Related Info

Preventing Swimmer's Ear
With all of the time spent in the water, swimmer's are very susceptible to swimmer's ear. Swimmers and parents need to recognize the symptoms and methods of prevention.

About the Book

The parents guide to swimming, July 5, 2003
Reviewer: Rebecca Uhl- van Oostendorp from Oxford, MS United States
As a past competitive swimmer and current USS swimming coach, I cannot express enough gratitude to Dr. Arata for the invaluable asset he offers to parents, swimmers and coaches alike. This book is the answer to the question parents often ask: "We don't know anything about swimming; is there anything to read?" THIS is it! The information in this book will provide the security, comfort and knowledge for any new parent whose child is entering swimming. Moreover, it enables them to understand, support and encourage their child in this wonderful lifelong sport. I am buying and distributing copies to my team. Thank you, Dr. Arata, for putting into the written word what ordinarily takes years to otherwise get across.

The Handbook for all Parents of Swimmers, July 5, 2003
Reviewer: Roger W Rechsteiner from Lubbock TX
This is a terrific book! How I wish I'd had it when my own swimming daughter was feeling "burned out". Dr. Arata has great ideas on how to motivate kids past that stage so they have a chance to fulfill their potential. A wonderful resource on training, diet – everything! Super A+!

Great information for parents of competitive swimmers!, July 6, 2003
Reviewer: Terre Christensen
Parents' Guide to Swimming is a much needed tool for parents of competitive swimmers. In it I found information on every topic an involved parent would need, especially a parent lacking a swimming background. Arata's perspective on the role of parents and coaches is especially helpful. He provides suggestions as to how parents can help their children succeed in competitive swimming while leaving the coaching to the coach. A very worthy read packed full of good information on topics ranging from nutrition to flexibility to how to find a suitable program for your swimmer. A must have!

The Parents' Guide to Swimming is the parents’ manual for the mental, physical and practical aspects of competitive swimming. This is a must read for all swimming parents as Alan Arata, Ph.D. covers what you can do to enhance your young swimmer's performance and enjoyment, not just today, but throughout your child’s lifetime.

The Parents' Guide to Swimming addresses how parents can develop mental strength and motivation in their swimmers as well as how to avoid or reverse swimming burnout. It details how parents can increase their children’s swimming speed through flexibility training. The Parents’ Guide to Swimming teaches parents what makes swimmers fast (from an easy-to-understand biomechanical perspective), and it describes what swimmers do during workouts and the unique nutritional needs these workouts require. Further, it is the parent’s guide to practical issues such as buying swimming equipment, helping their children prepare for swim meets and the relationship with their child's coach. The Parents’ Guide to Swimming is the book that all swimming parents should own no matter their background. Parents will reference it time and time again.

About the Author

Born in 1961, Alan W. Arata holds a B.S. in Engineering, an M.S. in Exercise Science and a Ph.D. in Biomechanics. Dr. Arata started his swimming career at the "very old" age of 15, but at age 17 won a Colorado High School State Championship. After his collegiate swimming career, he competed in and later coached Modern Pentathlon (swimming, running, fencing, shooting and equestrian). Dr. Arata has coached at the NCAA Division I level in two different sports, netting four NCAA trophies. He is the author of several research articles and was a winner of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Contest for mainstream. He is married to the former Kimberly Dunlop, a nine-time Modern Pentathlon National Champion. They have two children who are both age- group swimmers. Dr. Arata currently teaches as a Professor of Biology and Physical Education and swims several times a week.

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There are physical aspects to swimming and there are mental aspects. When children first start to swim, the physical aspects account for about 90% of their successes. As children perfect their swimming skills, however, the mental aspects become more and more predominant and the percentages switch. Even so, at the higher levels as well as with younger kids mental strength training for swimming (and other sports) is commonly overlooked. It is seldom intentionally taught to athletes by coaches or parents. One problem is the fact that it is not physical, like swimming a workout or lifting weights and therefore progress is not easily charted. Partly because of this, coaches most often work with the physical aspects of swimming such as technique and endurance. Coaches who do understand the importance of mental strength and want to implement mental strength training can really only be effective for 10 to 15 individuals because of time constraints alone. After all, actual swimming must be accomplished during workouts as well. I would guess there is more than a 15:1 swimmer to coach ratio on your child's team. Swim teams can't survive financially with lower numbers. Additionally, coaches may not understand the importance of mental strength, or even if they do, may not know how to foster it in their athletes while at the same time offering workouts. Understanding how to build and foster mental strength in athletes is a rare ability that few individuals possess, including the highest paid professional coaches. This may not sound very promising, but I have purposely put this chapter on mental strength ahead of the physical training chapters because it is much more important in the long run.

The good news is that mental training is an area a parent can address. Who should know more about how your child's mind works than you. You are the right one for this job and the following sections are meant to help direct your words and actions to best encourage mental strength in your child.

Two men run to the aide of another who is trapped under a helicopter. The helicopter has crashed into a stream and is slowly sinking. The pilot (a former competitive swimmer) is in shock and about to drown. A warning signal is beeping, indicating that fuel is leaking and the helicopter could explode at any moment. The two men run to help the pilot, ignoring the fuel leak indicator. Without thinking, one of them says, "I'll lift and you pull him out." The man bends down and gets a grip on one of the helicopter's door jams, and straining mightily, he lifts the aircraft up enough so that his companion can slide the trapped pilot to safety. While this is occurring, a woman with a video camera captures the miraculous rescue on film.

After the rescue, the news media gets a look at the video and interviews the man who lifted the helicopter. They say to him, "That helicopter weighed thousands of pounds (about 1,500 kg). How in the world were you able to lift it?" The man didn't really know, but answered, "It just had to be done."

Many people have heard stories like this one, about mothers lifting cars to get to their trapped children after auto accidents, etc. Feats such as these have several things in common. The most import is that the person performing the lift did something that no one thought was humanly possible. An Olympic weight lifter couldn't have lifted the helicopter if a gold medal had depended on it. A sports scientist could have assessed this man's strength potential and told us that there was no way he could have lifted a helicopter. But it happened. The human body is incredible and capable of amazing feats. The body is strong.

It's the mind that is weak. The story above illustrates a second thing. "That helicopter weighed thousands of pounds. How in the world were you able to lift it?" The answer was, "It had to be done." Lucky for the pilot, the man didn't sit down and analyze, "Let me see, this chopper weighs, say 3000 pounds and I've been to a gym and can dead lift 400, therefore I can't pick this up, but I'll give it a try." The rescuer didn't even consider how much the helicopter weighed; he just picked it up because it had to be done.

Humans have a tendency to over-analyze things and athletes are far worse at this than the general population. Probably the worst among athletes are individual sport athletes who compete against time or a score. This includes your young swimmer. You may have already noticed.

On very rare occasions, a swimmer gets up on the block and swims great because, "It just had to be done." This happens in relays more often than individual races. It is a wonderful thing when swimmers don't think about how fast they have to swim, but just swim fast to get the job done. This type of behavior is more common in younger children because they tend to do less analyzing than their older counterparts and they have a lot farther to go to reach their "potential". Unfortunately, as a swimmer gains more experience, these spontaneous great swims happen less often. That's when another avenue for improvement must be found.