I was just wondering. At what point is ones swimming career while they realise that they have hit the wall, and then sur passed it and they cant possibly go faster??
The reason I ask is because Phelphs is "retiring" after the 2012 games.
But then I see athlets go out and compete that are well into their late 20's and early 30's.
What is the averge prime age for a male swimmer before times start becoming slower???
Based on the analysis I did of the 2011 1-Hour Postal Swim results, there's a pretty substantial drop after age 49. It's pretty level from age 25-49.
www.watergirl.co/.../triathletes-your-swim-doesnt-have-slow-down-you-age
Interestingly, triathletes experience a dramatic decline in swimming performance, starting at age 25, and continuing for the rest of their life.
I think the difference between swimmers and triathletes is technique--improvements in technique can make for loss of strength (and amount of time available for training).
Another possible reason for the difference between swimmers and triathletes is that swimming is an "older" sport. We haven't really seen triathletes age through the entire spectrum of ages from kids to octogenarians yet as we have with swimmers. Your data presumably compares today's retirees with today's 20-somethings, but today's retiree triathletes did not grow up doing triathlons, which didn't exist much before about 1980. Many of today's retiree swimmers did grow up in age-group swimming. I expect that an individual may hold speed quite well over the years, but without the same background training, today's retiree triathletes look relatively weaker in comparison to their younger counterparts. How do the swimming times of today's 60+ triathletes compare to their own times from 30 years ago? How does this look in comparison to swimmers? (Rhetorical questions mostly, I understand that the data may not be available for such an analysis.)
Based on the analysis I did of the 2011 1-Hour Postal Swim results, there's a pretty substantial drop after age 49. It's pretty level from age 25-49.
www.watergirl.co/.../triathletes-your-swim-doesnt-have-slow-down-you-age
Interestingly, triathletes experience a dramatic decline in swimming performance, starting at age 25, and continuing for the rest of their life.
I think the difference between swimmers and triathletes is technique--improvements in technique can make for loss of strength (and amount of time available for training).
Another possible reason for the difference between swimmers and triathletes is that swimming is an "older" sport. We haven't really seen triathletes age through the entire spectrum of ages from kids to octogenarians yet as we have with swimmers. Your data presumably compares today's retirees with today's 20-somethings, but today's retiree triathletes did not grow up doing triathlons, which didn't exist much before about 1980. Many of today's retiree swimmers did grow up in age-group swimming. I expect that an individual may hold speed quite well over the years, but without the same background training, today's retiree triathletes look relatively weaker in comparison to their younger counterparts. How do the swimming times of today's 60+ triathletes compare to their own times from 30 years ago? How does this look in comparison to swimmers? (Rhetorical questions mostly, I understand that the data may not be available for such an analysis.)
