Fitness swimming

I am a fitness swimmer turned competitive swimmer, so I am familiar with both mindsets, and understand why USMS doesn't appeal to most fitness swimmers. First, imagine that you are an adult who has never in your life been on a baseball team. You've tossed a ball around with your friends, or done some practice batting, or perhaps even played some softball in gym class or at summer camps, but you've never played a game of real baseball. And now imagine that somebody approaches you with the idea of joining an amateur adult baseball team in your area. You know that some of the players on the team are retired professional baseball players (usually minor league players), and that many others played on college or high school teams. But your friend assures you that the team is open to anyone, and that even though the team has real games with other amateur teams, participation in the games is optional, and you're free to just join the team and work out with them for fitness purposes. Does what I've just described sound appealing to you? If not, why not? This is more or less the way USMS sounded when it was first described to me, and if the analogy fails, it's because it would be hard to do any kind of baseball workout alone, whereas you can certainly swim alone. So how did I end up joining USMS? My first exposure to competitive swimming had come when I was in my late 20s. I had been doing volunteer youth work, and several of the kids I worked with were on their high school swim team. So I had gone to see some of their meets. I thought the meets were pretty cool! In fact, if I had still been a kid, I might have seriously considered becoming involved in competitive swimming. But I was not a kid, and I assumed that swimmers reached their peak in their late teens or early 20s and that I was already over the hill. Still, when my doctor told me several years later that I needed to get more aerobic-type exercise, swimming seemed like the natural sport to pursue. But I paid no attention to speed. My goal was just to see how far I could swim non-stop. It was pretty discouraging at first. I had gotten a membership at the same pool where the swim meets had taken place, and was expecting to swim up and down the lanes just like I'd seen the kids do, so it was a bit of a shock when I discovered that I had to stop every 25 yards to rest! But I was able to gradually increase the distance I could go without stopping, until eventually I could do nearly a mile non-stop. But at that point, I encountered a problem: I had been swimming for a half hour 3 times per week. I would just jump in the pool and swim whatever intervals I was doing for the entire half hour (I didn't know how to do butterfly or breaststroke, so I'd just do freestyle with some occasional backstroke for variety). So at first, I'd do as many 25s as I could fit into a half hour. Then I upped it to 50s. Then 75s. And so on. But as I approached a mile, my workouts started running over a half hour because it took me that long to swim that distance one time. So I decided to work on speed for awhile. My goal certainly wasn't to race - I just wanted to be able to swim longer distances without having my workouts take too long. But once I started paying attention to speed, it became addictive. For several months, I was knocking about 1% off my 800m time every week. Then I hit a plateau, and began looking for a way around it. I bought a lap timer. I went to a stroke clinic on flip turns. In my first year, I cut my 800m time by about 25%. And by that time, I was seriously thinking about racing. I finally joined USMS when I thought I was ready to start racing. Now, I get the impression that some people aren't going to like what I just said, because they have it in their heads that USMS should be reaching out to people who have no interest in ever racing. But facts are facts: I had no interest in joining USMS until I became interested in racing. And if I ever stopped racing (which I have no desire to do) I would probably have no interest in being a member of USMS. Of course, if you've waded through my story, you also know something else that is very important: When I started, I had no plans to race. So the mere fact that many fitness swimmers currently have no interest in racing doesn't mean that they aren't USMS material - it just means that getting them to join USMS may entail changing their attitudes toward racing. As others have noted, most fitness swimmers have a very different attitude toward participating in swim meets than most fitness runners have toward participating in races. Everyone knows that the vast majority of the people who participate in marathons aren't going to be particularly good runners. But most fitness swimmers don't believe the same thing about swimmers who participate in USMS swim meets. So what can be done to attract fitness swimmers? Well, I can only tell you what I believe could have been done to attract me. I should warn you, though, that it may be a bit different from what you are accustomed to in USMS. The question is: Do you consider it important to reach out to fitness swimmers, or not? 1) Offer training at team practices, not just workouts. I think you will find that most fitness swimmers have little interest in going to organized workouts. But there is a tremendous interest in learning things. If USMS practices become known as places where you can learn how to do freestyle flip turns, or backstroke flip turns, or butterfly, or breaststroke, or how to go off a starting block, or how to do a backstroke start, I think you will find that there will be a lot of fitness swimmers who will be interested in coming. In fact, once you've gained their confidence, you might even be able to convince them that it could be valuable to get some training in things they already "know", like freestyle, or backstroke, or open turns. 2) Benchmark how swimmers are doing. Have practices where you start to put together the things that swimmers are learning. Have them, e.g., go off the starting blocks and swim the length of the pool using whatever stroke you've been teaching them, time each of them, and tell them how they did. After you've covered turns for that stroke, have them go off the blocks and swim up and back while timing each of them. These aren't races. There are no prizes. The goal is just to give each swimmer feedback on how he or she is progressing. 3) Use relays to spice up your practices. To consolidate what you've been teaching, divide your whole team into relay squads that are matched based on speed and experience, and have the squads race each other, just for fun. If you're doing freestyle, use the best swimmers as the anchors. You're essentially setting up races where the rookies are racing other rookies and the experienced swimmers are racing other experienced swimmers, and where every swimmer's performance is important to the squad's overall performance. I think you'll find that this approach will attract a lot of fitness swimmers to USMS, and that in the end, many of them will have been bitten by the competitive swimming bug (or, if you want to phrase it differently, they will have realized that swim meets can be for fitness swimmers, too)!

