Ion - just do us all a favor, for the love of Mark Spitz! Admit that no amount of disproving of your theories will change your opinion. You can't quote a single reliable source on your own, save a vet. When confronted with your own fallacies, you create new ones.
It's obvious you are so desperate for our adoration that nothing will stop you from creating excuses. Phil said this perfectly yesterday.
You constantly strive to be in a unique class so that you feel more important. ADMIT IT AND MOVE ON.
gull80 - I have to admit you lost me a little in your post. Then again, I'm not so smart in my native language.
Just a few thoughts....I truly believe that the ability to swim fast is much more dependent on technique, hard work, determination and mental attitude. Technique and Hard work being the most important! We are all Masters swimmers with different levels of experience. To say you are"behind" before you even start if you didn't swim when you were younger is very pesimisitic. Masters is about each individual setting their own goals and not letting comparisons with other swimmers determine their success! VO2Max can be improved at any age with consistent hard work. This is a personal opinion based on years of swimming and coaching.
gull80:
As Comrade Beza has latched onto you like a bad cold since he can't provide his own source of expertise, I have some questions for you:
Assuming all things being equal, how much of an advantage could an early blooming swimmer expect to see over a late bloomer DUE SOLELY to V02Max? If the early bloomer and late bloomer trained equally now and were of the same age, height, weight, etc what do you think the advantage to be?
I realize this is a horrible question and nearly impossible to answer but Beza has hung his swim cap rather significantly on this theory alone. In fact, at one point he suggested that V02Max made 90% difference.
Conversely, if an early bloomer like myself trains 1/3 of what Ion does (yet smokes him in times), has poor training habits and is generally a slacker, would a late bloomer who obsessively trains and has no life other than swimming still be at a disadvantage DUE SOLELY TO V02Max?
Let's turn this question on its head. Maybe this will satisfy Ion. (But I am not holding my breath, not even for a 25 yrd underwater swim. :D )
I don't have the post in front of me, but I remember Ion talking about training 45-50K yards a week. (Even if I'm off by 10K, the rest of my statements still apply.) Ion has ridiculed others that do not swim as much, calling them lazy and fat. I guess Ion is lazy too, since college and USS swimmers sometimes swim two or three times as much yardage.
Besides the fact that distance alone is not a good indicator of the quality of the practice, I'm guessing that Ion spent 15-20 hours (or more) in the pool each week. Between work, other interests (like volleyball, reading, etc.) and pool availability (which is fiercely limited where I live), I have between 5-7 hours of pool time. (People with kids would have even less.) Clearly, you cannot approach your maximum conditioning with limited resources. So that is one reason why USMS emphasizes technique: given limited time, it will have minimal impact on your conditioning, and produce the greatest possibility of improvement. (For the former, working on technique is just as taxing as "normal" swimming. For the later, unless you have a natural feel for the water, there is a lot of wasted energy.)
Originally posted by Ion Beza
I already answered this in the thread about the VO2max that was deleted.
I don't feel like I should re-re-re...re-cycle for the Johnny-come-late.
That phrase igoes: Johnny-come-lately, Mr. Superior Linguistics.
Referece to something that you can't prove exists doesn't stand, jsut like your tVO2Max theory doesn't stand, because you can't prove it.
Originally posted by dorothyrd
Agreed, having also learned at an adult I understand what Bob is saying about not having to relearn things. People struggle with bi-lateral breathing, I knew I should do it when I started so I don't struggle with it.
Children seem to have an acceptance, or higher comfort factor on certain things. My trouble with flip turns was flipping without plugging my nose with my fingers(yes I did that up to 4 years ago), and learning how to ration the air to streamline. Backstroke flip turns took longer because I just plain could not handle being on my back underwater, it bothered me. So I have taken a lot of time just doing 25's and working on streamlining underwater on my back as long as I can to work on that comfort factor. The technical aspect of turning over and flipping was not the problem, the thought of after the flip being on my back underwater without air was.
Hmmm, hearing you guys talk about this stuff, I'm thinking, maybe do have a tiny bit of talent for swimming, or something, because all these obstacles that people are mentioning, like bilateral breating, water up nose in flipturns, rationing air, streamlining, feel forthe ater etc... have been a non issue for me. I jsut sort of hoppen inthe water and started doing it.
Even backstroke, staying strainght in the lane doesn't seem to take a lot of effort.
Breaststroke kick was giving me grief for a while, the coach looked at it yesterday, and said it's starting to look good. I was hoping it would, cause I spent a lot of time thinking about it and trying to practice it right!!!
I'm not intending to brag... I'm sharing this because the thought just occured to me. It's sort of interesting to get a little bit of perspective.
Originally posted by SWinkleblech
My five year old daughter just the other day told me to watch her and she did a backstroke flip turn. She learned this just by watching me do it in my workouts. No one ever taught her. Yet a member of my masters team as trouble even thinking about learning to do the backstroke flipturn. She was never taught how to do it when she was younger. She quit swimming before the backstroke flip turn was allowed in swimming. Now that she has returned to swimming she says she sticking with the way she knows how.
I think this would give the "late-bloomer a disadvantage" along with a million other factors that have been mentioned in this never ending thread.
I taught the flipturns to myself, by seeing couple of peple doing it, and by feeling my way through. At 33 years old.
Few weeks ago at the starts and turns clinic, to my complete amazement, my coach picked me out of the crowd to show the other people people how a flipturn is supposed to be done. I was floored!
If it wasn't at the bottom of the pool, my chin would have dropped on the floor in surprize. :eek:
Originally posted by cinc310
Well, Bray is like open water swimmer Suzanne Heim-Bowen who can swim a 800 meter freestyle like Debbie Meyer did in 1968. Most master swimmers can't do the yardage these people do because they took 20 years or so breaks and the body has a harder time doing the yardage you did as a teenager in your 40's. We all have different abilities and as a teenager
Exactly!
My biggest trouble with Ions arguments is that I really can not accpet the idea that it all boils down to the VO2Max.
I think what you said about all of us having diffrent abilities (in a number of ways) is right on the money!
The disadvantage that I do believe in is, as you said, many masters swimmers taking a long break, which plays into physical conditioning, and also, those who neverhad the initial technique base in their early years... so theyare coming from behind now.
Also, the fact that the body ages, and starts changing physiologically is also a contributing factor. Even if a person stays in their top physical condition their whole life, aging is still going to catch up with them, and the performance will decline.
For most people it's around age 23-25 that the body stops growing, and starts to age. Even if one is in a superb athletic physical condition.
