“Chin on your chest” “tall arms” “small fast kicks”
These are probably the most common phrases you hear walking into a Carlile swimming centre. That’s because good technique and consistent stroke correction is paramount to your child’s swimming ability.
Why? Because it could save their life. The top five benefits of swimming with great technique are:
- You can swim longer without tiring or panicking. In a rip that could mean the difference between tragedy and safety.
- Great technique prevents injury.
- Technique is the key to swimming faster – who doesn’t want to win the school carnival.
- Swimming with great technique takes focus and concentration, traits that help children in every other aspect of their life.
- It allows children to build endurance when they later join squads. Again they can work longer, improving both cardiovascular fitness and general stamina.
When enrolling your child into swimming lessons make sure you check out the program.
Skills based learning programs should see your child receiving consistent feedback during the lesson on how they can improve. This is vital to their progress and overall safety in the water.
As Forbes Carlile said “a child isn’t ready to move on from swimming until they can swim 400m with good technique”
If that appears a long way to you, consider the things your child may do in the future. Surfing, water polo, surf lifesaving, sailing, snorkeling, diving the list goes on. The better they can swim the safer they will be.
Today, more than 40% of children leave primary school unable to swim 50 metres or keep themselves afloat for two minutes.
“That’s the most basic of benchmarks. It’s nowhere near good enough,” Said Carlile CEO Jon Harker. “Imagine your child stuck in a rip or breaking their leg rope and losing their board in a reasonable surf. Does anyone really think being able to swim 50 metres in a controlled environment like an Olympic pool is good enough in those circumstances.”
Carlile is renowned for its skills based program where each level sets the platform for the one to come.
From the start, when a toddler begins swimming lessons in tadpoles they begin learning good technique and creating good habits that can take them all the way to squads. Let’s look at the importance of putting your chin on your chest whilst attempting a torpedo (pushing off the wall and gliding). If your head isn’t in the correct position your hips sink and make it incessantly difficult to stay afloat.
At every level Carlile works on the little things that will make a difference when children begin to put their strokes together through stroke correction.
Often parents are keen to see their children swim further but further is not necessarily better.
The last thing you want is a child churning up and down a pool with poor technique, building endurance but repeating the same mistakes with every stroke until correcting it becomes almost impossible.
Given children grow in spurts you will often see some big and strong children swim quite quickly despite their mistakes. In time, as the others catch up in size, their technique will see them swimming faster. Without stroke correction the big strong swimmer will become disheartened and more often than not lose their love of swimming.
This is why, until great technique is dialed in, shorter distances, with regular feedback and rest is best. Educational research shows young children also learn by observing their peers, so they are still learning during their breaks.
Remember – “To Swim Well Is An Asset For Life”