Welcome to LOSC's Parent's Education page!
These resources are compiled from many different sources,
including Canada, the United States, and beyond. However this
information is recommended reading for all AOSC parents.
Why Swim?
The USA Swimming (USAS) age group swimming program is America’s
largest program of guided fitness activity for children. Age group
swimming builds a strong foundation for a lifetime of good health by
teaching healthy fitness habits.
1. Physical Development
Many physicians consider swimming the ideal activity for
developing muscular and skeletal growth. Why do doctors like it so
much?
- Swimming develops high quality aerobic endurance,
the most important key to physical fitness. Unlike other sports, where
an hour of practice may yield as little as 10 minutes of meaningful
exercise, swimming practices provide sustained aerobic conditioning.
- Swimming provides proportional muscular development by using all the body’s major muscle groups.
- Swimming
enhances children’s natural flexibility at a time when they ordinarily
begin to lose it by exercising all of their major joints through a full
range of motion.
- Swimming helps develop superior
coordination because it requires combinations of complex movements of
all parts of the body, enhancing harmonious muscle function, grace, and
fluidity of movement.
- Swimming is the most injury-free of all children’s sports.
- Swimming
is a sport that will bring fitness and enjoyment for life.
Participants in Master’s Swimming programs still train and race well
into their 80s.
2. Intellectual Competence
In addition to physical development, children can develop greater
intellectual competence by participating in a guided program of
physical activity. Learning and using swimming skills engages the
thinking processes. As they learn new techniques, children must develop
and plan movement sequences. They improve by exploring new ideas. They
learn that greater progress results from using their creative talents.
3. Preparation For Life
One of the great values of swimming as a sport is that it prepares
one for life. The total swimming experience is made up of people,
attitudes, beliefs, work habits, fitness, health, winning and losing,
and much more. Swimmers learn to deal with pressure and stress, success
and failure, teamwork and discipline.
Swimming is a self-achievement activity. There
is only one person in the water in a given lane in any race. The
responsibility for performance ultimately lies with the individual. How
well the individual has prepared physically and mentally to a large
degree determines the performance level.
By learning how to handle frustration and
disappointment, swimmers gain confidence. They learn dedication and
commitment. Through perseverance, swimmers learn to overcome
adversity. All of these experiences tend to develop individuals who
are better able to handle life’s hardships and face problems.
Swimmers must learn that not all people are
born with the same natural talents. They learn to emphasize their given
talents and skills. Swimmers learn that if they do their best, then
there are no failures. They learn to set realistic goals for themselves
which they will achieve through hard work.
