Understanding Movement Scores

Spencer Turner

Aug 19

2 min read

Updated: Aug 22

The Movement Scores were added to The Swimmer’s Warm Up Deck to help young swimmers understand more about the exercises they are doing.

Each movement is looked at across five areas:

Coordination

Flexibility

Impact

Strength

Intensity

The scores are comparative rather than scientific measurements. They help show how different movements place different demands on the body.

What the scores are showing

Coordination looks at how much control and organisation is needed to perform the movement.

A simple movement may require relatively little coordination. Another might ask the swimmer to control several parts of the body at once, maintain balance or combine movements in sequence.

Flexibility reflects how much useful range of movement the exercise asks for.

Some movements involve relatively little range while others require more movement through areas such as the shoulders, hips or ankles.

Impact looks at the amount of landing, jumping or force going through the body.

A controlled mobility movement may involve very little impact, while a jump or more explosive exercise will naturally sit higher.

Strength reflects how much muscular effort and control the movement requires.

Some exercises are light and movement-based. Others ask the swimmer to support more body weight, hold a stronger position or work against greater resistance.

Intensity reflects the overall demand of the movement, influenced by factors such as speed, effort and whole-body involvement.

A higher score is not a better score

The Movement Scores are not ratings of exercise quality.

A movement with a high Strength or Intensity score is not automatically more useful than one with a lower score. A low-impact mobility exercise may be exactly what is needed at one point in the warm-up.

The value is in recognising the difference.

That can create useful conversations between swimmer and coach. Why does one movement score higher for Coordination? Why does another have more Impact? Why might one be selected today and another at a different time?

Those questions help young swimmers start thinking about what each movement is asking them to do rather than simply copying an exercise.

Using the scores

A swimmer does not need to understand every score from the beginning.

As their knowledge develops, they can compare movements within the same warm-up stage and start noticing how the demands change across the Deck.

The Exercise Companion Guide, accessed through the QR code included with the Deck, provides coaches and parents with more detail about the individual movements and can support those conversations.

The Top Score Challenge

The Movement Scores also give swimmers another way to interact with the cards away from the warm-up itself.

The Top Score Challenge uses the five scores across the Deck and encourages swimmers to compare the different movement characteristics.

Shuffle the cards. Deal them out. Choose a Movement Score and the highest score wins the round.

The game is deliberately simple. Its purpose is to encourage swimmers to look more closely at the movements and become familiar with what the different scores represent.

Prepare. Move. Perform.

Spencer Turner

Creator, The Swimmer’s Warm Up Deck

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