TRAINING BECOMING ELITE
CHAMPIONS
MAKING
What makes a champion swimmer? H2Open editor Simon Griffi ths asked top coaches and a champion
swimmer about the traits of the true elites
“I believe talent is grown not given,” says Mark Rose, “I think anyone can be an exceptional person.” And he should know. The former national-level swimmer has risen through the ranks to be head coach with the City of Manchester Aquatics Swim Team and has also completed tours as head coach with British Swimming. That has given him, in his own words,: “the opportunity to work with exceptional people on a daily basis.” As part of his job, Rose works with swimmers and clubs at all
levels, especially in Manchester. According to him, to become a top swimmer – or to excel at anything for that mat er – you need to adopt a particular mindset. This starts with a determination to do things bet er than anybody else, which creates a snowball eff ect. In his experience, people who go on to become great swimmers start with an inquisitive at itude and an open-minded approach to swimming. “When I coach swimmers,
I want to know how their brains are working,” he explains. “Are they mindlessly doing what I suggest or are they taking part? Are they thinking about what they are doing and why? The best athletes in the world are very good at learning for themselves.” Another obvious trait of champion swimmers is an incredible capacity for hard work. Top swimmers routinely spend 20 hours in the pool each week and many more doing land training to improve strength and fl exibility. Considerable motivation is needed to deal with the hours, too, as much of that training has to be done at 5am, before slower-moving members of the public fi ll the lanes. Long- distance swimmers, like Penny Palfrey, may spend eight hours or more on a single training session.
Bill Furniss, coach to double Olympic gold medallist Rebecca Adlington, believes this level of training is crucial. “I’m sure if top swimmers could get away with swimming less, they would,” he says. “Elite distance swimmers need to cover so many kilometres to build and maintain muscular endurance. Sprinters may get away with less, but even they will do 35km or more each week.”
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Top coach
Mark Rose works with the best on a daily basis
At the age of 13, Adlington was already training hard, typically
covering 50km per week. This has increased up to 70km over the last few years. We know that top open water swimmers train in a similar way to pool specialists like Adlington. In fact, to make national open water teams, swimmers will oſt en have to rank near the top in their country at 800m or 1500m in the pool. And if they don’t cover the distance? “Unfortunately, they lose muscular endurance and their feel for the water very quickly. Swimmers say if they take a few weeks off it’s like starting again when they come back,” says Furniss. According to Furniss, this muscular endurance is fundamental to swimming success. Without it, it doesn’t mat er how strong your
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