I'm a 21 year old male, 5'8, around 155 lbs, with 7-8% body fat. I've been swimming now for about 1 year total. My background is in cross country, basketball, and track. I've dropped my times quite a bit in a year;
50 free from 28 high to 26.69
100 free from 1:10 to 1:00.89
200 free from 2:24 to 2:16
500 free from 7:00 to 6:19
I'm from Missouri and I've got one more semester at a community college to get my associates degree, then I plan on transferring to Drury Univesity or Missouri State. I really want to walk on to one of their teams and I figure my best choice is to go the distance route, the 500 and up to have a chance at making one of these teams. Right now I'm swimming 30,000yds/m a week and doing dryland work (weights) 3x a week. My stroke is very solid, keeping me injury free (knock on wood), and I figure I can get up to around 50,000+ yds a week by the start of summer and train like a madman this summer before fall semester. I can swim with a masters team once a week without having to pay a monthly fee and the rest of my training is solo. My test meet will be the end of July, Show-me-State games in Columbia. Any words of advice?
George, neither of SwimMann’s schools are in the Big 10, so those times are irrelevant.
I suggest (if you haven’t already done so) you talk to the coaches at each school. Talk to them NOW about your interests and see what they say it will take and let them know that you are committed to improvement.
In the mean time find a good coached program, so you can improve your mechanics, as well as your endurance.
50 free from 28 high to 26.69
100 free from 1:10 to 1:00.89
200 free from 2:24 to 2:16
500 free from 7:00 to 6:19
I'm assuming those times are yards. If so, they are decent but not in the realm of what you would expect in NCAA comps even Div III. Even for Div III, your goal times should be in the following areas:
50 free - 22.00
100 Free - 48.00
200 Free - 1:50.00
500 Free - 4:35.00
That is not to say that you can't get there but you're not going to get there by banging out 50,000yds a week. What kind of stroke analysis are you getting? As George said, drilling poor technique with high yardage is not a good thing.
Look around for a coach in your area, ask around at the local age group teams, try to find one who does lessons on the side (I've found about half do) and have them work with you. Now, one thing is if you do not feel comfortable with that coach after 2-3 sessions, then find another one. Being comfortable with your coach is a major aspect to enabling positive learning.
Paul
Some old big 10 records are as follows
500-yard Freestyle 4:15.06 Peter Vanderkaay, Michigan 2004 West Lafayette
1650-yard Freestyle 14:31.15 Chris Thompson, Michigan 2001 Minneapolis
First off, good luck in your pursuit.
Second, definitely start a dialog with the coaches of the teams. Many, many years ago a friend of mine swam at Drury and I got to visit for a few days (I went to a tech school that had no sports whatsoever). Their coach was gracious enough to let me do a practice with them. That was as close to college swimming as I ever got.
Third, make sure you haven't used up your eligibility (that might be the first thing, actually). I did grad school at Arizona State and thought I might be able to "walk on", since the undergrad schools I went to had no swim teams and I didn't participate in any sports. Long story short, I was told that your eligibility clock starts ticking once you start college full-time, regardless of whether you do sports or not. Also confirmed this through the NCAA website.
Good luck with your pursuit. :wiggle:
Drurys record times are a little slower than big 10 approx 10 seconds slower for the 500. But what I did not include in my post above is that you should not be putting mileage on and muscle memory learning bad swim habits.
What I was referring to is the 500 and longer swimming is very hard and unless you can swim faster times for the 50 and 100 you will not be a distance swimmer. You should work on getting 50, 100 and 200 times down to a faster time than you are doing now then decide what your swiming forte' is.
You should be working with a coach now that can help you attain faster times.
It sound like you are fit by doing other sports and have lots of time to do this to get to the level that you need to obtain. I as a coach would welcome someone like you who has desire to swim on a team.
You know, this is interesting... I sometimes think about finishing University... (I only took 1 year, so 4 more years of eligibility)
Does anyone know the rules on that? Could I still qualify for a Scholarship? I'm 30 now, but still fast enough to score points...
SwimMann,
Don't be too discouraged by the times posted here.
Talk to the coaches at the schools you are interested in. They will tell you if the want you to swim at their school. I don't know the schools you mentioned. Some teams and coaches will have room in their programs for swimmers that are not able to make Nationals cuts.
Good luck!
contact the college coaches and
find out what it takes to walk on their teams
if really you want to walk on
you have to be MUCH better
Read and apply
Swim Faster Faster
forums.usms.org/showthread.php
train 6 days a week
do doubles on 3 of them
lift weights 3 times a week
train with the best club team and club coach you can find
you might have a chance
lastly I'm a positive guy, but the gap between
where you are and
where you need to be
might be insurmountable
I'm a 21 year old male, 5'8, around 155 lbs, with 7-8% body fat. I've been swimming now for about 1 year total. My background is in cross country, basketball, and track. I've dropped my times quite a bit in a year;
50 free from 28 high to 26.69
100 free from 1:10 to 1:00.89
200 free from 2:24 to 2:16
500 free from 7:00 to 6:19
I'm from Missouri and I've got one more semester at a community college to get my associates degree, then I plan on transferring to Drury Univesity or Missouri State. I really want to walk on to one of their teams and I figure my best choice is to go the distance route, the 500 and up to have a chance at making one of these teams. Right now I'm swimming 30,000yds/m a week and doing dryland work (weights) 3x a week. My stroke is very solid, keeping me injury free (knock on wood), and I figure I can get up to around 50,000+ yds a week by the start of summer and train like a madman this summer before fall semester. I can swim with a masters team once a week without having to pay a monthly fee and the rest of my training is solo. My test meet will be the end of July, Show-me-State games in Columbia. Any words of advice?
Did you mean to say 1:40 for the 200 free? 1:50 isn't in-line with the other times. Actually, these times would be very quick for Division III. Most of these would probably get close to being able to place at NCAA's for Division III.
Yep, fat fingered that one it was supposed to be 1:40ish. And those were to provide an idea of target times and were not intended to discourage but instead to point out that banging out yardage on your own will only get him so far. He will need to get some focused technique work along with all the things that Ande has recommended.
Paul
