Written by I was astonished last week when learning that Simone Emanuel https://swimswam.com/after-exhausting-year-olympic-champ-simone-manuel-out-of-100-free-final/ had been diagnosed with Overtraining Syndrome. I was left wondering how a nation such as the US (famed for its domination in swimming at the Olympics) could get it so wrong with Simone’s training.
Sadly too many Swim Clubs in the UK still think 2 swim sessions a day (and it is not usual for the morning session to start at 05:30 and be 2hrs in length) plus land training sessions is acceptable for swimmers from a very early age to do and frequently through the week. This is combined with a rammed competition calendar: ‘cause you know it’s all about chasing those pbs and making L1 meet finals; being top 3 etc making the Club look good, so more swimmers are attracted to join …’. This is such an old hat of thinking and one that simply does not work with today’s upcoming swimmers or modern day swimming.
The welfare of the swimmers is typically not put first and these type of swim programs fall into working hard and by that I mean long blocks of gruelling swims with little technical work day in and day out without the coaches on deck taking time to really see what is going on in-front of them. Swimmers are human and yes they will work dam hard so will work like a machine, but mentally swimmers need a tune up as much as anyone else. The trouble is the environment in which swimmers train often comes with the idea to succeed you need to be out training the rest of the field every time you are in the pool and this ideology is shared by a lot of coaches and athletes. Mental ‘weakness’ is perceived as showing signs of struggle: it is not. It takes a lot of courage to speak up – not saying anything is the opposite and coaches should be spotting the signs when their athletes are showing signs of not being their usual hard working selves.
A particular example that springs to mind. I remember taking a head coach’s performance squad on a Monday evening and noticed the lacklustre swimming and general poor skills being executed. After calling a halt to the session and speaking to the swimmers aged 14-16yrs, I found out that after doing their usual 6+ training sessions in the week had travelled to Sheffield for a 2 day meet (12hrs round trip) – travelled back late on Sunday evening and then gone to school then showed up to training on Monday. They were exhausted – I revised the intensity of the training set and shorten to one hour then asked them to do mobility work on deck – with me advising on body scan/ mental and energy levels – nutrition etc – I got absolutely lambasted over WhatsApp from the head coach who wanted them to still swim hard and long on the Monday evening and still make all the rest of the sessions in the week.
In comparison with my squad who were also performance. After each weekend of competition they would still all show on Monday night (having all received in-depth individual feedback). I would check in with them ask how they were doing: how was school; sucky day or good day? explain what they did well as a squad where we need to head in training in the weeks in-front of us. During the warmup they did body scan work – and invited to come out on deck and stretch do mobility work if needed. During the session – swimmers were allowed to hop out to speak to me with any concerns and I would be sure to speak to everyone and spend more time with those that seemed a little ‘off’ and I always hung back after the session to run through race plans / talk through stuff at school/ anything else they needed to let steam off on ….
My squad gave me 110% every session. They knew I had their backs.
Going back to Simone. She has had a tough year. I wonder at the level of support she got. It was more than likely the chance of another Olympics was allowed to blanket her true emotions and she and her team just bit their teeth and put in the the grind – because you know that’s what you do to succeed: train physically more than anyone else even when you secretly know, but do not want to acknowledge you just need a timeout.
I leave you with this excerpt to mull over:
‘Participation does not always ensure high-performance growth. It is a mistaken view often held by inexperienced coaches and sports science staff who incorrectly assume that increased participation [training longer] automatically results in improved competitive outcomes.’
The Athlete-Coach Partnership from a Coach and Psychologist Perspective
– By Bill Sweetenham and Dr Bruce Lawrie (2021)