Event Specialisation
When is the best time for swimmers to specialise in a certain event, stroke or distance? There's a lot of grey area and questions about when to focus on one event, but every individual swimmer is different.
Deciding when to specialise is a discussion that all swimmers need with their coaches and together a plan can be made to reach the swimmer's goals.
Even when a swimmer has grown to be better at a certain stroke or event, there are many benefits to continue to do some training on all of the strokes and competing in different events:
-
Improves overall general fitness working on more muscle groups rather than the one stroke you are specialising in,
-
Working on other strokes can benefit performance, by helping with recovery and adapting work load,
-
Reduces the pressure of trying to beat the time in one event as the swimmer will have a number of events and Best Times to beat rather than just one,
-
Racing in different events increases race practise and helps improve racing skills and speed,
-
The best type of training is racing! There are lots of top swimmers that still race in a number of events for training purposes, which helps towards their main event,
-
You might surprise yourself with a good time in an event you wouldn't normally do,
-
It keeps training and racing fun!
