It is important to remember that is very easy to “over compete” which leads to drop off in performance, which in turn can contribute to a negative mind set in the swimmer prolonging the negative performance because the swimmer is not seeing improvement in times or performance and if not careful this can easily spiral out of control to the point it ends the age group swimmers career.
It is vital for the swimmers “LONG TERM DEVELOPMENT” (See link) that they maintain a block of training following a cyclic plan of work that prepares them to be ready to compete. This period is used to recover from the rigours of competition, it allows time to re-evaluate performance and establish aerobic capacity working on skills developing all the necessary elements to take the swimmers performance to the next goal.