Robert, Good Post!

Originally posted by Frosty Connie (& all), . If USMS wants to stabilize its membership, it either needs (1) to continue to push the insurance envelope and provide more "stuff" (services, activities, etc...) that's covered under existing insurance coverage, and/or (2) it needs to get more comprehensive coverage. See, what bothers the heck out of me is that people's motivation for belonging hinges so much on the insurance. It's quite contrary to what I see 'goals and objectives' of USMS to be! Open up the rule book, look under Rules and Objectives... www.usms.org/.../front.pdf page 11 - objective "A" Insurance should be a sub-part of the core objective "a", part of how the members are serviced. I have never attended a TI session, though I know many of the coaches who lead the sessions, many of whom are familiar names within USMS. I think that TI has enjoyed some success because they package their "product" in a manner that is attractive to the novice-intermediate level swimmer...information plus feedback in a condensed period of time. Certainly, USMS could do something similar...it's the same coaches leading your workout that are also teaching TI camps and leading clinics. It's just that all of those things are packaged and oriented differently and to different audiences. I agree with what you're saying. I think USMS will reach a lot bigger audiences if some of their 'product' is just repackaged with those segments in mind. Well, yes, there are things that can be addded as well, but for starters I think little bit of repackaging might go a long way, and it may be a quick thing to do while other projects requiring more work are under way. There are a couple of good USMS-sanctioned open water events in Washington state that couldn't exist without wetsuits. If you don't mind me throwing out a generality at you...I sense a perception within USMS that they discourage wetsuit use in part because it would attract more inexperienced swimmers and thus increase the risk of an accident. sidebar... Exploring generalizations can help us see what target audiences impressions are, can help you measure sucess of public relations campaigns, and can help see whether certain areas need attention... as long as generalizations are given a proper meaning, and not taken as a hard fact. I can't say that I have heard that side of the argument yet, so generally speaking, I don't know. As for the specifics, I would have to check into the facts and see if that is true. I do hear however that swimming with a wetsuit is considered something to the effect of 'flotation device' or a swimming aid, so you can't really have a direct fair competition between two people with one wearing a wetsuit and the other one without. Having separate categories for this would probably double the workload of people who keep records and top tens etc. I hear that their hands are pretty full. So, I'm pretty sure that is one of the factors. I don't know if it's a major factor. It also could be the case of what I see happening with other things... POeople discuss things, vent about them, get temperamental about them, but nothing gets brought up in the forums and t the people who can instigate change. I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprized. I swam Masters for two years before I could beat anybody in my age group at a meet. I suppose that I'd have a better sense of accomplishment simply finishing a 30-minute triathlon instead of being pummeled by peers in a 1-minute swim race. Lindsay Patten had a good reply to this. That's why I like the local meets where you're seeded by time. First I was seesed with 70 year olds, then I moved down to having more 60 year olds around me and so on... That's probably why I like distance events... finishing a 1500 gives you a good workout. Also, I've seen my times in shorter events slowly dropping, that gives me a good sense of accomplishment, more so than just swimming a long distance. I mean, I have a 'speed' at which I can swim for couple of hours or so, and by now, it's kind of bah-humbug. But, I'm competetive by nature, so my psychological makeup doesn't make me a true 'fitness swimmer' I'd classify myself more as a 'wannabe competitor' but not fast enough to be a contender. I agree with your first statement...swim meets are a piece of cake compared to triathlons...as either a competitor, organizer or volunteer. I don't think that swimmers mind that. There is a virtue in the simplicity of a swim meet that I think many participants appreciate. All you need is a pool, a timing system, and some helpful people. Most people who go to USMS meets are foremost concerned about those things. That's why USMS exists...to provide uniform standards for competitions. They're concerned about the social aspects, too...but it's not at all Issue #1. I think you're sort of right. Here's what I see... USMS wants to promote the social aspect and things that they've written in their rule book, and probably have the best and full intentions to do that. I was, and after attending the convention I'm even more convinced that there could be more effective ways of going about it. I think there is a lot of well meaning people there who are doing what they're used to, traditional style swim meets... I agree. I already tried that, but the 'old blood' withdrew their appreciation of my efforts. I hear ya! Then again, whenever you try to bring on change, it will be painfull. You can expect people to resist it, some because they're not up to putting in the effort it takes to learn new thiongs, and also, lot of people tend to take a suggestion to change as an implication that theyr'e doing something wrong, or that what they're doing is not good enough, and that will hurt their feelings, and they will not be appreciative of the 'change' efforts, and it can be a very long time before changes actually get accepted, implemented and take effect. It's hard to not get discouraged in that environment. But, that comes with the territory and human nature, it's not anyone's particular fault.

