Dara Torres-Amazing

This debate is interesting, and I can empathize with how some of you feel about the fact that she is THAT fast, but there are many reasons beyond just muscle mass. A person could dope all they want, but that does not give them technical effeciency, especially in the water. Torres program is very in-depth, and very swimming specific. Her meridian strength program recruits a different kind of muscle, muscle that is better adapted to the requirements of swimming; stretching under pressure, precisely what you need in the water. Drugs will never give someone that, it must be earned through years of training. If grown men and women pursued sprint swimming as their only life goal the minimum age would increase significantly. To the point that you couldn't win the race if you didn't put in the 35+ years.

And I'm a firm believer in Occam's razor. Likewise, which is why I find performance enhancing drugs a more plausible explanation than what Lindsay has proposed: I think there's another potentially interesting issue here. What if, hypothetically, it were possible to achieve the same benefits of steroids by utilizing a team of a half dozen dedicated support staff that did all sorts of intensive massage and stretching, specialized strength workouts, completely customized workouts, etc. Perhaps even utilizing some sort of hypothetical highly instrumented suits and all sorts of expensive monitoring equipment.

Last year after 3 weeks in the pool working I was down to a 30 second 50m. If I trained and swam my Vo2 max work outs could I get down to a 25 second 50m? George, the current Canadian 75-79 national record in the 50 free is 34.54, why not get your comeback started by dropping by a meet and setting a few national records? Most of us can only dream about that. Eugene Lehman just set a WR in the 50 fly for 95-99, there was no prior record.

You're absolutely right. But even though I don't agree with them, I still respect their opinion. I think we need to settle this over a pitcher of margaritas at Chuy's in Austin. Watch what they put in that margarita, you might test positive for something! Cuervo Gold is still legal as far as I know... :wine:

Now dare I try to train hard disprove all the theories and have a heart attack?. George, You'd probably make gains without putting pressure on your heart by doing the meridian stretch program... Either way, I'd be careful... Since you took such a long break, that's the difference.

I was faster at 39 then when I competed in the Olympics at 23. Would I have been faster at 45 if I had not stopped training when I was 39??? Then 25/30 year layoff. My stroke rate was slower at 39, a much more technical stroke. I am 75 and I know my stroke is more technically sound then it was when I was 39. I actually believed at 65 years of age I could have swam my fastest. The nearest pool to train in was 2 hours away, so I could not train. I managed about 1 swim a month. Last year after 3 weeks in the pool working I was down to a 30 second 50m. If I trained and swam my Vo2 max work outs could I get down to a 25 second 50m? Now dare I try to train hard disprove all the theories and have a heart attack? I won't be drug free, Altace and Renedil for Blood Pressure and Metformin and Glyburide for Sugar.

I think there's another potentially interesting issue here. What if, hypothetically, it were possible to achieve the same benefits of steroids by utilizing a team of a half dozen dedicated support staff that did all sorts of intensive massage and stretching, specialized strength workouts, completely customized workouts, etc.. Perhaps even utilizing some sort of hypothetical highly instrumented suits and all sorts of expensive monitoring equipment. None of this would be against the rules but it could enhance the performance of an athlete that had all that versus one who did not. Certainly historical performances are going to suffer in comparison. During the last Olympics there were some stories about athletes that had support teams like this to varying degrees and the advantage they gained. It seems to be the direction that Olympic sport is going in. If people tend to dismiss a performance as drug-enhanced, will they eventually start to dismiss performances as technology/support team assisted? Already one can argue that reaching the Olympics requires "freakish" genetic gifts, certainly we're at or past the point where an ungifted person can hope to compete through a good work ethic alone.

...A person could dope all they want, but that does not give them technical effeciency, especially in the water. Torres program is very in-depth, and very swimming specific. Her meridian strength program recruits a different kind of muscle, muscle that is better adapted to the requirements of swimming; stretching under pressure, precisely what you need in the water. Drugs will never give someone that, it must be earned through years of training.... I'm inclined to agree - sprinting probably requires even more technical expertise than distance racing. I completely respect sprinters, having seen how quickly my stroke falls apart when I try to go even a little bit faster. Quote: "It's very difficult for my body to recover after workouts now that I'm older, so we have to keep them short, which means they're extremely difficult and intense. It sucks. I can't sit here and say that it's been easy making this comeback. It hasn't. I mean, there are days when I feel like I'm swimming with a piano on my back and I'm going to sink." This matches up with a previous thread on masters athletes and training, the finding that short intense efforts maintain fitness better than long slow distance and that the body produces it's own natural HGH when older athletes train this way.

It seems that even people who are intelligent have accepted an awful lot of stuff that is not necessarily true. You're absolutely right. But even though I don't agree with them, I still respect their opinion. I think we need to settle this over a pitcher of margaritas at Chuy's in Austin.

what is this 2 second drop people are talking about she went 25.9 at masters worlds in 2006 then she got down to 24.5 that's 1.3 or 1.4 from one year to the next wasn't her prior lifetime best 24.7 then she went 24.5 so it's really a 0.2 - 0.3 improvement on her lifetime best time Skepticism is a natural reaction, one that DT herself anticipated. Based on your description (OT qualifier, etc), you and I probably swam at similar levels in HS/College. I've kept fit and do not think it possible to come anywhere near to my college times in an event like the 200 fly. But if I quit my job and did nothing else, given modern theories of training and technical suits, I could see matching my college speed in the 50 fly and maybe coming close in the 100. (Heck, adding 1-2 hours more sleep every night would go a long way...!) I dropped 1 second in 50 LCM back between Masters Worlds and a year later, with no change in fitness, only a fairly drastic change in training. (I don't consider myself a sprinter, but my time at Worlds was good enough for 2nd.) Given that DT had recently given birth and was ***-feeding at the time, and then, as I understand it, essentially switched to being a full-time athlete...it certainly seems more than possible to drop 2 seconds in a 50 without adding doping to the equation. And I'm a firm believer in Occam's razor.