On your marks

Rowan Clarke finds out how Olympian Champion Adam Peaty is helping to instill a positive swimming lifestyle in young swimmers

Our childhood experiences of swimming last a lifetime. When that experience is positive, it creates a lifelong love of water. But negative experiences can put us off swimming, create a fear of the water and they can also do serious harm to our self-confidence.

So, how can we ensure a positive start for our children?

Transforming swimming

With 14 world records and a haul of medals, Adam Peaty is widely regarded as the most dominant sprint breaststroke swimmer of all time. He was the first to swim the 100m breaststroke in under 58 seconds, and the only man to swim it in under 57 – in fact, the ten fastest times in breaststroke history are his.

With stories emerging all the time about past bullying and poor treatment by swimming coaches and clubs, well-known swimmers like Adam have spoken out in order to change the club experience for future generations.

“I’ve been through the whole system. I was lucky enough to have one coach who brought me a very long way and a good club when I was younger, but I see some of the burnout rates of our sport,” he says. “By the time you get to teenage years, there’s something fundamentally and institutionally wrong at all levels of club swimming. We’re looking at why that burnout’s happening – too many metres, too many mornings, not enough fun.”

Creating a positive foundation

For swimmers – and their parents – hearing Adam Peaty call out, “remember, it’s not about winning,” might be surprising. But it’s key to Adam and his team’s coaching style.

“What we do on these AP Race Clinics is make sure that we’re not just focused on metres. We’re focused on the quality of those metres. We’re also focused on [the swimmers] having a lot of fun,” explains Adam. “It’s an ecosystem of love, fun, enjoyment and just all these amazing things that sports should be about.”

The AP Race Clinics include a gym and psychology session, ensuring a holistic approach. As well as coaching the children themselves, their club coaches are invited to do free CPD sessions.

That holistic approach of mind, body and soul is what we love about outdoor swimming, but we rarely associate it with club swimming. Plenty of club swimmers come to outdoor swimming as adults – often to recover from swim club burnout and reclaim their love of swimming. And it feels like the higher level of competition we reached as youngsters, the longer the break we needed.

As parents or carers, or as coaches, it can be hard to know how to support young swimmers. This is why Adam Peaty invites parents and carers to attend the entire session and runs CPD for coaches.

“Parents give so much financially, in time and in energy, but with that high commitment comes a high risk – you really want them to excel because you’ve invested,” says Adam. “I would tell these parents to let the athlete do what they need to do. Push them a little bit, but not too much, because as soon as they lose the fun, they’re going to burn out. You want them to be able to look back on their career in swimming as positive.”

For children like 13-year-old Ava, the chance to be coached by their hero injected novelty and excitement into their swimming routine.

“I was very excited to be getting coached by Adam Peaty and his team. My mum and dad told me this on Christmas, and I have been counting down the days ever since,” says Ava. “[They] helped make my stroke look and feel stronger… Breast is my favourite stroke, and Adam and his team have made it a lot better.”

A lifelong sport

Unlike other sports, swimming is a true cradle-to-grave activity. That not only means that it can be enjoyed by everyone from newborns to elderly people, but also that people of all ages can enjoy it together.

It also means that it’s a sport that can be started at any age – and many of us learn to swim as adults. But those childhood foundations are so important. That’s why we love AP Race’s mantra, ‘better than yesterday’.

It applies to the difference Adam and his team are making to children’s experience of competitive swimming and to their coaches and parents. It applies to us all, really, whether we’re lifelong swimmers, adopting a swimming lifestyle as adults or introducing our children to a lifetime of loving swimming – even to one of the most decorated professional competitive swimmers!

“I’m definitely going to be doing open water swimming sometime in the next few years,” says Adam. “I’m kind of scared of seaweed, but we’ll get past that!”

AP Race Clinics will be touring England and Scotland throughout August. Find out more about these and free CPD for swimming coaches: clinics.aprace.club