swimming helps

Hi, I was a soccer player in my younger years and it did a number on my knees and ankles. I started swimming when I was 15, that was about the time I stopped playing soccer. Swam for 2 years and had to give it up, because I went into the service. After turning 32 and 2 knee and 1 ankle surgery, I was kind off done with any "running" sports, but needed to excercise and decided to join the Masters. Swimmin is really the only sport in which I can go "full speed". I do attempt to run some small triathlons, but I always have to be careful with my knees and ankles. I am not sure if you are looking for more information, so if you do feel free to contact me.

Bekaw-- I have found than many of my friends in the masters world are attracted to swimming, at least in part, for salvation of some sort. Not all are escaping a terrestrial injury, like knee or back problems; but many are finding their way to the pool for relief from SOMETHING in their lives--in my own case, psychological woe. You might find an article I wrote interesting. It details a reasonably random assortment of male swimmers--i.e., our relay team at Baltimore during Long Course Nationals a few years back. Each of us found our way to the sport as a way of curing something. The fact that 4 random guys in a small suburb of Pittsburgh each had his own life problem helped (in large part) by masters swimming makes me convinced that this wonderful sport helps many, many people across the country. The article, originally published in Men's Journal magaine, is posted at: www.usms.org/.../tho5299.htm PS the earlier correspondent, Hans007, is also a teammate in our small suburban Pittsburgh team, but was not on the relay I write about.

To me, swimming helps, in my search for the fair competition against the clock that emphasizes the virtues of beauty and power through exercizing, and the training of the mind in developing an inner determination for goals.

Swimming as a kid hurt me a little since I was not a better swimmer like my father wanted me to be. And one team I was on I was one of the slowest swimmers in the 15 and above age group but they had swimmers that made senior nationals and if you compared yourself to someone like Shirley Babashoff you would think you were slow. Anyway, I reentered as an adult because my mother suggest I do it for exercise. And since my form in breastroke wasn't bad I join masters into order to attend the meets.

I think Cynthia has hit on one of the very best benefits of Masters swimming: that it helps your self-esteem. I too was a mediocre swimmer when I was a kid, and I'm still mediocre. But as she says, that's in comparison to elite swimmers like Shirley Babashoff. When you consider how few Americans can actually swim a length of the pool nonstop, then that makes you feel pretty good about yourself. I see my swimming as a personal challenge. Every now and then I swim events just to see if I can do them, like the 200 fly I swam the year I turned 40. Hey, it wasn't fast, but that wasn't the point. The point was that I did something I never tried before--and lived to tell about it!

Meg, in our age group a lot of our contempories have not swam meets in years or just do it for exercise So, we do better than if we would have if those people would have stayed in. If I could do my times I did at 20 years old like I did a community college, I would have made the top ten in 50 breastrokes and 50 butterfly and 100 breastroke and 100 yard butterfly for the 45-49 age group for women. But I was away from swimming for too many years and I lost a lot of upper body strength and even those swimmers that swim at the top of our age group that were national and pre-national when they were younger swim slower, there are excepts like L. Val in the 50 to 54 age group.

I might try the 200 fly one of these days. I would just want to break the 4:00 barrier in it. I did that even with the 200 meter breastroke but these days they are closer to each other in speed.

Swimming saved my life (literally) twice. Once when I was an upcoming juvenile delinquent and then again as a middle-aged, over-weight drinker/smoker. I owe swimming my life and I gladly make the small interest payment each day. Bert

Everytime I visit my doctor he asks about regular exercise. When I tell him what I'm doing he says, "How much???? and how often?????" Then he says, "You will out live all of us!" Thats one of the points isn't?

Bekah- There are really many reasons why I love to swim. Let me see if I can articulate a few. First and foremost, I like the feeling of going through the water. It just plain feels good to swim somewhat effortlessly through water as opposed to, running for example. Running was never a joy for me. It hurt and was most uncomfortable. Sweaty, blisters, achy knees, scrunched toes ugh!!! Swimming was and IS a joy. The rhythm, the feeling of a good arm extension, of breathing essentially beneath the surface of the water, the complexity and simplicity of a well timed and executed flip turn, the feeling of speed when you turn on the "afterburners" in last 50. Just writing about it feels good!!! I have been working out with the same masters team since 1979, and although many people have come and gone, it is still joyful to swim with, to be pushed by and to push others in the pool. Of course at my age of 53 it is a particular joy to push those twenty somethings or thirty or fourty somethings in the lane next to me. I have not lost my passion for competition. Masters swimming gives me the oportunity to express that passion in a wonderful way. When I am up on the blocks I am as nervous and as anxious to get going as I was as a 17 year old high schooler. And maybe that too is the draw for me, to be able to do something as a middle aged person that I did as a teenager and college student, and to sometimes do it better. It's not that I wish to re-live those days, I really don't care to. They are good memories but I would rather be this age now than that age again! I guess what I am saying is that swimming is just plain fun!!! Glenn Gruber