Training load and wellbeing in age-group swimmers

Training load is how much work a swimmer has done over a period, and wellbeing check-ins are how the swimmer says they feel. Neither is a diagnosis. Together they give a coach something to notice and a reason to start a conversation: a sudden jump in load, or a swimmer who has said they feel tired three sessions running. The coach and the family decide what, if anything, to do.

What training load means

At its simplest, load is volume and intensity over time. Coaches look at it across a week or a training block, not session by session. Two things are usually worth noticing:

• Sharp changes from one week to the next. A big jump after a quiet week, or a sudden drop, is worth a look.
• The trend across a block. Whether load builds and eases as the plan intended.

For age-group swimmers, load sits alongside everything else in their lives: growth, school, exams, other sports, sleep. A heavy week in the pool during exam season is a different week from the same sessions in the summer.

What a wellbeing check-in can tell you

A short check-in after a session asks a swimmer how they feel on a few simple scales. Typical factors are how hard the session felt, how recovered they feel, stress from outside swimming and feel for the water. On their own, single entries mean little. Patterns over several sessions are what a coach might act on.

The value is often the conversation it makes possible. A swimmer who would never mention that school is overwhelming might put a high number on a stress scale.

Using it well

• Make it optional. Swimmers and families should choose to take part.
• Keep it simple: a few fixed scales, no free text, quick to complete.
• Be clear who sees it: coaches and staff with a duty of care, not other swimmers.
• Be clear it is not monitored like a helpline. Swimmers should know a check-in is not the way to raise a worry, and who to talk to instead.
• Act on patterns, not single entries. One tired session is normal.
• Talk to the swimmer and the family. The numbers prompt a conversation; people make decisions.
• Keep safeguarding separate. A wellbeing tool supports coaching. Concerns about a child go to the welfare officer through the club's safeguarding procedure. See the welfare officer's routine.

How Olympus Swim handles it

Wellness logging is optional in Olympus Swim and is switched on squad by squad by the club's chair or vice-chair. Where it is on, swimmers aged 14 and over can log from their own account, and parents can log for younger swimmers. The log has up to four optional factors on a 1 to 10 scale and no free text. Entries appear against the coach's register. Nobody is alerted by this log, and it is not a safeguarding report.

Separately, named staff with a duty of care can record an observation, and an observation flagged amber notifies the head coach.

The platform works out a weekly training load for each swimmer from the planned distance of the sessions they attended, and flags a sharp week-on-week change to coaches. It makes no decision about a swimmer and blocks nothing. Read about coaching tools and why poolside registers matter.

Common questions

What is RPE in swimming? Rating of perceived exertion: how hard a session or set felt, usually on a 1 to 10 scale. It is a simple way to capture intensity alongside distance.

Should coaches monitor swimmers' wellbeing? Coaches already notice how swimmers are. Simple, optional check-ins help them notice patterns, as long as it is clear the tool is not a safeguarding or medical system.

Does a wellbeing check-in alert the coach? In Olympus Swim, no. Swimmer and parent check-ins notify nobody and appear against the coach's register. Only a staff observation flagged amber notifies the head coach.

Who can see a swimmer's check-ins? In Olympus Swim, coaches see them against the register. They are not shown to other swimmers or to other parents.

Written by Joel Knight, swimming coach and founder of Olympus Swim (about).