day in a swimming pool would be hard.
Programmes Within
Swimming
Up until about 3 or 4 weeks ago I would have said that there isn’t any such programme within this country for swimmers. The only thing that there was was close links between local swimming lesson and local swimming clubs. Local club keep an eye open for young talent that come through local swimming lessons. At most clubs now you have swimming lessons that are run by the swimming club. Clubs hope that the good young swimmers will stay with the club and grow up into a success.
The new programme that has been set up recently is based on the theory that swimmers will be able to swim, eat sleep swimming and has been set up by Australia Bill Sweetanham who is now the National Performance director for GB. His plan is to send a group of swimmers between the age of 15-16 to Australia where they will go to school for the last two years (A-levels). He plans to send about 6 swimmers who are to a high standard already; they will live there for 2-3 years up until the next commonwealth games that are in Melbourne, Australia. They will train 4 hours a day and have their own pool between the small group. This programme isn’t talent identification but is talent development as the swimmers are already of a high standard. I feel this opportunity will help the young swimmers develop into what this country needs to get this sport moving.
Natural Talent
I believe that natural talent in swimming can only be found once the athlete is able to swim. To be able to swim the athlete will have to have gone to lesson, this means that the athlete want to start swimming in the first place. I think that you can’t identify a swimming talent when the athlete can’t swim. The only thing that your going to notices apart from a lot of splashing is confidences. If a young swimmer has a lot of confidence in the water it is a good sign.
“ The parameter the Chinese used was flotation, because you can’t make a rock swim” (Zhou Ming- Chinese Nation coach 1999)
Natural talent can be found at a very early age once the athlete has learnt to swim. Swimmers start training at a very young age, I started when I was 6 years old and all my friends and family told my I had a special talent but I didn’t realise this till about 2 years ago when I started to make head way in the National competitions. At an early age it is very easy for some one to think you have a talent, you may have a talent but people can’t tell if that swimmer will make it to international level. Young swimmers do have a talent, there talent is to be able to swim, but this isn’t enough to be a world record holder. It needs the right training, the right coaching and the right amount of backing from your parents. Without any of these you will not make it as a swimmer to the top.
Swimmers might have all these aspect and still not make it, as they don’t have the right body shape. If a swimmer doesn’t have to right body shape it will make it hard for that athlete to succeed. Swimmer with the wrong body shape have still made it but it takes more dedication and hard work that it would for a swimmer will the perfect swimmers body shape.
“It is important that athletes have the given height and limb length. Swimmers must have great technical skill. Without a doubt technical aspects of swimming are extremely important, so are body position, core body strength, hip and trunk rotation”
(Bill Sweetenham- GB National performance director 2001)
There are many different aspects as you can see that a coach needs to spot within a swimmer. Once the coach has spotted to swimmer she/he needs to coach them right, they need to make sure they train them hard but not to hard as the swimmer can be easily ‘burnt out’ being such an early age.
At the moment Bill Sweetanham is making all swimmers that he considers to be a potential to be doing at least 50-60k metres a week. That is 2400 lengths a week. He expects the swimmer to be doing this at the age of 15-16 year old. He has research this and has found out that only 5 of the Olympic medallist in 2000 were under 60k a week.
Doing this amount of training it would be very easy if the swimmer ‘burns out’, only swimmer than can take this amount of training will succeed.
One programme that is coming in now is lactate testing to see what event the all ready identified athlete is best at. If an athlete has a high lactate level then the athlete would be best a being a sprinter. And if they had a low level then they would be better at long distance events.
Physical Aptitude
To become a swimmer of any level county to nationally you have to be very fit, this takes a lot of quality training.
Swimming is used in a lot of sports as it users every muscle group, other sports use it for their athletes to recover from injuries.
Swimmer trend to have a different shape to normal people, they seem to have a Y shape body. This is where the swimmer has big shoulders and a thin waist. Depending on what event you do within swimming will depend on what shape your body is. Long distance swimmers tend to have a long thin body and not so muscularly. Long distance swimmer tends to be an Ectomorph. This is because they have a long way to swim and they need to be light so there body doesn’t get as so tired as fast. Comparing this to a sprinter, sprinters have very big muscle, big shoulders and thin waist. They have big muscle because they need more power to move them through to water faster. Sprinters tend to have a body of a Mesomorph.
The different body types can be seem between males and females, males tend to have a tall, thin and muscular body. Females tend to have a smaller and more rounded body.
There are 3 different somatotypes:
- Endomorph- Short, rounded with short limbs
- Mesomorph- Muscular, wide shoulders long limbs thin waist- the Y shape body
- Ectomorph- Very long limbs, thin waist and shoulders
A typical body type for a swimmer to have would be somewhere between a Mesomorph and an Ecotomorph.
