This year’s SE Hertfordshire 1-Direction County Development Camps took place over 3 days between June and October 2019.
SE Hertfordshire explored and acknowledged the importance of providing young swimmers in the county with continued support over more than one year. For this reason, the camps were opened to both 11 and 12 yrs old this year, with the older age group represented by the 11yrs old cohort of 2018.
The core team for the camps included Bryan Thompson (Programme Leader), Manuela Teti (Lead Coach 12yrs and Presentations), Jack Jackson (Lead Coach 11yrs and Land Training) and Kate Liddiard (Team Manager). They were supported by a number of skills coaches: Wray Shewell-Cooper, Angie Reynolds, Liz Hourican, Helen Robinson and Pippa Shuttleworth.
65 swimmers were invited to the camps split between the 2 age groups. Those that attended worked hard on multiple areas of development.
From a technical perspective, the focus was greatly on SKILLS and PROCESS: we worked on areas such as streamlining, turns, starts and finishes. The classroom presentations covered the technical areas which were then practised in the pool, but also talks on nutrition and performing under pressure. The land training was devised to follow the British Swimming warm-up guidelines and included a much enjoyable Zumba session, where swimmers (and adults) had great fun!
Working with this year’s cohorts of Hertfordshire young swimmers was a real pleasure: their levels of engagement were commendable and allowed for all activities to be interactive and exciting.
We would like to thank all swimmers, parents and skill coaches for participating in this year’s Hertfordshire County Development Camps and hope they enjoyed the days as much as we did!!
Manuela, Jack, Kate & Bryan
