I don't know if it is the same in the UK, but here in the US competitive middle and high school swimmers train twice daily, five to six days per week. I realize that all sessions aren't intense, but isn't this overtraining? State of the art cycling and running training consists of a mix of light, moderate and heavy intensities with a big emphasis on recovery. No one in these other disciplines would think of training twice daily, at least at this level, so why do coaches not understand that swimmers require rest and recovery too?
I've shown some coaches research about this and some agree, yet they soldier on in the name of tradition. Meanwhile, these kids get sick a lot and burned out mentally.I could understand this attitude years ago when research was thin, but now that we have good exercise physiology and sports medicine research, there shouldn't be any good reason to subject these kids to high volume, counterproductive training. Someone help me understand.