As a petite female in her upper 30's is there anything I can do to overcome my height limitation when it comes to competitive swimming?
I stand at 5ft. 2 1/2 inches and know that I'm at a disadvantage purely based on my height alone. Are there certain events that would be better geared towards the petite swimmer than other events?
My former Masters coach, Sheila Taormina, is only 5' 2-1/2" and she won an Olympic gold medal swimming on the 4x200 free relay in Atlanta. :) She has beautiful freestyle technique, built around maximizing her propulsive forces.
Sheila had us do a lot of sculling and catch drills everyday to develop our feel for catching and holding water. We also did a lot of dryland strength training with stretch cords.
I'm only 5'-7" and she always worked with me to keep my stroke long and extending my catch out front as far as possible to maximize my stroke length. She also emphasized not only strong kicking, but kicking in proper sync with your arm strokes.
I improved my freestyle significantly in the time she coached me and I still continue to work on the fundamentals she taught.
As Chris mentioned, it was also suggested to me that I might have more of an advantage (or less of a disadvantage) swimming short-axis strokes (fly & ***). I've done pretty well in fly, but the breaststroke kick and stroke timing are still a challenge for me.
I think the bottom line is that while taller swimmers may have some inherent advantages, shorter swimmers with better technique and fitness can still be competitive.
Good luck.
My former Masters coach, Sheila Taormina, is only 5' 2-1/2" and she won an Olympic gold medal swimming on the 4x200 free relay in Atlanta. :) She has beautiful freestyle technique, built around maximizing her propulsive forces.
Sheila had us do a lot of sculling and catch drills everyday to develop our feel for catching and holding water. We also did a lot of dryland strength training with stretch cords.
I'm only 5'-7" and she always worked with me to keep my stroke long and extending my catch out front as far as possible to maximize my stroke length. She also emphasized not only strong kicking, but kicking in proper sync with your arm strokes.
I improved my freestyle significantly in the time she coached me and I still continue to work on the fundamentals she taught.
As Chris mentioned, it was also suggested to me that I might have more of an advantage (or less of a disadvantage) swimming short-axis strokes (fly & ***). I've done pretty well in fly, but the breaststroke kick and stroke timing are still a challenge for me.
I think the bottom line is that while taller swimmers may have some inherent advantages, shorter swimmers with better technique and fitness can still be competitive.
Good luck.
