USRPT for Age groupers – 10 to 13 yo

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  • #3100
    m3swimmm
    Participant

    Hey Guys,

    I was wondering if anybody had experience including this type of training with younger kids. And if so, how did you do this?

    I’m thinking to do it with mine, even though they are at a… kind of regional level, most of them…

    #3101
    shapebeforemovement
    Participant

    m3swimmm, I’ve thought about this one a little before replying, because I’ve used the Parametic System (USRPT) what ever you call it with both Age-Groupers 11-14 and with Senior swimmers. Currently I coach Senior athletes primarily, but also coach a group of 8-12 year olds as well.

    First of all when I had the 11-14 group I was strict to the system and had some great success, not only because of the system, but because the kids we’re really focused. I had a 14 year old go from State Qualifier to Senior National Qualifier within about 2 months after being on the system for about a year, once again she was really focused.

    The 8-12 year olds I coach now learn the concepts of Posture, Line and Balance for a half hour, they get about 1000 yards of pure aerobic work in one set usually and they also get about 6 x 25’s of sprinting, we don’t talk about the system, I just want them to learn to be efficient and gain a little stamina in an hour practice.

    Currently the main coach who leads our 11-14 year olds follows a very strict “Posture, Line and Balance” skill program and he also backs it up with a big aerobic component, usually once or twice a week he run’s 30 x 50’s on :50 or 1:00 depending on the skill of the athletes. He also has some components of workouts where he will do 4-5 x 50’s at 2:00 full sprint, but he doesn’t even give out times on those as much as he talks to them about effort and efficiency. This group practices for an hour and a half.

    We’ve talked about this and I agree that if he runs a strict system with them, what new stress are they going to get when they move to my Senior group? It’s much like I don’t do a lot of kicking with my senior kids, but my senior development coach does a ton, it’s kind of nice because they come to me with a great kick.

    It’s high school season here, so I don’t have many seniors right now, but we typically do about 800-1500 yards of race pace during a practice and we do about 1800 yards of aerobic swimming as well as spend a lot of time working on skills such as underwater’s, sculling, drills, turns, etc. There truly is an art to coaching swimmers not just a science although I tend to stay on the science side, sometimes you have to take a step back and really see what your athletes need, it’s not what we do TO our athletes that makes them perform better, it’s what we do WITH our athletes that makes them perform better!


    ? Practice Technical Skill's and Make Fast a Habit!

    #3102
    m3swimmm
    Participant

    Thank you very much Shapebeforemo. It gives some insight.

    How were use shaping your weekly training progress and sets with the USRPT?
    And how is it done now in your club?

    #3103
    shapebeforemovement
    Participant

    Currently we really only use USRPT or Parametic Training in our Senior Groups. Our highest level age-group program uses it to some extent, although they are not strict USRPT, there are concepts of it! Their workout yesterday went something like this!

    10 Minute Dryland – Warm-up (10-15 minutes)
    2 x 100 Timetrials
    Breast Drills / Technical Work / 15 minutes
    4 x 25 Fast Breast w/ high quality skills @ 1:00
    4 x 50 Fast Breast w/ high quality skills @ 2:00

    20 x 50 Free @ 1:00 / :55 / :50

    Fly Drills / Technical Work / 15 minutes
    4 x 25 Fast Fly w/ high quality skills @ 1:00
    4 x 50 Fast Fly w/ high quality skills @ 2:00

    10 x 50 25 Fast Kick / 25 Over Kick Free @ 1:30
    Starts

    With our Senior Group we follow a cycle of parametric sets, it’s a 6 day cycle, done in a different order each week!
    1) N x 25 Free @ 1:00 & N x 50 Primary @ 2:00
    2) N x 25 Secondary @ 1:00 & N x 50 Free @ 1:00
    3) N x 100 Free @ 3:00 & Zone II Non-Specific Work
    4) N x 25 Primary @ 1:00 & N x 100 Free @ 2:00
    5) N x 100 IM @ 2:00 & Zone II Non-Specific Work
    6) N x 50 Secondary @ 2:00 & 20 x 100 HPE @ 2:00

    We start with N = 6 of each set and build as athletes hold their pace. Once 1/2 of the group can hold all 6 we move to 8, once they can hold 8 we move to 10, etc. We restarted in August and we got up to N = 12 on most sets, we’ve dropped back to N = 6 this week as most of my seniors are tapering for HS State.

    Honestly with age-group kids, they probably don’t need more than N x 8 of each set, if you’re really working on technical skills! I don’t use the typical miss two and you’re out, I think that gives the athlete a chance to bail when they just don’t feel like training hard. We’re a very positive program, so there’s lots of cheering athletes on and they know we care so I don’t really get much slacking!


    ? Practice Technical Skill's and Make Fast a Habit!

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