I have been swimming Masters for two years and am 47 years old. I graduated from high school in 1976 and college in 1980. In South Texas the 45-49 age group has consistently had more swimmers at meets and perhaps the closest competition of any male age group. Why does 45-49 have more swimmers than 40-44 and 50-54, the two neighboring age groups? There are some very fast guys in this age group, who obviously have not taken long breaks (e.g. decades) from swimming. They swim modern breastroke, not legacy breastroke.
Are we 45-49 guys just a demographic phenomenum? Our kids are a certain age, we got a bit fat, and decided to get active again? Or was there a swimmer population bubble in the late 70s and early 80s?
Is this bubble going to follow me when I age up or does some percentage of swimmers retire at 49?
Just an inquiring mind.....
There was a USMS registration report that had an age and sex breakdown that I saw at the USAS convention years ago. If I remember correctly the most populated age groups that would be updated to todays time frame would be the four age groups that are discussed here. That would be the Women's and Mens age groups of 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, and 55-59. I not sure about the actual numbers and what age group currently has the most but I would bet it would be both the 40-44 and 45-49 for both age groups followed by the 50-54 age groups.
I would agree with both Ann and Sally and they have the USMS Top Ten to back there statements up with regard to times and records. I would also agree about the statements about Title IX and say if you did a survey of women in those age groups you would find that more of them competed in collegiate swimming than the older age groups above them. I would also say the same thing about Club swimming at the AAU/USA level, in that more stayed with swimming competition than the older age groups.
Another point I will bring up besides the population issue is that for Men there were more opportunties to swim in collegiate swimming in 1966 to 1986 then at any other time. The reasons for this are as follows:
1. No Title IX, so all of the revenue could be spent on Men's college sports, which means there were more college swimming programs at schools and more swimming scholarships for Men. So all of the schools in every conference at Division I, II, and III had programs and more men participated.
2. The AAU age group swimming program had a tremendous boom in growth and interest in the sport. A lot of the kids from the 1960's and early 1970's were in competitive swimming programs and wanted to continue and did in High School and College because programs were available to Men and they took advantage of them.
3. The Women were about 10 years behind in my estimation than the Men because opportunities were not available to them until the late 1970's and early 1980's. However at the Club level they were not as far behind and interest in the sport of swimming for Women would be about 4 years behind at the Club level. So today that would equate with the Women's age groups of 50-54 on down with larger increases as you go down in the age groups.
4. Because of the cutbacks in college swimming programs and competition from other sports, I think there was a dropoff sometime in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I think that is one of the reasons you do not see heavy populations in the 35-39 and on down in the age groups. If you were to look at this 15 years ago you would see the same results in the younger age groups in USMS and I believe in 10 years time you are going to see that the 50-54 and the 55-59 age groups being the most populated.
There was a USMS registration report that had an age and sex breakdown that I saw at the USAS convention years ago. If I remember correctly the most populated age groups that would be updated to todays time frame would be the four age groups that are discussed here. That would be the Women's and Mens age groups of 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, and 55-59. I not sure about the actual numbers and what age group currently has the most but I would bet it would be both the 40-44 and 45-49 for both age groups followed by the 50-54 age groups.
I would agree with both Ann and Sally and they have the USMS Top Ten to back there statements up with regard to times and records. I would also agree about the statements about Title IX and say if you did a survey of women in those age groups you would find that more of them competed in collegiate swimming than the older age groups above them. I would also say the same thing about Club swimming at the AAU/USA level, in that more stayed with swimming competition than the older age groups.
Another point I will bring up besides the population issue is that for Men there were more opportunties to swim in collegiate swimming in 1966 to 1986 then at any other time. The reasons for this are as follows:
1. No Title IX, so all of the revenue could be spent on Men's college sports, which means there were more college swimming programs at schools and more swimming scholarships for Men. So all of the schools in every conference at Division I, II, and III had programs and more men participated.
2. The AAU age group swimming program had a tremendous boom in growth and interest in the sport. A lot of the kids from the 1960's and early 1970's were in competitive swimming programs and wanted to continue and did in High School and College because programs were available to Men and they took advantage of them.
3. The Women were about 10 years behind in my estimation than the Men because opportunities were not available to them until the late 1970's and early 1980's. However at the Club level they were not as far behind and interest in the sport of swimming for Women would be about 4 years behind at the Club level. So today that would equate with the Women's age groups of 50-54 on down with larger increases as you go down in the age groups.
4. Because of the cutbacks in college swimming programs and competition from other sports, I think there was a dropoff sometime in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I think that is one of the reasons you do not see heavy populations in the 35-39 and on down in the age groups. If you were to look at this 15 years ago you would see the same results in the younger age groups in USMS and I believe in 10 years time you are going to see that the 50-54 and the 55-59 age groups being the most populated.
