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Swimming instructors have to develop many training styles because not all swimmers have the same experience levels. Some swimmers might be under the age of four and need to be trained with learning styles that can be done in a wading pool. For swimmers that will swim in athletic competitions during the year, the coach will have to develop a training schedule that lets the swimmer learn the strokes that they will need for competition in a pool that is sized for swimming competitively.

Some swimmers might need to be retrained before they are ready for swimming at the competitive level. The swimmer might have been lax during the winter and might not have swum at all. The lazy daze of summer might have caused the swimmer to be lax in all manners of training and the swimmer will have to get used to fast starts and regain the competitive edge that they exhibited the year before. Some swimmers lose interest in swimming competitively and will need a persuasive coach to get them back on the team.

Some swimmers need to develop more strength in the upper portion of their bodies because they will be tasked to perform strenuous swimming strokes such as the breaststroke, butterfly, or backstroke during swimming meet styled competitions. The swimmer will perform these swimming strokes during various parts of the day, and each race will require a longer distance than the last.

A coach might approach this type of swimming with training that concentrates on building upper body strength. The coach might require that the swimmer perform each swimming stroke for up to twenty minutes, and during that time, the swimmer will have to test their endurance by doing lap after lap until they have completed the required time limit.

The coach might also require that the swimmer hold on to floatation devices while they kick their legs to propel them around the pool. This training style will help the swimmer to build up strength in the muscles that are in the legs. The legs will be used to perform the kicking motion that is used on all of the swimming strokes that are required in swim meets.

The swimmer with the best strength and muscle condition is more likely to win the race they are in and a good coach will know this. Some coaches might seem to have strange styles of training used for swimming in competitive sports but the physical results of that training will be recognized when the swimmer starts winning races instead of coming in second all of the time.

There are certain training styles that are almost mandatory because without them, the swimmer will not know how to start a race. A swimmer might be tasked with diving from cinder blocks that are at the deep end of a pool several times an hour until they perfect each dive. A swimmer must dive deep enough to submerge all parts of the body but not to the point where time is taken away from swimming to the other end of the pool.