I just got back from the SPMS meet and I am in a funk. I have talked to several of my contemporaries who share my dysphoria at getting slower. From age 50-62 I slowed down very little. Ages 63 and 64 were one injury or illness after another, but at least there was a cause and I felt I would do better. Age 65 I aged up and for most of the year was healthy. That was a great year,but my times were all significantly slower than at 62. Since then it is very unusual to have one swim that is faster than I did the previous year.At 67(almost 68) I am notably slower than at 65. I have seen the graphs of how times slow with age, intellectually, if I am staying at the same rate of decline as my peers I should accept it, but I don't like it. I know most forumites are much younger and what I am saying may seem like something natural that I should just acknowledge and go on, that is what I thought until I was 63. I know that our having age groups every 5 years is a partial solution to the problem, but there is more difference between a 65 year old and a 68 year old than between a 40 year old and a 50 year old, in my experience. How do the other older swimmers out there cope and have a good attitude? The common saying in Masters Swimming is that "you are only competing against yourself",but my slightly younger self is kicking my butt and I am tired of it.
I believe in the contrary movement: The older you get, the more important becomes strength training. Strength and muscle mass apparently can be stabilised, but from a certain age on that doesn't work anymore with swimming alone, but weight training must be added -- stronger impulses are needed.
I would like to amend Oliver's advice to read "Fewer, stronger impulses are needed" Muscle mass loss is inevitable with aging. The first ones to go are fast twitch. So we are unable to "spin up" our stroke rates like we used to. But as Oliver and the great story on muscle aging in Swimmer point out resistance training can help most people. And by taking fewer, stronger strokes we do gain some drag reduction and efficiency as every stroke does increase drag a bit.
On a related issue have any of my fellow "older and slower" buddies noticed the following: My kick sets have not slowed down speed wise as much compared to swim times. There was a thread several years ago in this forum which stated that leg muscle is different than upper body muscle in composition. Somewhat like dark vs white meat in fowls. The point is that as we age should we make changes to our stroke that rely on more propulsion from our kick and less from our arms?
I believe in the contrary movement: The older you get, the more important becomes strength training. Strength and muscle mass apparently can be stabilised, but from a certain age on that doesn't work anymore with swimming alone, but weight training must be added -- stronger impulses are needed.
I would like to amend Oliver's advice to read "Fewer, stronger impulses are needed" Muscle mass loss is inevitable with aging. The first ones to go are fast twitch. So we are unable to "spin up" our stroke rates like we used to. But as Oliver and the great story on muscle aging in Swimmer point out resistance training can help most people. And by taking fewer, stronger strokes we do gain some drag reduction and efficiency as every stroke does increase drag a bit.
On a related issue have any of my fellow "older and slower" buddies noticed the following: My kick sets have not slowed down speed wise as much compared to swim times. There was a thread several years ago in this forum which stated that leg muscle is different than upper body muscle in composition. Somewhat like dark vs white meat in fowls. The point is that as we age should we make changes to our stroke that rely on more propulsion from our kick and less from our arms?
