87 The importance of reflection and evaluation for progressing toward the elite level 5 a more sport-specific skill rather than a domain-general disposition (Reverberi et al. 2021). Moreover, they argued that SRL measures should focus on everyday sports practice sessions in order to provide meaningful results that could contribute to a better understanding of sport-related performance development. Accordingly, we suggest that besides the more training-centered and sport-specific focus in SRL, an additional shift in research is needed. Whereas most SRL studies in sport have focused on the relationship between SRL and athletes’ performance levels, there has been little attention to how SRL relates to performance progression (Elferink-Gemser et al., 2015). Establishing a link between SRL and performance progression could be a crucial step towards advancing understanding of the development of sport expertise. For example, previous studies on competitive swimming have shown that youth swimmers who are on track to becoming elite swimmers (i.e. top 50 swimmers worldwide) are characterized by higher performance levels (Post et al. 2020a) and progression within a season (Post et al., 2020b). However, the underlying individual characteristics that contribute to the actual progression of an individual from one performance level to another remain unclear. Therefore, a question that arises is whether differences in training-centered SRL are associated with differences in performance levels and progression in competitive swimming. By investigating individuals’ training-centered SRL in relation to their performance levels and progression, we may acquire a better understanding of underlying individual characteristics that contribute to optimal engagement in daily training sessions and consequently to progression toward elite level swimming performance. Therefore, knowledge about training-centered SRL in competitive swimming may be of value for enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of talent development programs. The present study was aimed at extending the body of SRL research in relation to the performance levels and progression of youth swimmers, using a sport-specific, aptitudebased questionnaire (Toering et al., 2013) focusing on daily training sessions. We sought to answer the question of whether youth swimmers who are on track to reach the elite level apply SRL more frequently in their daily training sessions compared to swimmers who are not on this track. Consequently, we investigated training-centered SRL in advanced competitive swimmers who differed in (a) their performance levels and (b) their performance progression within a season. Despite the theoretical and practical implications, there is a lack of studies combining training-centered SRL with these performance measures. Our investigation comprised two parts. First, we examined differences between highperforming and lower-performing swimmers relating to their use of training-centered SRL (part one). Second, focusing specifically on high-performing swimmers, we examined differences in the use of training-centered SRL by swimmers whose progress was advanced and those whose progress was less advanced (part two). We hypothesized that (a) highperforming swimmers obtained higher scores for training-centered SRL than lower-
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