Eighteen girls and eighteen boys were selected to take part in a Swim England North East Region Virtual Swimming Performance Programme for 2020. As it was unfortunately not possible to hold a face to face training camp, a range of informative resources were instead made available for the swimmers to access, watch, listen to and learn from. The material was specifically developed in partnership with the Swim England Talent Team to include the relevant and appropriate material for the development of swimmers within the performance pathway.
The resources available included a series of short videos which cover a range of topics including the performance pathway, nutrition, physical growth/development and access to additional resources covering dryland training and sports psychology. The aim was to try and provide an informative, positive and rewarding experience and a stepping-stone for swimmers to progress and develop their swimming career to hopefully be the best swimmer that they can be.
Overall the feedback from the swimmers rated their experience as good to excellent taking into consideration the circumstances.
Some learning outcomes from those swimmers who attended included:
“The importance of warm up and stretching properly. Changing my eating choices. Think and vision more positively regarding my swims.”
“To try to be more positive and resilient, to make sure I eat a more balanced and nutritious diet and to keep trying my best at training.”
Some additional comments received included:
“It was great to be selected, but I would have really enjoyed training in the pool with the group.”
“I have enjoyed the videos the videos and the information it has given me. Thank you to all of the coaches who helped put this all together, and thanks to Max Litchfield for a really interesting video about what might happen when I really start to grow. I really hope some time soon me and my mates from different clubs will be able to swim together as part of the NER training programme. “
Thanks goes to all the swimmers who engaged so proactively in the camp resources and to their coaches in their clubs for supporting them.
Finally, a special mention goes to the Camp’s Head Coach, Kevin Schofield from City of Leeds, for supporting with putting all the resources together.
