Who is this game for?

Swim teams, and upper level swimmers. You’ll need to do this with a group that has a decent understanding of general swimming requirements.

How many do you need to play?

You should have enough people to create two or three teams. You will need enough coaches on deck or swim instructors to accurately tabulate scores.

How do we play?

Separate out your swimmers into groups. If you have access to lane lines, each group should be in the same lane.

1) Write 100 in a column for each team.

2) Each lane swims the same thing. Create a set that works on a certain stroke or mix of strokes. For example:

3 x { 2 x 50 Free

{ 1 x 100 Breaststroke

{ 2 x 25 Back Stroke

3) Remove 1 point for each swimming infraction

4) Update total by scratching out the previous total and write the new total minus any infractions

5) Winners are the lane at the end with the most points

6) If any team gets to 0, the game ends, and they automatically lose.

Details

Before playing the game, do a small set where you reinforce the things you’re going to swim during the game. If you were to use the sample set listed above you could do a preliminary shorter version of it where you explicitly say what they should work on. Some things that you could work on:

• streamline
  • with 3 things: locked thumb, squeezed ears, looking down
• breathing to the side, not diagonally (lifting head), or to the ceiling
• legal breaststroke kick
• getting to full breaststroke extension (glide)
• legal open turn
• proper flip turn
• breaststroke kicks on freestyle (no no)
• not touching wall on back
• looking at wall during backstroke (no)

Make it clear what things you need your swimmers to work on and and then when you do the 100 point set, you can deduct for every infraction. If a swimmer does illegal breaststroke kick for a full 25, they lose a point for every kick that was illegal.  Make sure you tell your swimmers what they are being deducted for so they can adjust and work as a team to keep the most points.

For elite and advanced swimmers you can deduct more points for basics like streamline or breathing off the turns.

 

[Tweet “Can you keep all 100 points during this swim team game?”]

Have you played the game?

If you have played this game please let me know. I would love to hear your variations and adaptations to your swim team!