development presentation

Editor's Notes

• #2: Title not just 'MY DEVELOPMENT' Only experience is my own and team mates Briefly outline my swimming timeline Draw points and comparisons Reason Ally asked me to do presentation
• #3: Ally Whike teacher was ‘steered’ towards joining Hearts ASC Competing regularly and losing regularly by age 8 Successful group with lots of swimmers eventually winning multiple events at Scottish age group level (big for the club). I wasn’t one of them! Same people now – must have been early developers
• #4: Even from this early age my coaches constantly showed confidence in my ‘potential’ and I guess I believed them. I obviously didn’t mind getting lots of silver and bronze medals because I never once thought of stopping and upon reflection it’s because I perhaps was slightly disadvantaged at that age over my friends that I had to rely on better technique and didn’t quit the first time I didn’t win. So from age of 8 I was already being ‘primed’ in a way and being developed for future success. I’m not sure how deliberate this was because my friends were solely interested in current success. Perhaps I was lucky I was a late developer and that my coaches recognised that.
• #5: That said there’s only so long that a child is willing to be a ‘potential’ and although this might sound crazy, reflecting back for this presentation makes me think that my first taste of success might have been more important than I ever considered. When I was 11 the club introduced a new mini gala called ‘Beat the record’ for 11 and under (25m each stroke). I was 2nd best at fly, back, breast and 3rd in free but somehow managed to win all four events, and even better because it was the first time it had ever been run, I was all-time club record holder for all 4. That tiny thing was the first time I’d ever thought, it’s nice to win. I’d be lying if I said I went on to out swim those guys from then on, but I definitely had a greater desire to achieve. I was still smaller then the guys I was racing against until the age of about 16 though, so there was still a big coaching focus on technical development for the future.
• #6: In fact, the next year (aged 9) the club got a new head coach due to the death of the present coach, Tom Connell. A group of us (all 9 or 10) were moved to the top group of the club, After a few months the coach left (or was fired not sure… later found to have lied on CV) and no prizes for guessing who takes charge… Ally Whike. Who moves us all straight back down a squad. First taste of demotion aged 11. Ally had very firm focus on development for me (late developer) and constantly compared me to himself at that age. As a scrawny 11 year old I actually thought ‘so maybe I’ll be as big as him one day.’ True story!! 1st training camp abroad also aged 11 (Tenerife) and still memorable as one of my favourites. A huge group at little kids causing chaos and training twice as hard as normal. As the club wasn’t massively competitive at that point, this camp ranged from 10 year old to about 15/16. This was about as old as members got at this point (1995) so there was arguably no choice but to focus on the future and create a programme specific for these age groups. That said, there is always pressure on a coach to get results, so there was always a danger of focussing on creating amazing age group swimmers without thinking too much about the long term impact.
• #7: True story!
• #8: Again I was lucky in that I had a coach who recognised long term potential in me and looking back at the training I did it was very much what you might now see in a handbook for LTAD. Fairly high volume working on increasing aerobic base and capacity and technique development. Maybe my memories have become skewed over time, but it feels like I had a gala every other weekend back then. So although the training focus was what you might expect from a top programme now, the number of competitions probably resulted in two types of swimmer: People who won all the time and got used to winning all the time People who rarely won and got used to rarely winning No prizes for guessing which group I fell into. I have always been professional and followed the instructions of my coach, but my priority at a gala was swimming well enough to deserve a smoked sausage supper on the way home from Carnegie. And there were plenty other swimmers at the same chippie!
• #9: So through early teens I was moved to top squad (with all my friends) and competed at district level and Scottish age group level. I had had my early tastes of success (11 and under meet) and had developed a good fitness base and arguably excellent technique, whilst at the same time become accustomed to finishing outside the medals. I was very much a swimmer who was happy to swim a pb even if I got smoked by everyone else. Other members of my ‘group’ who had come through from lowest levels of the club were well and truly excelling at age group level (about 6 or 7 - all girls). The club had the top female butterflyer, backstroker, breastroker and freestyler for their age group (11 through to 14) and another swimmer who won 8 titles in one year at age groups. These girls were obviously accustomed to winning..
• #10: So as the mid-teen years role in and wee Kris is content making the expected improvements, and the coach is convincing him he’s got the potential to be great, these girls are starting to lose. By 15 years old, 2 are still swimming competitively. City of Edinburgh centre of excellence started at RCP (1995) and after one season they formed a feeder squad made up of promising age group swimmers from the city. 4 sessions a week with CoE and remaining 5/6 with home club. Idea was to create a smooth pathway in to performance squad. Coached by Ally Whike and Ian Wright (head coaches of two biggest clubs) each doing 2 sessions a week. I was about 15 and still big at school and small at swimming and still relying on technique and hard work to be competitive in training and racing.
