The Fastest Age

I'm faster now then I was in high school. I did only swim for two years though and I"ve been swiming for three as a Master. I am much faster, I can break a minute in the 100 yard free, under six in the 500. I'm at least 3-4+ seconds faster per 100 I would say. I'm 30 now.

It depends on whether you IN…or…OUT of the boat….

You're the fastest when you can still beat your oldest child

The age group that has the largest number of fastest record times in USMS is the 25-29 age group. The 30-34 age group is in second place. The 35-39 and 19-24 age groups come after that. But it's hard to know how to interpret these results. Younger swimmers are more likely to have been trained from the outset in some of the newer, more effective techniques. Also, the amount of time swimmers can devote to training tends to decline as they get married, have kids, acquire more job responsibilities, etc. So record times would be likely to favor younger swimmers even if there were no inherent difference in ability between the age groups. Bob

Hard question to answer, even scientifically. To best determine the 'fastest age', you should look at the average age of the winners at the US Olympic Trials. Those should at least be the fastest Americans. Or look at the average age of the winners at the Olympics. For masters swimming, the 19-24 age group can be under-represented with fast swimmers because people that age are often either (a) on a college team and thus not swimming masters, or (b) just graduated from college, and are burnt out and don't want to be swimming. What you see is that bunches of those college swimmers start coming back in their late 20's and early 30's, once they've been away from the sport for a little bit. -Rick

I haven't been able to beat my oldest child since he was 8 and he will be 16 soon! Still faster than the younger, but she is creeping up on me. If she ever made up her mind to work, she would vault past me!

Also it is different for men and women. Men continue to get faster a lot longer than women do, although our recent Olympians are giving us old ladies hope!

Quote from the Ga Master's Killer Whales T-shirt...... "THE OLDER WE GET, THE FASTER WE WERE!" :D

All I can say is that after having two babies and a lot of extra pounds, I'm not even close to what I was in high school.

Originally posted by Conniekat8 Unfortunately, people who are in close to the same shape as they were in their youth are very tough to find. Most of the times, when trying to answer this question, we end up trying to compare apples and oranges. Hmmm, not so sure about that. I'm not in as good shape as I was in college, but I don't think I'm far off. I see plenty of Masters swimmer who are pretty darn fit. However, I'm certainly not in the same kind of swimming shape. I don't think you can expect to swim as fast when you're training 15,000 yards per week as you did when you were swimming 50,000+. I know I'm not and that's my excuse :D