Originally posted by Frosty Connie (& all), . If USMS wants to stabilize its membership, it either needs (1) to continue to push the insurance envelope and provide more "stuff" (services, activities, etc...) that's covered under existing insurance coverage, and/or (2) it needs to get more comprehensive coverage. See, what bothers the heck out of me is that people's motivation for belonging hinges so much on the insurance. It's quite contrary to what I see 'goals and objectives' of USMS to be! Open up the rule book, look under Rules and Objectives... www.usms.org/.../front.pdf page 11 - objective "A" Insurance should be a sub-part of the core objective "a", part of how the members are serviced. I have never attended a TI session, though I know many of the coaches who lead the sessions, many of whom are familiar names within USMS. I think that TI has enjoyed some success because they package their "product" in a manner that is attractive to the novice-intermediate level swimmer...information plus feedback in a condensed period of time. Certainly, USMS could do something similar...it's the same coaches leading your workout that are also teaching TI camps and leading clinics. It's just that all of those things are packaged and oriented differently and to different audiences. I agree with what you're saying. I think USMS will reach a lot bigger audiences if some of their 'product' is just repackaged with those segments in mind. Well, yes, there are things that can be addded as well, but for starters I think little bit of repackaging might go a long way, and it may be a quick thing to do while other projects requiring more work are under way. There are a couple of good USMS-sanctioned open water events in Washington state that couldn't exist without wetsuits. If you don't mind me throwing out a generality at you...I sense a perception within USMS that they discourage wetsuit use in part because it would attract more inexperienced swimmers and thus increase the risk of an accident. sidebar... Exploring generalizations can help us see what target audiences impressions are, can help you measure sucess of public relations campaigns, and can help see whether certain areas need attention... as long as generalizations are given a proper meaning, and not taken as a hard fact. I can't say that I have heard that side of the argument yet, so generally speaking, I don't know. As for the specifics, I would have to check into the facts and see if that is true. I do hear however that swimming with a wetsuit is considered something to the effect of 'flotation device' or a swimming aid, so you can't really have a direct fair competition between two people with one wearing a wetsuit and the other one without. Having separate categories for this would probably double the workload of people who keep records and top tens etc. I hear that their hands are pretty full. So, I'm pretty sure that is one of the factors. I don't know if it's a major factor. It also could be the case of what I see happening with other things... POeople discuss things, vent about them, get temperamental about them, but nothing gets brought up in the forums and t the people who can instigate change. I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprized. I swam Masters for two years before I could beat anybody in my age group at a meet. I suppose that I'd have a better sense of accomplishment simply finishing a 30-minute triathlon instead of being pummeled by peers in a 1-minute swim race. Lindsay Patten had a good reply to this. That's why I like the local meets where you're seeded by time. First I was seesed with 70 year olds, then I moved down to having more 60 year olds around me and so on... That's probably why I like distance events... finishing a 1500 gives you a good workout. Also, I've seen my times in shorter events slowly dropping, that gives me a good sense of accomplishment, more so than just swimming a long distance. I mean, I have a 'speed' at which I can swim for couple of hours or so, and by now, it's kind of bah-humbug. But, I'm competetive by nature, so my psychological makeup doesn't make me a true 'fitness swimmer' I'd classify myself more as a 'wannabe competitor' but not fast enough to be a contender. I agree with your first statement...swim meets are a piece of cake compared to triathlons...as either a competitor, organizer or volunteer. I don't think that swimmers mind that. There is a virtue in the simplicity of a swim meet that I think many participants appreciate. All you need is a pool, a timing system, and some helpful people. Most people who go to USMS meets are foremost concerned about those things. That's why USMS exists...to provide uniform standards for competitions. They're concerned about the social aspects, too...but it's not at all Issue #1. I think you're sort of right. Here's what I see... USMS wants to promote the social aspect and things that they've written in their rule book, and probably have the best and full intentions to do that. I was, and after attending the convention I'm even more convinced that there could be more effective ways of going about it. I think there is a lot of well meaning people there who are doing what they're used to, traditional style swim meets... I agree. I already tried that, but the 'old blood' withdrew their appreciation of my efforts. I hear ya! Then again, whenever you try to bring on change, it will be painfull. You can expect people to resist it, some because they're not up to putting in the effort it takes to learn new thiongs, and also, lot of people tend to take a suggestion to change as an implication that theyr'e doing something wrong, or that what they're doing is not good enough, and that will hurt their feelings, and they will not be appreciative of the 'change' efforts, and it can be a very long time before changes actually get accepted, implemented and take effect. It's hard to not get discouraged in that environment. But, that comes with the territory and human nature, it's not anyone's particular fault.

