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Extra 1-to-1 Coaching, Alongside Your Child's Club
Your child trains hard with their club — but the times have stalled, the county cut is just out of reach, or a technical fault keeps costing them at galas. Private 1-to-1 coaching in Hertfordshire that works alongside your child's club programme, not instead of it.
Enquire about coaching →Squads build fitness.
Detail needs a coach
to themselves.
Club squads do their job well: structured training, race conditioning, team environment. But one coach on poolside with twenty or more swimmers can only give each of them seconds of individual feedback per session. That's not a criticism of clubs — it's the format.
The result is predictable. A small technical fault — a dropped elbow, a slow turn, a weak underwater — gets repeated for thousands of metres a week until it's grooved in. And when a swimmer is a second or two off a qualifying time, more volume rarely closes the gap. Individual technical work does.
Start the conversation →The work a busy
squad session can't do
A full session of individual attention, built around your child's events and weaknesses. Delivered through 1-to-1 coaching with video analysis where it helps.
Individual stroke correction
A full technical audit of the stroke, then focused correction of the one or two faults costing the most time — with every length watched.
Video analysis
Above and below the surface. Seeing the fault is often the moment it starts to change — for the swimmer as much as the coach.
Event-specific preparation
Work targeted at a named event and a named time — the 100m breaststroke county cut, the 200m IM for the next squad trial.
Turns & underwaters
The phase squads rarely have time to coach individually — and where a second per length of a race can hide in plain sight.
Starts & breakouts
Block technique, entry angle and breakout timing, rehearsed with individual feedback on every repetition rather than one glance per session.
Pacing & race preparation
Split targets, race plans and gala rehearsal — so the swim on the day matches what the training says they're capable of.
Works with your club,
not against it
The worry is understandable: will outside coaching undermine the club, or put my child's coach's nose out of joint? In practice, the opposite. We're not a rival squad and we don't rewrite the club's training plan — we work on the individual technical detail the squad format doesn't have time for, so your child gets more out of every club session they swim.
Supplementary 1-to-1 work is common in age-group swimming — far more common than most parents realise — and in our experience club coaches are supportive of swimmers doing serious technical work on their own time. A swimmer who arrives at squad training with a better catch or a faster turn makes the club programme look good.
Complements the club programme
Sessions are scheduled around the squad timetable and pitched against the training load the club already sets — never on top of it blindly.
Targets what squads can't
Individual technical detail — stroke faults, turns, starts, pacing — that one coach with a full lane of swimmers simply cannot address one-to-one.
Open with the club coach
Happy to write up session notes for you to share, so technical changes are reinforced in squad training. We never contact the club without your say-so.
Your child stays a club swimmer
We don't recruit, and we don't run a competing squad. The goal is a faster swimmer racing in their club's colours — nothing else.
Who top-up coaching
is for
Age-group club swimmers
Swimmers training regularly with a Hertfordshire or North London club who want individual technical attention on top of squad work.
County & regional hopefuls
Within touching distance of a qualifying time and needing a focused plan to close the gap before entries close.
Swimmers stuck on a time
Training hasn't changed, effort hasn't changed — but the PBs stopped coming. A technical plateau usually has a technical cause.
Post-growth-spurt resets
A swimmer whose body has changed shape faster than their stroke. A short technical block re-fits the technique to the new proportions.
Pushing for the next squad
Squad moves are decided on times and technical readiness. Individual coaching works on both, ahead of the trial or review.
Masters club swimmers
Adults who train with a club and race masters events — the same supplementary technical work, in an adult coaching context.
This is supplementary performance coaching for swimmers already in a club — it isn't for beginners or learn-to-swim. If you're weighing up competitive coaching more broadly, see our coaching for club swimmers and coaching for junior swimmers pages; this page is specifically about topping up alongside your child's existing club.
Safeguarding: All sessions involving swimmers under 18 require a parent or guardian to be present on-site or in the immediate vicinity as agreed with your coach before sessions begin. All Herts Swim Coach coaches are Swim England-qualified and hold current DBS clearance and relevant safeguarding certifications.
Ways to add
coaching around club
Most families start with 1-to-1 sessions. Blocks, clinics and holiday intensives slot around the club calendar.
1-to-1 Coaching
Weekly or fortnightly individual sessions — the core format for technical change alongside club training.
Find out more → →Video Analysis
Filmed sessions with frame-by-frame review — a one-off diagnostic or built into a coaching block.
Find out more → →Gala-Prep Blocks
Short, intensive crash-course blocks timed to a key gala or qualifying window.
Find out more → →Stroke Clinics
Focused clinics on a single stroke, individual medley, or starts, dives and turns.
Find out more → →Holiday Intensives
Swim camps in the school holidays — concentrated technical work when the club timetable winds down.
Find out more →Common
questions
No — sessions are scheduled around your child's squad timetable, and their coach accounts for the training load the club already sets. The aim is one carefully placed technical session that makes every club session more productive, not extra volume competing for the same energy. If the club programme steps up before a gala, we scale back around it.
For most club swimmers, one 1-to-1 session per week or fortnight is the right dose — enough to drive technical change without eating into recovery. Swimmers targeting a specific qualifying time often move to weekly sessions in the eight to ten weeks before the entry deadline, then back off. Your coach will recommend a frequency based on your child's squad load and competition calendar.
Any club swimmer from around age 8 through to 18 — and adult masters swimmers too. The one requirement is that they're already training with a club: this is supplementary performance coaching, and the approach is adapted to the swimmer's age and developmental stage.
It helps to know their club, squad level and typical weekly training volume so sessions are pitched correctly — but we never contact the club without your say-so. If you'd like, your coach can write up session notes for you to share with the club coach so technical changes are reinforced in squad training.
Yes — a specific event and time standard is the ideal brief. Your coach works backwards from the target: where the gap sits (start, turns, stroke efficiency, pacing), what's fixable in the window before entries close, and a session plan to close it. No coach can guarantee a time, but a named target focuses every session, and progress is measured against it.
No. Lessons teach people to swim — this is performance coaching for swimmers who already train competitively. Sessions assume your child swims with a club and focus on race technique, speed and the details that move competition times.
Further
reading
Enquire about coaching
alongside your club
Tell us your child's club, current times and goals. We'll be in touch within 24 hours.