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SWIM FOREVER

03BHY

Sounds easy ?  - Actually I think it will be ... Eat healthy - Exercise Body and Mind - Sleep - Be with People and have a Purpose !!

I am a Swimmer for life - Erik Hochstein - I live my life now at what I consider normal health, but most may look at it as extreme something. I believe we should learn the information “out there” and then decide ourselves, I am not judging or believe others are wrong - I just want to share the decisions I make and why I make them. I have made decisions that I would change now and will make more of those- but overall for me I believe I am on a path to swim FOREVER - or another 56 years PLUS as I am a 56y old Swimmer !!

The journey back into the pool - I have done my share of “laps” in the pool - but then my 3 kids were a what I now call excuse not to swim or exercise at all for 14 years. This is my 3rd return to the pool. I swam for West Germany in the 88 Olympics and won a relay Bronze, then at USC under Peter Daland. Stopped after college as so many do but got back in the pool in my 30s - made it back to Olympic Trials and all - shoulder surgery was another stop but I came back quickly. Came close to my best times at age 41 with those funky suits, still have some Masters records, but then I stopped - odd thing was that I always thought of myself as a swimmer, always.

Now on my way back into the pool - I started just doing sprints for about 5 months - as I still strongly believe that swimming to this day does way way too much distance and endurance. I will share my “return” lessons, there are many !! I will share what other things and lessons I see and learn about swimming and life.

One thing I keep learning - your body loses sooooooooo much of everything if you don't use it !!! My stroke and technique are still close to what it used to be. But as one would of course think and should expect if you advise somebody (always so easy to tell others but hard to see it in yourself)    strength, endurance and flexibility simply "disappear". This is not my take on the aging decline - this is meant only as - you lose it all if you don't use it !!! Again - we all know this but the degree and experiencing it - totally different. My easiest example and odd for me as I was never a weight room guy - bench press ... I was a mid distance swimmer, we did do strength 3x per week - my best bench was 210lbs  - nothing amazing but solid for me. Now at age 55 I did a very slow and careful building of workouts - didn't measure, but 5 months of frequent push ups or basic strength work. I gave it try to see my best - I could not bench 135lbs ....  Imagine what that means for my pull strength in the water .... Can I get it back ? we shall see - I am on the path now... 

  • Swim forever is a good goal. I think if you’re careful don’t overdo and hurt yourself and be out for sometime you will “get it back“ I really hope you do At age 50 I decided my goal was to set world records in the three breaststroke events in the 100 to 105 age group. I am nearly 76 now and still swimming so the goal lives. With your past and your technique I think anything is possible. Sounds like you want to set world records in the 110-114 age group. I think I need to reset my long-term goals.

  • Well, don’t take this the wrong way…but at 55 why worry so much about your pull strength? I understand that you way want to get back into Masters age group competition. But beyond that, at 55, aren’t you just competing with yourself? I’m 63 and have been swimming since my early 20s. I never swam competitively (as in on an organized team) but I did do lots of triathlon, and a bit of open water competitive swims. So improving/maintain speed was important. But these days, as I age, I’m just happy to be able to still be swimming. I still do a lot of open water swimming…mileage is still the same year-to-year…but just not competing as much. And I do compete…but mostly just against myself. And I think that just continuing to move is the most important factor. In my fitness log mileage is the most important thing to me. If I’m slowing down some…so be it. I’m still swimming. — Dan
  • in reply to ForceDJ

    I think pull strength is important at any age. So is leg strength. Lean muscle mass tends to deteriorate even faster than cardiovascular conditioning unless you work at that to maintain it. Even if you’re competing against yourself, you want to be as strong as possible for as long as possible to live as long as possible. Also, he probably is competing against everybody else in his age group, so there is that. I know I am. 

  • Thanks for the replies - this is just the very beginning of my long term journey. My main goal is to swim - which is why I posted this first. I am a "swimmer" - always has been always will be. I have learned many things and have some "new" ideas. I am also on a longevity "kick" - which partly got me back into the pool. The main lesson about longevity and swimming - yes, things change as we age - BUT how much do we allow it by just thinking its "nature" ? My next post is about the biggest issue I have with general swim training and how I am changing it for me at least. 

  • As far as I know, there is only one study that measured longevity for swimmers and runners versus sedentary. I believe it was from the late 1980s early 1990s. The vast majority of active people in the study were runners, but there were a few master swimmers included. The results were runners lived much longer than the secondary population swimmers live longer than the runners and the difference between the swimmers and the runners was greater than between the runners and the sedentary. Again, it was a small group of swimmers so probably not generalizable, but clearly swimming promotes longevity .