Originally posted by LindsayNB Am I the only one who has noticed that there is a regular stream of people who find the site, find the discussion boards, and ask the same question: I am a total newbie .... Yea, there's a fair amount of those. I don't know about a central 'welcoming message' because you have a lot more people coming to the website for other business, but a pretty prominent and easy to find 'newbie' section would certailny be a good thing to have. Need top be caregul and keep in mind that thare are other other other critical functions to the websiote, and they all need a prominent easily accesible spot, but you can't make any of one of them too central. My team website has attempted something much like that, where 'about us' and 'how to join' links are near the top of the navigation bar... and the how to join is literally broken down into steps... do this, then go do that etc... and a every form that they will need to fill out etc is right there, one click away.

I want to thank Connie for starting this thread first of all and I want to thank Robert for his fantastic post. I joined the group to participate in the virtual swims which make my morning laps more interesting. I don't know if I would ever race, because I lack experience and training. The three suggestions Robert made are exactly the type of things I would love to see in a workout group, I might be able to learn the skills I need to become a more active member of USMS. To answer Connie's question from earlier, I would be willing to travel for a weekend clinic-maybe not all the way to California, but with enough advance notice I would certainly consider a trip out of state. It is certainly far easier for USMS to exist primarily for people who are experienced swimmers than to expend energy and cost on teaching new people. Robert's post asks if USMS considers it important to reach out to fitness swimmers or not. I believe from what I have read, that they do.

Originally posted by Fitswimmer04 It is certainly far easier for USMS to exist primarily for people who are experienced swimmers than to expend energy and cost on teaching new people. As someone who's been running a Masters team for 24 years, "teaching people" is the primary business I'm in. I think you'll find that most Masters groups that survive for any substantial time do so because they don't wait around for experienced swimmers to join up but, rather, spend a goodly portion of their resources CREATING experienced swimmers. "Experienced" doesn't generally mean "competitive". For some it may simply mean having sufficient skills and knowledge to be able to feel like they "fit in" a group practice situation. For some it may be swimming just freestyle well enough to "look like I know what I'm doing". For some it is being able to do "that somersault turn". For some it may mean being good enough to lead the lane from time to time. For some it is having skills that allow them to enjoy swimming for fitness rather than struggling through every lap. For some it may mean being able to say they are capable of swimming every event in the rule book without getting DQ'd (whether or not they actually ply that ability in competition). And yes, for portion of Masters it means being a competitor. I'm guessing here but few if any organizations, local or national, are prepared or willing to bear the cost of really teaching new people. INTRODUCING people to Masters through promotional starter clinics is a different story and certainly doable. But bearing the expense of really getting a person from "newbie" to "experienced" is a long, involved process and the cost will nearly always be the swimmer's to bear. People in this transition stage tend to consume greater organizational resources (coaching minutes, teaching expertise, lane space, patience, etc) than those who've come through it already.

I agree with Coach McAdams, a lot of fitness swimmers would like to learn the other strokes and flip turns . Also, starts. At the rec pool I workout there is a structure workout class for some of the fitness swimmers and triathon people,and also, they offer a lot of nite or weekend beginning and immediate swim lesson classes for adults. Actually, one can workout well with an informal group. There is an ex-masters swimme that workout at the rec that went to a meet that can kill me in the other three strokes but he has a weak breaststoke. So I use him sometimes to get a bettter *** workout. As for the meets I have did about 5 the last 2 years and one was cancelled this past summer because of schedules. I mainly swim for fitness now.

Originally posted by dorothyrd Connie does hit the nail on the head here. I have talked several people into trying to learn to swim and then continue on with fitness or Masters swimming. When they find out that I learned to swim at age 38, and now have actually competed, it inspires them to try too. Does the USMS site have a section with "starter" stories? (The Apple "Switchers" site comes to mind.) There would need to be a nice cross section: first time swimmers, first time USMS members, meet newbies, and so on.

I agree, this site needs something like that and a new category on the discussion forum called "Newbies" or something like that.