The season is just around the corner! 2015 National JR Camp: Report

Two weeks ago, the annual US National Junior Camp was held at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Colorado Springs, USA. Participants were 80+ top Junior swimmers from across the United States. Focusing on this year's main theme, "Awareness & Achievement," the coaches were dedicated to introducing the JR swimmers to the gist of new experiences and concepts. Based on the new concepts, the JR swimmers were encouraged to increase their self-awareness in training and competition performance, and to find and achieve their own goals.

Although the theme of "Self-Knowledge and Achievement" does not directly relate to swimming, the JR swimmers, who are still in the process of self-development in many aspects of their lives, gained a lot from this camp. The concept was also reflected in various training sessions and presentations throughout the camp.

Small changes have big consequences:

No matter how great an athlete is, they may be overwhelmed by the pressure of having to make big changes and achieve their goals. Instead of directly ramming into a big wall, break it down into smaller chunks and overcome it little by little. Specifically, if you have a big challenge, find the smaller challenges that it contains and break it down into several smaller challenges that you can tackle right away. If your challenge is to break the 100 free into under one minute, instead of spending all your time practicing the 100 free, identify your weaknesses and pinpoint the smaller challenges, such as "how to turn" -> "twisting after a somersault". If your challenge is to do more sustainable training, instead of just swimming, you can think about daily practice performance = physical condition management = nutrition and food.

Flexibility to always try new things:

A common pitfall in daily training is to continue doing the same thing you did to achieve your previous goal even after you have achieved it. The important thing is not to keep using what you can still use. This mindset often holds back swimmers from further improvement. Athletes who set new records one after another are constantly searching for new things, shedding what they have been doing and how they have been training, thinking about what changes are needed to achieve their next goal. The new method may be land training, stroke technique, or it may be that each swimmer is self-aware and must analyze their problems from all angles. This JR camp also emphasized that.

Discuss self-awareness with your coach and achieve it:

It may seem like a big challenge to recognize your own problems. However, when a swimmer is sensitive to their own sensations in the water, communicates them to their coach, and discusses them with them, self-recognition and problem recognition are the result of that.

I think this is more concrete and constructive than a coach simply presenting a task from outside the pool. First, try to feel yourself swimming.