Focus: Building Physical and Mental Resilience
Athletes are invited to join Junior National Squad having achieved the aims and progression criteria for Regional Squad or via a trial if transferring from another club.
Training in Junior National Squad focuses on building the physical and mental capacities required for athletes to be competitive at Youth and Senior level. This is a key development stage and will have a massive effect on each athletes ability to maximise their potential in future years, swimming must take priority over other sports and activities at this stage.
Full commitment to training and competition is essential as athletes will follow a periodised annual training programme designed to achieve peak performance at specific times of the year. Training focuses on the development of outstanding aerobic capacity, functional strength, and maintaining stroke efficency and skills across all 4 strokes. The competition programme is more demanding and requires athletes to take greater ownership of their preparation, race plans, and recovery.
Sessions will be consistently long and tough, and competitions challenging, we cannot hide young athletes from this as the demands will only increase as they get older. Once athletes have established the physical and mental resilience required to progress in Junior National Squad they will be ready for the step up to Youth and Senior swimming.
Aims
- Athletes have shared goals and are supportive of each other in training and competition.
- Representation at Swim England Summer Meet.
- Representation and success at Regional Championships.
Progression Criteria
Progression from Junior National Squad is to either National Squad or Junior and Youth Squad.
All athletes must consistently apply the clubs CORE values in training and competition.
To be considered for a move to National Squad, athletes should have achieved the Junior National Squad aims and be able to complete the following benchmark training sets:
- 8 x 400m Freestyle @ 6:00, (M) Holding 5:10 (F) Holding 5:30 or faster throughout set.
- 10 x 200m Individual Medley @ 3:30, (M) Holding 2:50 (F) Holding 3:00 or faster throughout set.
- 10 x 100m Kick (Any Stroke) to be completed in 17:30 or less.
All of the above sets must be completed with efficient strokes, breathing patterns and even pace, all underwater phases, breakouts and turns must be consistent in length and speed. Athletes should remain calm under pressure and be able to focus on process, including injury prevention, hydration and recovery strategies.
We appreciate that some athletes may not be able to complete the benchmark training sets but may have outstanding ability in one or more areas. To ensure these athletes are not held back, any athlete achieving 550 World Aquatic Points in two or more long course events will automatically be considered for progression.
Monthly Training Fees
£127.20 including access to Team Unify club management programme and the On Deck app.
This squad trains approximately 48 weeks of the year with fees divided equally over 12 months.
Competitive membership is a separate annual fee, currently this is £100 per year.
