Reply To: Ever appropriate to have them go through a whole event during practice?
I would say absolutely. However, I would have them do it from a dive and make it as much like a race as possible. I think Dave Salo calls these “rehearsal swims”.
One thing I like to do if you have a wide variety of swimmers is handicap start them.
EI. Line up a heat and get everyone’s best time for the event. Start the slowest kid first and then
have every one dive in however many seconds faster than the first swimmers best time theirs is.
So, If you have 6 kids who’s best times are 1:00, !:02, 1:04, 1:06, 1:08 and 1:10
then you would start the kid who goes a 1:10, then count the seconds up from 0. The kid who’s best time is 1:08 would leave on 2 then the 1:06 kid would leave on 4 etc. with the fastest kid diving in last.
This is a fun way to let them RACE with the last 10 yards being very exciting.
One of the questions kids will have is OK now I can do 50’s with 15/20 rest holding my goal pace but can I do 4 of them with no rest and hold the time. So let them do the real thing from time to time so they can learn to connect the pieces.
