Motivational time standards

Originally posted by craiglll@yahoo.com Originally posted by LindsayNB Has there ever been an effort to produce some sort of motivational time standards for masters swimmers? Many would say that goes against the philosophy of masters swimming. I guess that one can argue that providing external standards violates the idea of personal best, but I think one could argue that the idea of competitions with placings, records, and rankings also violate that idea. But these things provide motivation for some people. I know that for some people who went through age group swimming time standards bring back memories of failing to meet standards necessary to progress to higher levels of competition. I would guess the nationals qualifying times may have the same drawback. My idea here is to have standards that are purely for motivation, giving people something to shoot for and a way to measure their progress that isn't dependent on what other swimmers are at the competition that you go to. These standards would not be for use in qualifying for meets. Again, for the elite among us records and rankings provide motivation, I'm trying to find a way to provide similar motivation for a broader array of swimmers. One way to measure progress is by who you can beat, another way is to have defined levels of achievement, in our case times. The advantage of the latter is that there is no limit on the number of people who can achieve any given standard, whether you attain the goal depend on your own efforts not whether someone else beat you. I think this is quite in line with the philosophy of masters swimming.

Originally posted by craiglll@yahoo.com Originally posted by LindsayNB Has there ever been an effort to produce some sort of motivational time standards for masters swimmers? Many would say that goes against the philosophy of masters swimming. I guess that one can argue that providing external standards violates the idea of personal best, but I think one could argue that the idea of competitions with placings, records, and rankings also violate that idea. But these things provide motivation for some people. I know that for some people who went through age group swimming time standards bring back memories of failing to meet standards necessary to progress to higher levels of competition. I would guess the nationals qualifying times may have the same drawback. My idea here is to have standards that are purely for motivation, giving people something to shoot for and a way to measure their progress that isn't dependent on what other swimmers are at the competition that you go to. These standards would not be for use in qualifying for meets. Again, for the elite among us records and rankings provide motivation, I'm trying to find a way to provide similar motivation for a broader array of swimmers. One way to measure progress is by who you can beat, another way is to have defined levels of achievement, in our case times. The advantage of the latter is that there is no limit on the number of people who can achieve any given standard, whether you attain the goal depend on your own efforts not whether someone else beat you. I think this is quite in line with the philosophy of masters swimming.