I need help from experienced swim coaches!!!!?

Question

I'm a teen swim coach for my community swim teem. I would like to know what kind of fun activities I could do to lighten the mood. The kids give me a hard time due to the fact that I'm close to their age, and I push them hard. I would really like to have some suggestions that are serious! Thanks!!

~Rogue

Answer 1

In addition to the other good responses you can play belly down.  Get kickboards and line them up along the width of the pool on each side.  Each kid lays on a board.  When you say go they all dive in, swim across and climb out laying on their bellies.  The last swimmer down is out.  Another game is to do an obstacle course.  With lane lines in the pool have kids climb out at each end and do something, like 10 jumping jacks, 10 arm dips (between 2 chairs), 5 6 count burpies (burpie-go down hands on ground, kick feet out, do push up, bring feet in, jump in the air thats 1), also do perimeter swims, relays starting at opposite ends where the relay needs to catch the other relay, do fun relays by switching goggles, holding hands, have 1 foot out  of the water, head up etc.  We also would do kicking widths like dolphin kick on left side, and we did treading water with hands up in the deep end

Also do a fun psych day where you make posters, do tye dye shirts, bring donuts, do the watermelon polo, then eat it after the game

Answer 2

My coach is really hard, but the last 10 min. of practice he sometimes let us play

-Penguin

-Over Under

-Go off diving boards

-Do relays and let the winning relay out 10 minuets early

Answer 3

Oh, fun!

I would for sure suggest doing some fun relays, like- they have to swim in big baggy t-shirts and trade off the shirt before the next person can swim. Or, have them play sprint games like Sharks and Minnows.

Answer 4

What my coach (who worked us VERY hard) did when I was a kid was occasionally let us spend the last few minutes of workout doing the following:

-- Sharks and minnows

-- Water polo. If you don't have nets, offense can score a goal by holding the ball down in the gutter for 3 seconds.

-- go off the diving boards.

-- Water polo with a greased watermelon (offense scores by getting watermelon to touch opposite wall)

Also, he would set up "get out swims" or "candy swims" where he would pick an event and goal time. If you met the time, you could leave workout (sometimes it was pretty close to the end of workout anyway!) or get a lollipop. Sometimes he would set a goal time for a single swimmer. If that swimmer met the time, the whole team would get out! A great way to build team spirit!