Swimmers need to be very tall, muscular, thin, big shoulders and long limbs so you can see that they are a mix between the two.
A good technique is vital to be a good swimmer, to have a good technique you must be very flexible.
To be flexible you need to work on your flexibility. Your flexibility reduces the more muscle you put on, so the more weights you do the flexibility you need to do.
Mental Aptitude
Swimming is an individual sport. This means that you’re not playing or swimming as a team. Once your on the block your on your own and you have got to beat every by yourself. As it is an individual sport you have to be more focussed, committed and more determined to do well for yourself, as you don’t have some one pushing you all the time. With a team sport you become more focussed to do well for the team, as you don’t want to let them down.
You have to be very focussed as you are in the same pool for 4 hours a day seeing the same bottom of the pool length after length. You have to be mental strong to get over this and push yourself in training to the limit. Once you at your limit you need to be able to go past the pain barrier and carry on. Not pushing yourself will result in you not performing and not improving, this will lead to the swimmer giving up. Some swimmers feel that they are committed by just turning up and not completing their training session to their best of their ability.
Another thing about swimming is that it is very boring like I said seeing the same wall and floor for 4 hours a day; swimmers need to turn this negative attitude into a positive one. If the swimmer can do this then they well reach their potential.
When you are competing, you could be swimming in front of a couple of thousand people, this is a very big crowed in swimming, and the swimmer needs to be able to keep their cool and swim their own race. If a swimmer doesn’t swim his or her own race this will result in the swimmer swimming to someone else strengths that are not necessary there’s.
Once on the blocks the swimmer needs to be able to block everything out, and they need to have turn vision. From my experience, I was swimming at the European Junior championships, which are the biggest event that juniors can swim at. I was in the 4x200 relay and just before the race started we were racing some Russian Lads and the started to laugh and talk Russian at us trying to put us off. We just had to keep our own focus and not to be put off by them. In the end they won and we came third, which was a big achievement for us. I believe if we had let them take our focus we could of lost third and come forth.
“Before a race the only thing I see is my lane and two black curtain running down each side. The race is only between my and the clock” (Ian Thorpe- world record holder 200-400 metres freestyle 2001)
Swimmers need to be able to rehears their race before they swim. They need to do this with there coach and in their own mind. The swimmer needs to know what time they are going to be hitting for each part of the race. I.e. time for the first 50m. Another method that swimmers need to be able to do is run through their race in they head. When they run through the race in their head they should have a stopwatch in their hand, and they should time how long it takes for the swim to go on. They should do this with their eyes closed. A good swimmer that’s takes there mental preparation serious will get a time that is close to they swimming PB.
Swimming is a very tough sport mental and physically and without the right preparation in both aspects you wont succeed.
Trainability
Trainability is I very important issues that the coach needs to identify in a swimmer or potential athlete. The way some people are built gives them the innate ability to reach to hard training positively. On the other hand other athletes don’t reach positively to hard training. Our ability to train runs in the family through our genes, there are many people who train very hard and don’t get anywhere with there sport. This is because his or her genes are not adapted to hard training in the same way as someone with the innate ability to respond to training.
A good coach would look for someone who trains hard and are able to complete a full training programme. The athlete would need to be of the right somatotype for that certain sport and have the right attitude for hard training.
Swimmers will follow a certain stroke, once the best stoke is found for the swimmer you can them start to fit a training programme around it. E.g. a backstroke swimmer will need to work a lot on backstroke instead of working on their fly. Once the stroke is identified the next problem is finding the right distance for that swimmer. The coach will look at their somatotype as this gets some clue in what distance to swimmer will be best at.
The training programme cannot be completed until the distance of the swimmer is identified, as the longer the distance the more work they need to do. On average sprint swimmers will only do about 40-50k metres a week, middle distance swimmers will do between 60-70k a week and long distance swimmers will do 70k+.
This is because sprint swimmers don’t know as much endurance as a long distance swimmer. On the other hand long distance swimmers do know as much speed as sprints.
Trainability of each athlete can vary a great deal. It is very important to identify the athlete different strengths before they start to write a training programme for them.
The coach needs to remember the following things before writing the programme:
- Stroke of the individual
- The individuals body make up
- The distance of the swimmer.
Index
Page 1-2 Introduction to TID
Page 3 Programme within swimming
Page 4 Natural Talent
Page 5 Physical aptitude
Page 6 Mental aptitude
Page 7 Trainability
Page 8 Diagram
Page 9 Bibliography
Bibliography
Quotes
Kozel 1996
Zhou Ming – Chinese National coach 1999
Bill Sweetanham NPD 2001
Gary Taubes 2000
Ian Thorpe 2001
Research
Athletes guide to Mental Training- Robert m.Nideffer
Notes- Anthony Bush