• #11: I might be wrong, but it was probably at this point that we started a true programme of periodisation, with specific anaerobic sets and rest periods at the end of cycles (if I am wrong then this was certainly the first point I remember doing sessions that made people throw up). I remember 7 week cycles and it was around this point that we followed this pattern: base aerobic moderate aerobic threshold VO2 Lactic Production Lactic Tolerance Speed Obviously each week contained all or most of each, but this was the focus of the week. The coaches would identify the target meet and the work cycle leading in would be 7 weeks long (or more, with perhaps 2 or 3 weeks at a certain focus). Again my memory probably fails me but I don’t remember tapering as such at this point. I was only 15/16 though and not particularly developed.
• #12: At age 15 (in 16 years age group) I qualified for my first ever British Age groups and swam 400IM (finished 43rd or something in 5.04.2!!). There had always been an emphasis on all 4 strokes up until this point. No specific emphasis on breastroke until 17. In fact I have no recorded times for breastroke for the year I was in 17 years age group. Did a cycle on freestyle aged 17 as Bill sweetenham told the Cof E coach Tim Jones that I was a freestyler. I swam crap at the end of the cycle so went back to breastroke The next year the 17/18 years age group was introduced / re-introduced into ASA age group champs. I swam 1.06.2 which won bronze. To put into perspective Craig Benson swam 60.0 at same age. Was improving year on year (not necessarily on same event) and had never had a complete plateau in my swimming Was still swimming pretty slow times compared to my mid 20’s.
• #13: City of Edinburgh senior squad at age 18 in 2002ish and was training alongside Gregor tait, Chris Jones, Jamie Salter, Kirsty Balfour and Ian Edmond. Having a world class breastroke training partner at that time was definitely one of the biggest influences on me as a swimmer. At that point the group were training for World Champs in Barcelona (2003) and I spent every breastroke race pace or VO2 set just chasing this guy. At that point I thought the times he was performing in training were just ridiculous, and this was further intensified when he won silver at the World Champs (British and Commonwealth record). .
• #15: At Olympic trials the next season I swam 2.16 for 200 (aged 20) which back then was good enough for 5th. I remember sitting down with Tim Jones after that meet to set long term goals and telling him my ultimate goal was to swim 2.06 for 200 Breastroke which is what I thought it would take to win by the time I peaked (2010 / 2012). I had the splits as 1.01 / 1.05 and at the time I really believed that was possible.
• #16: When my faster training partner retired in 2004 I was the fastest bs swimmer in the squad but was still using his training times as a guide and for motivation. What I didn’t consider is that he was a 2.10 swimmer who had training times of a 2.13 / 2.14 swimmer. So I probably under-estimated the training times needed to swim 2.06. Although aiming for his times in training was a great form of motivation, in retrospect I should have been aiming higher. For example, he would avg 33.0 for race pace, so by 2005/6 (aged 22) when I was achieving 32.0 average on an average day, I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t going 2.10 or faster.
• #17: .
• #18: To put it in to perspective, a more recent training partner was swimming 30.5 as an average on race pace back to back 50s before Olympic trials this year. Evidently for most people, race pace in training has to be over a second faster than ACTUAL race pace. History shows that strong events within a nation often continually produce world class swimmers. This is probably due to the high targets set just to achieve at National level. However I think my experiences have an Implication for specific training target times
• #19: I was a very consistent trainer, always working hard, but rarely delivery truly spectacular performances. Part of me wishes that I’d been more like some other swimmers, who sack off at times, but dish out some outrageous sets at others, but who’s to say if that would have worked for me. The older I got the more I believed there are 2 types of swimmer: People who need to work hard and as long as they achieve their own specific intensity / volume threshold, they’ll improve People who need to train super fast sometimes. And that is so important that it doesn’t matter how bad or slow they can be at other times. These guys are often better if they sack it off a couple of times a week. Obviously some programmes are focused on one more than another, and that’s fine as long as it fits the needs of the athletes, or the coach recognises differing needs and adapts accordingly. But I think some of the best athletes are those who know themselves so well that they know what they need more than the coach does, and are willing to suffer the wrath of a coach when they don’t perform or even pretend to be tired Throughout my own development I was obviously very fortunate to have had coaches who had a philosophy that fit my needs, otherwise I would never have reached the level I did. That said, I don’t think I was ever brave enough not to conform to the exact plan of the coach. I think this conformity was a large part of my success, especially in continuing throughout late teens when most of my friends had quit, and resulted in a highly professional athlete. However I also think this attitude was a hindrance later in my career when I was fully physically developed and maybe limited my achievements. .