Looking at one-hour results, and just finishing New England Masters SCY Championships at Harvard, how is it that older swimmers are getting faster and faster, and pretty much everyone is getting faster and faster compared to a few years ago when there seemed to be more mortal swimmers?
What are older (45+ women; at this point 65+ men) swimmers doing that keeps them at such elite levels? Weights? Extensive training? How much of both? How do they have jobs and families and train? The field of fast swimmers is getting deeper and deeper. Anyone have idea as to why?
I want to know the secrets. Are the people who race now self-selecting more and more as elite swimmers? Has everyone swum all their lives? I know to swim hard you have to train hard, but I am baffled by sudden increase in amazing fast times and so many records getting broken.
And unless people are doing nothing but training, it's hard for me to understand how at so many meets new records are being set.
At 45+, you can't do "nothing but training." Most bodies just won't support it. I honestly don't think that most women who are older than I am but can lap me in the 500 are spending way more time than I am on working out (8-10h per week total, not counting travel time). Some may swim more and cross-train less, because their parents kindly gave them shoulders held together inside by something stronger than old rubber bands, but I don't think that most of them spend way more time overall on fitness.
Or maybe they do. But I bet that even if I arranged my life so that I had 20h per week to devote to swimming, I would never be as fast as they are. I could up my endurance that way, which could be valuable if I were aiming at a 25K or a Channel swim, but I wouldn't get a lot faster. And if they cut back to 8-10h per week or even less, they would still be faster in the pool than I am.
The people setting these new records, and maintaining wild speed into their 40s and 50s and 60s, have just always been faster than I am. They were faster at 15 than I was at 15, and faster at 35 than I was at 35, and they are faster at 50 than I will be. And they are staying in the sport, thanks to the opportunity to do so and to training techniques that allow them to maintain quality while recovering in the manner that bodies over 45 need. When I am 50 they will be 65 and they may still be lapping me.
And unless people are doing nothing but training, it's hard for me to understand how at so many meets new records are being set.
At 45+, you can't do "nothing but training." Most bodies just won't support it. I honestly don't think that most women who are older than I am but can lap me in the 500 are spending way more time than I am on working out (8-10h per week total, not counting travel time). Some may swim more and cross-train less, because their parents kindly gave them shoulders held together inside by something stronger than old rubber bands, but I don't think that most of them spend way more time overall on fitness.
Or maybe they do. But I bet that even if I arranged my life so that I had 20h per week to devote to swimming, I would never be as fast as they are. I could up my endurance that way, which could be valuable if I were aiming at a 25K or a Channel swim, but I wouldn't get a lot faster. And if they cut back to 8-10h per week or even less, they would still be faster in the pool than I am.
The people setting these new records, and maintaining wild speed into their 40s and 50s and 60s, have just always been faster than I am. They were faster at 15 than I was at 15, and faster at 35 than I was at 35, and they are faster at 50 than I will be. And they are staying in the sport, thanks to the opportunity to do so and to training techniques that allow them to maintain quality while recovering in the manner that bodies over 45 need. When I am 50 they will be 65 and they may still be lapping me.
