Elite vs. Fitness

All it would take is to put up posters at all swimming pools in your area. There are 10 pools within 25 minutes of my hometown. Do you think it is time for a poster contest?

I agree... I think there should be two general discussion boards: Competitive Swimming-General Discussions and Fitness Swimming-General Discussions. It would make the fitness swimmer feel more welcome. And, if as USMS claims that the majority of their members never compete, the Fitness Swimming board should be more popular than the Competitive Swimming board. Now, if you all will excuse me. I am going to spend the rest of this glorious four day weekend on my favorite beach.

Why not have 2 categories, The Jedi, and the Masters, or 3, Tri Guys, or rename them The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. I still think it should be, come one, come all. My search fitness swimming turned up 42,700,000. I checked 10 pages of the results and most turned up with the words fitness swimming and several stated USMS.

Originally posted by Michael Heather Matt, And to the last poster, this DF is filled with competition of all sorts, each and every one of us trying to persuade all others that we are not full of hot air. Among us there are lots of very helpful, patient persons who go out of their way to explain or counsel even the most novice swimmer on any topic. I disagree with the notion that fitness swimmers are not made to feel welcome here, even though they may feel overwhelmed by the passion that exists in the posts. I didn't say they were made to feel unwelcome, but from the content of these discussions boards fitness swimmers who don't have access to a club come to believe USMS is about competition. It may be true that clubs do cater to both fitness and competitive swimmers, but the majority of people who post here compete and that is the impression that is projected through these discussions. Add to that the unwillingness of USMS to find a coach who will post workouts for the lowest level swimmer and this site just turns people off. (yeah, yeah, yeah I know the tired worn out arguement that a coach can't do that because they have to see the swimmer or else it is just junk yardage. If you noncoaches can explain or counsel novice swimmers, and coaches can publish books that start out with very low level workouts, then coaches can do it here too.) Geek, I searched on "fitness swimming" 25 threads turned up. And how many threads are there total? Of course that isn't to say other threads wouldn't have information for a fitness swimmer. There isn't one space devoted completely to fitness swimming. There is, however, a board devoted entirely to discussion of the USMS National Competition.

Originally posted by laineybug Add to that the unwillingness of USMS to find a coach who will post workouts for the lowest level swimmer and this site just turns people off. More unsupported hyperbole. I swim on a USMS team with people of extremely varying abilities. I have found that almost all the people who join a USMS team solely for fitness will eventually catch the bug and do a few meets. And, let me tell you, a first time meet participant is great for USMS. I have never seen one fail to return to another meet. USMS members are very encouraging of all levels. You really should stop trying to drive a wedge here based on your own personal views. You can take any workout posted on this forum and adapt it to your fitness level. I have done that many times, either by adding or taking away from a workout.

If USMS was really committed to growth, was able to reach out via marketing/PR and provided some tangible benefit then the amount of swimmers that would sign up should easilly push our membership into 100,000+ range. Heck, if we started just by really trying to tap into the high school swimmer who's not good enough to swim for a college team how many people a year would that equate to? One thing I've noticed in training with Sun Devil Masters over the years (at ASU) is they do a great job of tapping into this "customer base"........in chatting with a few of these swimmers it blew my mind that virtually none of them new what masters swimming was prior to stumbling upon a workout at the pool. I'd love to see us come up with some type of "invitation" to this group to try out a team in their area. Not sure how we could get access to high school swimmers but it might be interesting to see the response.

Originally posted by laineybug That's because most of the fitness swimmers who come to this board realize that, as the poll shows, this USMS board is for adult competitive swimmers and they leave. I don't believe this is the case and I challenge you to support this assertion with facts. The fact is that people who are passionate about swimming will seek out this site and join USMS. A lap/fitness swimmer may not give two shakes about competing and, therefore, find USMS or this DF uninteresting. But, a person truly interested in swimming would hopefully find lots of meaningful information here.

Originally posted by aquageek More unsupported hyperbole. I swim on a USMS team with people of extremely varying abilities. I have found that almost all the people who join a USMS team solely for fitness will eventually catch the bug and do a few meets. And, let me tell you, a first time meet participant is great for USMS. I have never seen one fail to return to another meet. USMS members are very encouraging of all levels. You really should stop trying to drive a wedge here based on your own personal views. You can take any workout posted on this forum and adapt it to your fitness level. I have done that many times, either by adding or taking away from a workout. I'm pretty fortunate in this regard. Both my coaches have been flexible and respectful of all levels of swimmer, just asking for us to do our best with what we have. Also, it was mentioned that this was a thread for adult swimmers, which suggests that anyone who comes to this site, whatever his or her experience/skill level, will have the common sense to recast workouts according to individual need. I know the majority of the ppl on this board are swimming more yards than I do, which I expect since I haven't been at it as long. It's no big deal. So if a workout looks interesting to me, I ask myself what about it most interests me, and how I can make it "mine"--although lately, I mainly use the workouts my coach e-mailed to me, which are in fact adapted to my skills.

Matt, I am well aware of the initial and ongoing costs of aquatic facilities. I am also aware of the incredibly bad management that is put in place of these facilities (not in all cases, but in enough to make a difference) because municipal, university, or military oversight reaches only to the door of the facility. If there is someone guarding the pool, the institution thinks they have done their job. Nothing is further from the truth. Every lap pool in the country can operate at a profit. Not on lap swimming alone, but on a variety of programs and classes, as well as enlightened management principles that will attract not only customers, sponsors and tenants, but will also attract and support good staff, coaches, guards and maintenance. "If you build it, they will come," is a simplistic yet moving saying, but true enough. Pools have a mystical quality of attraction that is there to be exploited, and the current management systems miss that altogether. Water in any form is an attractant, from ice rinks to fountains and water sculptures. It should be used to that advantage. YMCA pools are the closest I can think of that even approach maximizing the potential of their pools with numerous programs. But even they miss out by limiting the hours of operation and skimping on staffing. Most pools are not open as long as the rest of the facility (in a mixed use setting, likeYMCAs). And to the last poster, this DF is filled with competition of all sorts, each and every one of us trying to persuade all others that we are not full of hot air. Among us there are lots of very helpful, patient persons who go out of their way to explain or counsel even the most novice swimmer on any topic. I disagree with the notion that fitness swimmers are not made to feel welcome here, even though they may feel overwhelmed by the passion that exists in the posts.

Originally posted by Paul Smith If USMS was really committed to growth, was able to reach out via marketing/PR and provided some tangible benefit then the amount of swimmers that would sign up should easilly push our membership into 100,000+ range. Heck, if we started just by really trying to tap into the high school swimmer who's not good enough to swim for a college team how many people a year would that equate to? One thing I've noticed in training with Sun Devil Masters over the years (at ASU) is they do a great job of tapping into this "customer base"........in chatting with a few of these swimmers it blew my mind that virtually none of them new what masters swimming was prior to stumbling upon a workout at the pool. I'd love to see us come up with some type of "invitation" to this group to try out a team in their area. Not sure how we could get access to high school swimmers but it might be interesting to see the response. I believe Illinois Masters has reduced the cost of joining for college kids. Now if I could just convince my son to join. He quit swimming last year and was fairly good. I keep telling him he could do quite well without doing the 4 hours a day he used to do, which drove him out of the sport.