My teammates and I were discussing the following apparently inane topic, and I thought it would make a good poll question. To wit, during practices, which of the following apply to you:
1) I swim with my eyes open pretty much all the time, except for regular blinks.
2) I close my eyes when my head is underwater, but open them during breaths.
3) I close my eyes during breaths, but open them when my head is under water to make sure I am not wandering off track.
4) I close my eyes much of the time on each length, and try to remember to open them before crashing into the wall.
Note: just realized I don't exactly know how to format this as a poll. If anyone else does, please feel free to do so--or send me a note about how to do it myself.
BTW, I often swim with my eyes shut; not quite sure why, other than swimming practice seems to induce a mild level of narcolepsy in me. Or perhaps it is a reflex action from the pre-goggle days when closing your eyes during practice was necessary to keep your corneas from being eroded by chlorine.
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Former Member
I am surprised that with all the responses so far, only one (Ion’s) alludes to the real reason for keeping one’s eyes open all the time. The reason being: to keep an eye on your opponents in a race - except in a 50 where you only look for the wall for the turn/touch.
This is especially important when you are going for a win rather than a potential ‘best time’ which always carries a risk of misjudging the pace. In Masters racing this can come into play in the Nationals where your age group competition is in your heat (and assuming winning or beating your favorite rival is more important than a good time!).
If, for example you know you are faster in the shorter distances than your opposition but your opposition is better at longer distances, you should go out slower to save energy by not pushing the pace but, at the same time, not losing contact i.e. keep watching to make sure you don’t fall so far behind as to not have enough runway to overtake at the end. Hopefully you can lull competition into feeling comfortable with a slight lead and not set too fast a pace. Of course, you also need watch for anyone in the field making a break.
Tools like Top Ten history and Best Times and meet results (with splits) help scouting out the competition to decide on a strategy. The long distance swimmer in the above example should try to ‘break’ the sprinter early in the race, in which case short distance guy has to revert to a ‘best time’ attempt and pace himself accordingly.
The key, however, is to keep those eyes open all the time and keep track of what is happening. The least you can do, as Ion mentions, is to try to reel in those you see close to you – maybe they have their eyes shut and don’t notice you sneaking past!
Ian.
I am surprised that with all the responses so far, only one (Ion’s) alludes to the real reason for keeping one’s eyes open all the time. The reason being: to keep an eye on your opponents in a race - except in a 50 where you only look for the wall for the turn/touch.
This is especially important when you are going for a win rather than a potential ‘best time’ which always carries a risk of misjudging the pace. In Masters racing this can come into play in the Nationals where your age group competition is in your heat (and assuming winning or beating your favorite rival is more important than a good time!).
If, for example you know you are faster in the shorter distances than your opposition but your opposition is better at longer distances, you should go out slower to save energy by not pushing the pace but, at the same time, not losing contact i.e. keep watching to make sure you don’t fall so far behind as to not have enough runway to overtake at the end. Hopefully you can lull competition into feeling comfortable with a slight lead and not set too fast a pace. Of course, you also need watch for anyone in the field making a break.
Tools like Top Ten history and Best Times and meet results (with splits) help scouting out the competition to decide on a strategy. The long distance swimmer in the above example should try to ‘break’ the sprinter early in the race, in which case short distance guy has to revert to a ‘best time’ attempt and pace himself accordingly.
The key, however, is to keep those eyes open all the time and keep track of what is happening. The least you can do, as Ion mentions, is to try to reel in those you see close to you – maybe they have their eyes shut and don’t notice you sneaking past!
Ian.
