The 11-Year-Old Girl

You are in the pool one day, enjoying being in the water and working on your freestyle swimming. You are pretty happy with the progress you have been making and swimming is definitely becoming easier and a little quicker too – which is really satisfying. You set off for a few more laps and then suddenly in the next lane over a young girl jumps in the water, probably about 11 years old, and comes flying past you like you are barely moving. Before you know it she has executed a perfect tumble turn and comes back past you the other way, a near blur of fast moving, perfectly synchronised arms and legs.

     If you are an adult who has been swimming for a little while you have almost certainly had a similar experience to this. It can be quite a shock and even disheartening. ‘How can she do that? She is just a kid!’. Don’t worry, everyone has been passed by a much faster swimmer at some point in their lives and made to feel a little inadequate. Kids are not as physically strong as adults and don’t have the option of muscling their way through the water; instead they must use a good stroke technique – and high levels of aerobic fitness – to propel themselves quickly forwards. The fact that someone so small with very little strength can swim so quickly shows you what amazing potential each of us has in the water if we too can develop these areas of our swimming. Try not to be disheartened by the speed of fast swimmers but instead see them as an inspiration: how a child can swim so well and be so comfortable in the water is an amazing thing and there are many lessons the aspiring adult swimmer can learn from them.

This book is devoted to anyone looking to improve their freestyle swimming. You might be very new to swimming and are trying to become more comfortable in the water. Or perhaps you are a triathlete or open water swimmer looking to improve your speed and efficiency and move up through the field. Or you might be a top-age group or elite swimmer searching for a cutting edge in your races. Whatever your level, we have worked with hundreds of swimmers just like you, both in our coaching base in Perth, Australia and on our international clinic tours. We have developed and improved each and every one of those swimmers and as you will discover in this book, we know how to improve your individual swimming too. Before we get started on that, let’s take a quick look at the background behind Swim Smooth and how our coaching system came into existence.