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Early specialization and recomendations for swimming

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Early specialization and recomendations for swimming

The present work was done to investigate the literature to see what does the literature say about specialization in swimming, to get perspective and learn from other sports and to make a material for Finnish Swimming Association (Suomen Uimaliitto). Based on the literature, the purpose was to make an educational material for the Finland’s Swimming Association which they can use for coaches education, athlete development and long-term development how they see fit.

The project started in the beginning of 2018 with a literature review about early specialization in sports and was which was the initial work. After that it got re-evaluated, the new work got defined more specifically to swimming and Finnish Swimming Association was included in to the process. For the information collection were used different type of studies, reviews of studies and literature and articles. Information was collected from Google Scholar, Pubmed and other relevant internet databases for the matter.

Based on the literature, the end result was a material going through the findings in this work and recommendations. After discussions with the swimming association, we decided that the material is a “raw material” which they can freely use to coach education, athlete development, long-term development or how they see fit. The material ended up being 11 pages summarizing the findings and recommendations of this work. Google Scholar, Pubmed and other internet databases were searched that discusses early specialization, injuries, burn outs, drop outs, recommendations for swimming, youth sports and related articles. This study focused mainly in literature from this century, but some earlier case studies and relevant articles were included.

Results of the study shows that early specialization can be harmful for youths physical health, mental health, reduces the length of careers, but it is still useful in some cases and an effective way to attain expertise. The research shows that having a diverse sporting background will lead to higher level of expertise and athletes who have multisport background are more likely to achieve elite status while avoiding the possible negative outcomes of early specialization.

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