The Fastest Age

I think Tarzan is right in his last post. Although maybe not in the way he intended. In HS ('63 - '67) our team won the NJ State Championships 10 years in a row as well as the Eastern Championships 4 out of 5 years. We swam from November to March one hour per day and no summer program. We did not swim practice in circles but in "waves" i.e. the first group would swim a 50, then the next group would swim etc. I don't know for sure, but if we did 1500 a day we were doing alot! BTW the 200 medley relay team went a 1:39.5 in 1965 and was, I believe the state record for 15 years. The breastroker (Dave Perkowski) went a 1:01+ to set the National record. In college, TCNJ (The College of New Jersey) in '69/'70 we probably swam maybe 2500 yards 5 days a week. I swim 4000 yards 5 times a week now and at age 54 and 8 months I am 4 seconds faster than I was in college! Twenty years ago I swam 3 times a week probably 3500 each session and I struggled to break 6:00 in the 500. At last years SC Nats I went 5:33. So, yes, it is yardage and intensity, regardless of the age group!:)

There are way too many variables to get a perfectly sound scientific answer to this question. Each individual is so different! For example...Some swimmers do better with less yardage at a higher quality level allowing recovery days. Other swimmers swim better with more yardage going 5-6 days a week!! I'm swimming almost as well as I did when I was younger doing MUCH less yardage! I have a great coach that really knows how to structure a quality workout. I think we need to look at this in a different light... that whatever your age is, you are at YOUR fastest for YOUR age given YOUR circumstances in life. Although it would be nice if we gave females that have children their own division....JUST KIDDING ;)

I think it is just better (smarter) training and technique. On the VO2 Max, ask.......oh, never mind.;)

Originally posted by SWinkleblech 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. Which raises the question of, if you were in the same physical shape as you were as a teenager (when it comes to cardio conditioning and muscle tone), would you be swimming faster, slower or about the same. 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.

Originally posted by osterber 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. I agree with knelson on this. I think that a better test would be the age at which various world records were set. Unfortunately, I don't know of any place where that data is readily available. I do know that Popov was in his late 20s when he set the world record in 50m freestyle. 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 It's likely, as you say, that the bottom part of the 19-24 age group is being preempted by NCAA. But for the upper age part of the group, it's harder to weigh. I know that, for me, the years immediately after I got out of college were the easiest for exercise because I didn't have a lot of other things interfering. I was single, living in an apartment about 10 minutes from where I worked, had no wife or kids, didn't have a lot of job responsibilities, and had parents who were still young enough not to need any care. But by the time I turned 25, I had gotten involved in volunteer youth work that took up a lot of my time, and since then, the responsibilities have just kept increasing. There is certainly going to be a point for each swimmer when age-related physical deterioration sets in and hinders performance. But physical deterioration due to responsibilities that interfere with exercise may come into play long before that. And there is every reason to believe that a swimmer's skill level increases throughout his/her life, meaning that a swimmer may be able to continue to improve for awhile in spite of physical deterioration because he/she is swimming more and more efficiently. Bob

Originally posted by SWinkleblech 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. Your times will probably improve if you can find somebody to hold the babies for you while you swim. (Sorry, I couldn't resist!) ;-) Bob

Originally posted by Tarzan The only thing that potentially seperates the elderly and youth is training time. If you put in 10,000yd. a day no matter who you are your going to be in great shape :p but that is still attributed to the training quantity and technique, not as much to the age alone. To have the fair comparison, you need to compare peoplewioth a same training regimen, and different age, to really know how much the age factor really enters in. What you guys are talking about as "age" is that for most people in their late 20's, 30, 40's and so on the lifestyle doesn't allow the training regimen tha a college swimmer might be able to keep up with. If we could compare a 20 year old with a 40 year old having the same training regimen, only then you would be able to get the true example of just how much the body is affected by age alone. (perhaps needing longer recovery time, loss of flexibility and what else may enter the equation). That's the only way you can see how age really factors into performance, you need separate it out from the lifestile that typically comes with certain age. That's why i'm saying we're comparing apples and oranges. Or maybe we could find a 20-year old who already had couple of kids, and only manages to swim 1500 yards a day, and see how her times compare to a 40-year old with the same lifestyle and training regimen. I's theorize that their compettetive sucess would be very comparable. Not because of the age, but because of lifestyle.

Another things worth mentioning which I'm sure everyone knows, is that everyone is different. Someone may be 30 years old and beat someone who is 20 years old in the Fly and breastroke. but lose in the backstroke and Freestyle. So, really... if you wanted to think about it. There is really no way you can totally tell how much age effects. All we know for sure is that somewhere along the line of age it REALLY takes effect. We just don't know exaclty when. (Since it differs for everyone)

Connie - don't listen to old grouches like Ion. Good for you, keep it up. I swim with a guy who started in his 20s, yet doesn't use it like a crutch like Beza, who goes sub 30 in every meet. Ion is just bitter because he can't swim a 100 SCY very fast, despite his 30K yards a week. We're not all like Ion. Good luck to you and keep up the hard work. You have a lot to be proud of.

As I previously mentioned, my current workouts are much better planned and carried out than they were in HS or college. Remember, this was before goggles, so we really couldn't handle the yardage we handle now. I am self coached 4 days a week and go to a coached workout 1 time a week. A typical self coached workout would be: (This is a SCM workout) 500 warm up followed by 10 x 50 on :50 Main Set: 1 x 400 on 7:00 1 x 400 neg split on 7:00 1 x 400 broken w/10 seconds rest between each swim 1 x 400 faster than #1 Kick set 10 x 50 dolphin 10 sec rest 2 x 200 on 3:30 8 x 50 IM order on 1:00 200 cool One other factor is that I have adult onset asthma. However, only rarely do I seem to be bothered by it.:)