MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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Sat poolside for MCJnr's swimming club session.
Currently doing races where the losers have to do pushups. He's the slowest in the group and has zero upper body strength for a 10 year old, having a tough half hour.
Seem to recall that youngsters should do pushups from a kneeling position till they could do them properly? Is that still the wisdom?
Swim coaches all leaving him to waggle his hips uselessly while failing to complete anything like a push up. Might be helping his butterfly kick though 🙄
Do it with hands on a box / coffee table.
The female approach to push ups is normally on the knees with ankles raised off the floor.
It's perfectly acceptable for someone to do it that way if they can't do a full one with knees raised up. Doing enough of those will build the muscles up to then do split sets and then full sets of normal ones.
If he's being given a penalty he can't do, and no support or understanding, I'd have a word with the coach- that's just crap, especially if it's just a swimming club rather than a race team or similiar.
Normal advice for people- not specifically kids- struggling with full pushups is to do it on knees not feet, or elevated hands ie bench or similiar. All about reducing hte leverage. I've seen people do kneeling pushups but it seems a bit of a joke to me- you could do it no-handed after all.
Alternatively, tell him to Child The **** Up.
If he's being given a penalty he can't do, and no support or understanding, I'd have a word with the coach- that's just crap, especially if it's just a swimming club rather than a race team or similiar.
I agree with this as well, not really a good motivation for kids to be forced to do things they either can't or don't want to in front of peers. Surely being a swimming club lengths would be a suitable punishment?
I've seen people do kneeling pushups but it seems a bit of a joke to me- you could do it no-handed after all.
Yeah, that's pointless, the hips should really be in line between the knees and shoulders not at 90 degrees.
Cheers, wanted to check before I said anything to the coaches.
He does need to child tfu though, mortified he can't do a pushup, only thing I could do in PE at that age
As a coach, I'm surprised at the concept of "punishment" as a coaching technique in any form, especially with kids. Can't really see how that is going to help anyone improve. You want to encourage a positive desire to go faster to win, not to go faster to avoid punishment!
+1 what kcr says, this guy needs to go on a cp course refresher 🙄 what other bad practices is the coach using? I shudder when I go and watch my grand kids at swim lessons!
https://www.sportscoachuk.org/site-tools/workshops/about-our-workshops/safeguarding-and-protecting-children
Strangely, I'm not that bothered that he had to do the press-ups - it was being treated as a laugh and it didn't bother him. It was pretty standard when I was at secondary school and doing rugby and martial arts.
Just more bothered that he was struggling to do them and not getting correct advice on technique.
First time it has happened in the 2-3 years he has been at the club, I'll give him some technique advice (and practice) in case it happens again
Knees etc is correct, against a wall though is also effective.
Induces slightly different muscle groups, but none of which are not beneficiary to a push-up.
Think of it like an incline push-up, with less gravity 😀