Well, i am a student at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY that had the football team cut from the athletic program and instead had a swim team and a few other sports put in the program in its place. One day as i was working out in the gym this past september, the coach of the swim team saw me working out and asked me if i wanted to swim. He needed numbers more than anything since the collegiate competitive requirements are 11 participants a team. Mind you i am 5'7", 185 lbs, broad chest and shoulders with large legs. A running back figure. I have never swam before and i agreed to be on the swim team. The coach wants me to swim the 50 and 100 free and i like that for it is a fast twitch race more than slow twitch, and since i am a senior i don't really have time to increase my endurance and slow twitch. I was wondering if any of you had advice for me in my endeavour to become an excellent swimmer by february 2004, and hopefully win an event at the MAAC nationals. In my first meet on Oct. 11, i swam a 27.88 in the 50 free at Duquesne. If you couldn't tell by my hunting for a discussion ring and post, i am very intense and competitive, and am taking this very seriously. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you and hope to have some replies soon!
Former Member
Originally posted by Morini
I am well aware of how lofty Joey's goals are but, there is no way in hell I am going to tell him he can't do it!
go Joey Butts!
Exactly my thoughts!
If there is a chance he can do it, why discourage the kid.
He seems to have the right attitude, and dedication. Let's not clobber him.
There's always time to adjust goals later on, if needed.
Originally posted by joeybutts
Wow, a lot of responses have been posted since my last response. If anything, the interest and support of this discussion forum is very motivating. and don't owrry about negative responses, they only fuel the fire:cool: . and lefty, my coach is telling me to stay off the benching(i need to get flexible:D )
Good advice. You have some smaller muscles that are likely gonna have to catch up to the large muscles.
Joey,
You're doing fine. Remember, the goal is 22 high/23 low at the END of the season; don't sweat your times at the beginning of the season. BTW, 28 low in the first meet of your first season is pretty good.
Keep the feeling of how cool it was to go out with the lead swimmers in the first half, and forget about being angry about the turn. You know what you need to do. Enjoy the journey.
Matt
The results say "long course meters" but I'm assuming the meet was actually short course yards? Joey mentioned a turn, so it definitely wasn't long course.
Wow this is frustrating. Well rob got the results for the 50 and i was also in the 200 relay where i swam a 27.5 i think my coach told me. Of course that was a relay and starts give you a little bit of a jump. But, i was so disappointed in my 50 time, which Rob posted as 28.3. I was with the swimmer next to me from niagara the first 25, i then did my flip turn and ended up on the lane line!! So i def know where i need my work. That guy went something like 23, where as i went 28.3 i think. I was furious with myself. The whole way down on the first 25 i could not beleive i stayed with the athlete from niagara. But, my goal is for the others to try and stay up with me. So my coach told me he is gonna focus on starts and flipturns with me. Form wise on my stroke we have cleaned up a lot ofmistakes. I am know turning my head for breathing instead of bending it out of the water. I feel great about grabbing water and hitting the dead spots. I'm keeping my elbow high on the recovery and having a smooth entry into the water(not consistently but have worked on it) One major thing that i have to make a habit is keeping my legs straight when i kick. I bend at the knee way too much.
I did also swim the 100 two weeks ago and went something like 1:07. I was pretty psyched and also pretty sore;-). I never imagined being sore from swimming but it is there. ( i apologize!) but my coach is happy with my progress and feels that after we clean up my ugly flip turn and get me out off the block i should drop a nice chunk of time. Then it is all water time. I thank you all for your continued interest and support and will report back with further developments.
Well better than what I did. I stop swimming the 50 yard free around 15 years old but I once did a 30.0, 50 yard fly and my free as a teenager was similar in speed to it. So, probably the fastest I could have went is a 29 point something. 1:07 is not bad on the 100 yard that takes endurance I usually swam a 1:05 and one time did a 1:03.8 in it. Now at 46 you could kick my butt. I probably do it around 1:16 to 1:20,so have swam it in a meet as an adult but only a 200 meter free. The community college team I was on had both men and women that swam since high school or earlier,so you are not doing that bad.
In my undying support for Joey, he did awesome. A lot of swimmers will swim their whole meet the way they swim their first race. Joey knew where he messed up, and fixed it in the relay, and went 27.5. He's on his way, just gotta keep practicing.
Someday soon he'll beat me ;-) Just kidding, he already did.
Morrison:
A 22 no breather and a 25 with breathing? How can someone be that inefficient with their breathing? Check stroke rate. My guess is that they are slowing down their stroke rate significantly. And because their coach (erroneously!) taught them that body roll is not important in sprinting, they are not increasing their distance per stroke when they slow down their rate.
