swimming performance

Question
Leo,
My daughter age 13 has been competitive swimming since the age of 9. She has seen gradual success in the sport however, since last Spring has not seen any improvement, she is now two to three seconds slower than last year.  I am not sure if puberty has any correlation or not. Once a competitive swimmer myself, I am frustrated as I am not sure what is the cause.  Has she hit her plateau? How long do they last.  Please offer your opinion.


Answer
Sometimes girls do plateau at an early age, but usually not 13, maybe at 14 or 15. But from what I've seen this is often no longer the case. While in top women's competitions we  still find some young women aged 14-16, there is a clear trend towards older aged athletes.
Female college swimmers are expected to match and improve greatly on their high school times.
If her body has changed significantly to me it would make sense that she goes through an adjustment period. If her physique is the same I would talk to the coach about what changes in her training he's implemented. Perhaps the training plan is different and the coach may consider her times as reasonable and nothing to worry about, and he may expect her to swim best times at her taper meet. She may also be injured and you don't know about it, so ask the coach if she's complained about shoulder pain, etc.
So my advise is, talk to the coach, and try to not let your daughter get discouraged, maybe have her try out other events she doesn't normally swim so she can go a best time in those and get her self esteem back.
also, is her relationship with her teammates the same as before, or is she having problems with a particular swimmer etc., those kinds of conflicts in training environment might impede her continued  improvement.