THE IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP FOR YOUNG SWIMMERS

 "The road to success is always under construction."

Interrupted or irregular sleep schedules will affect all human beings, but for a young swimmer it can have disastrous consequences on performances.  Young people are always growing and they need the proper amount of sleep to maintain both their physical and mental wellness.

We now how busy today's world can be and the schedule that a young swimmer has can become very crowded in a heart beat.  When you factor in academics and other school activities and then add to that swim practices and meets it can become very difficult to stick to a regular bedtime during the week and get that quality sleep that a young body needs.

Your body runs on an internal clock that can be disrupted easy when you change your sleep habits and when this happens it can actually be harder to get a good night sleep or even fall asleep at all.

THE WEEKEND TRAP

We have all fallen into this trap where we think if we sleep in on weekends or days off that we can catch up on all the sleep we missed during the week. Unfortunately the damage has already been done to that internal clock disrupting  your body rhythms.  You may have felt this with your mood swings  or the amount of time it takes for you to get rolling for the day.

Having quality sleep is just as important in your performance in your daily life which includes school and swimming.  It's as important as your nutrition, hydration, and your workouts in the pool.  Lack of proper sleep will also affect your mindset and we have talked about how your mindset will dictate your performance in the pool.

SET OF THE WEEK

PURPOSE   Work through the IM.  Work tight streamlines and underwaters.  Work on changing speeds.  Work turns on 50's and 100's.

 2 ROUNDS

4x25 fly descend to fast

4x50 back descend to fast tempo on 2nd 25

4x25 breast fast hands forward and get flat

4x100 free (effort level on each 25  85%--90%--95%--hammer down)