Seems inevitable, no? Even though my practice times seem to be pretty consistent with intervals I was able to hold 5 to 7 years ago (mid to early
30's), now that I am 40, my races just seem to get slower. Its an odd scenario to be in. As an age grouper and into college, the older you got, the more you trained, the faster you swam. Now, it seems, mother nature is kicking things in reverse. While I still love to train, I'm finding less incentive to compete.
Anyone else come to this conclusion?
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Former Member
I read an article, which I can't find now, that says physiologically, sprint performance peaks in the mid-to-late twenties, and endurance in the mid thirties. Of course there are other variables such as how highly trained a person is, improvements in technique, etc.
This doesn't seem to be true of swimmers in the real world. Jason Lezak, Neil Walker, Gary Hall, and of course Dara Torres are all sprinters. I'm not aware of any 30-ish or 30+ swimmers competing at the top level in distance events.
One thing I noticed about myself after returning to swimming 3 years ago after a 25+ year time off - my racing speeds in sprints isn't too far off my high school times but my training speeds are not even close. That tells me I have good power/speed, but not very good fitness. And restoring fitness lost decades ago is proving to be very difficult for me.
I read an article, which I can't find now, that says physiologically, sprint performance peaks in the mid-to-late twenties, and endurance in the mid thirties. Of course there are other variables such as how highly trained a person is, improvements in technique, etc.
This doesn't seem to be true of swimmers in the real world. Jason Lezak, Neil Walker, Gary Hall, and of course Dara Torres are all sprinters. I'm not aware of any 30-ish or 30+ swimmers competing at the top level in distance events.
One thing I noticed about myself after returning to swimming 3 years ago after a 25+ year time off - my racing speeds in sprints isn't too far off my high school times but my training speeds are not even close. That tells me I have good power/speed, but not very good fitness. And restoring fitness lost decades ago is proving to be very difficult for me.
