Subject: an analysis of the American swimming system

Introduction
Since its appearance on the earth people have always been associated with a water.
All times the water was very important for the people's lives.
After all, at the first hitting in the water, man drowns. Therefore, swimming -is a vital skill that is associated with development in the aquatic environment and the ability to move around in it.

Overview
Swimming is one of the oldest sports.
It includes the competitions on the distances from 50 to 1500 meters (in the pool).
There are 4 styles of swimming: freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly and backstroke; and also combined swimming and command relay.
Winner- is the person or command which comes to the finish first.

Research Objectives
1. Define contemporary composition of the theory and methods of the American swimming system.
2. Analyze of the American methods of teaching children how to swim.
3. Identify of the positive and negative sides of the American swimming system

Methods of investigation
1. Analysis of the theoretical and methodical literature of the American swimming system.
2. Analysis of the American program and methods of swim training.
3. Teacher‘s observation.

American swimming system

The puzzling perspective for outside observers is that there is no systematic ornational organizational approach that ties together the three major preparatorysystems (or groups) for competitive swimming in the United States: High school(ages: 14-18),college (ages: 17-22) and club (ages: babies through college).
For all of these groups, there is often little or no certification standard required to become a –coach‖.

From the future coach hardly does not need any training or educational programs, education in this field and no basic knowledge on safety and first aid.
The structure of the American swimming system in the high schools American high schools have more in-school sport and athletic opportunities available for their students than most countries in the world.
Sports activities in high schools work during all school day and are included in school program as educational disciplines.

The variation in program structure and seasons across the country is enormous. In some states, boys and girls have the same seasons, in other states there are separate seasons for each.

Each of the 50 states is autonomous in setting up their own standards for athletic programs; there is no nationwide consistency in seasons.

There are many variations of the restrictions in time for the training process:
1. It may be limited to two hours a day.
2. It may be defined number of hours per week.
3. Restrictions may also be absent.
Coaching contact between the school coach and the athlete is also limited in some states, not in others. The reasons are to protect the athlete from overtraining.

The structure of the American swimming system in the colleges and universities.

Since there are national collegiate governing bodies for swimming, it is logical and necessary to have consistent training and competition seasons for the colleges and universities.

Women‘s collegiate championships are usually the week before the men‘s championships, and only rarely do they at the same time.
The national collegiate governing body is the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

In-season training time restrictions are 20 hours of training per week, with no more than 4 hours on any given day, and no Sundays.
Out-of-season restrictions are 8 hours per week.

The structure of the American swimming system in the clubs.

There are 59 separate local swim committees. Each committee is responsible for administering USA Swimming activities in a defined geographical area and has its own set of bylaws under which it operates. The smallest committee has 539 year-round athletes, the largest has over 15,000.

There are approximately 2700 individual clubs across the country.

Clubs have no training restrictions, may have unlimited coach-athlete contact, choose which meets they will send qualified athletes to. Their training and competition seasons are planned to match up with the national and international competition schedules as decided by United States Swimming.

The lack of government or institutional funding and the lack of their own facilities is the biggest problem to many of these programs.
Results

After the analysis of the American swimming system we have derived its‘ the positive and negative sides

Downsides of the American swimming system
1. The absence of systematic or national organizational approach
2. Low level of the coaches‘ professional skills
3. Lack of relationship between the coaches of the schools and clubs
4. Limited contact between the coach and the athlete

Positive aspects of the American swimming system

1. Early age of the elementary swimming
2. Ability of the swimmers to train in swimming pools at their schools
3. Well-funded of swimming and as a result, the provision schools, colleges and universities of all necessary material and technical base
4. Availability of swimming

Conclusion

Despite big diversity in structure, organization, funding, facilities, preparation of coaches, and approaches to athletic training, the swimmers that rise to the top in the American swimming programs are very successful on the international level.

Goncharenko Tatyana