Picture that you have been suddenly transported to an alternative universe in which none of the swimmers enjoys competition. You find yourself the president of an organization sort of like USMS and have been put in charge of designing programs for swimmers who aren't at all interested in racing but who enjoy swimming and have a desire to improve. What do you think an organization like USMS would look like under such a scenario?
A couple of things have been suggested to me:
Think of swim clinics like TI offers but based on a largely volunteer basis like USMS is instead of having an entrepreneurial basis. Instead of going to meets to race swimmers would be going to clinics to learn, and yes, test their progress.
Consider the number of person-hours needed to organize a swim meet, just in terms of officials. A tremendous amount of effort is put into ensuring a "fair race" and that times swum at one meet can fairly be compared to times swum at another. If you were able to get the same number of people to volunteer the same number of hours and undergo the same level of training aimed in a more instructional vein what could you accomplish? It seems to me that you could organize really great clinics, that non-competitive swimmers would benefit from a lot more than swimming in a meet and perhaps still obtain a similar social experience.
Would it be possible to produce tools for evaluating swimmers progress that would be more informative than just time in a race? For example could one use stroke checklists to give more feedback on technique? Could you develop standardized evaluation tools that, for example, used inexpensive video equipment to do a detailed analysis of a swim, including all the stuff currently used for analysis of elite swimmers such as reaction time, distance under water, time to 15m, stroke count and turnover, turn time, etc..
I suspect that there is a lot of great stuff being done at larger more established clubs that have really good coaches that could be captured and documented and codified and used in the many clubs that are currently struggling to find a good coach in their area that they can afford.
What can you envision?
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Former Member
If one looks at the world of running it is interesting to note that the bulk of adult participants are as interested in endurance as in speed. There are far more people interested in doing a 5km road race than in doing 100m or 200m sprints on a track. And many of those people move on to 10km runs and beyond rather than focusing on going faster and faster at the 5km distance.
In my own experience with running I found that after a point getting faster at the 5km distance seemed to be as much a matter of tolerating pain as anything else, so I found it more enjoyable to go for longer runs at a more comfortable pace. As far as I know the health and fitness benefits of a medium paced 10km run are as good or better than those of a faster 5km run.
A couple of years ago I did an 8km open water swim and that was as challenging and rewarding as anything I have done in the pool. Hmm, completing my first 200 fly was another high point. In neither case was I particularly fixated on my time or with "racing" anyone.
Another example of testing your fitness outside of racing is swimming for distance in a given time, e.g. how far can you go in 30m or an hour.
If one looks at the world of running it is interesting to note that the bulk of adult participants are as interested in endurance as in speed. There are far more people interested in doing a 5km road race than in doing 100m or 200m sprints on a track. And many of those people move on to 10km runs and beyond rather than focusing on going faster and faster at the 5km distance.
In my own experience with running I found that after a point getting faster at the 5km distance seemed to be as much a matter of tolerating pain as anything else, so I found it more enjoyable to go for longer runs at a more comfortable pace. As far as I know the health and fitness benefits of a medium paced 10km run are as good or better than those of a faster 5km run.
A couple of years ago I did an 8km open water swim and that was as challenging and rewarding as anything I have done in the pool. Hmm, completing my first 200 fly was another high point. In neither case was I particularly fixated on my time or with "racing" anyone.
Another example of testing your fitness outside of racing is swimming for distance in a given time, e.g. how far can you go in 30m or an hour.
