Full article, with photos and video:
www.nytimes.com/.../29torres-t.html
A Swimmer of a Certain Age
By ELIZABETH WEIL
Published: June 29, 2008
NEAR THE WARM-UP POOL AT THE Missouri Grand Prix swim meet, in Columbia, a crop of Olympic hopefuls lolled around in practice suits and towels on a Saturday morning in February. Fully clothed among them stood some relics of Olympics past: Scott Goldblatt, who won a gold medal in the 2004 Games, wore an aqua sport coat and a striped tie and was doing on-air commentary for Swimnetwork.com; Mel Stewart, who won two golds and a bronze in 1992, wore the same goofy get-up, working as Goldblatt’s sidekick. Meanwhile, Dara Torres, who won the first of her nine Olympic medals in 1984, a year before Michael Phelps was born, stripped off her baggy T-shirt and sweat pants, revealing a breathtaking body in a magenta Speedo. She pulled on a cap marked with her initials and prepared to swim. Torres is now 41 and the mother of a 2-year-old daughter, Tessa Grace. She broke her first of three world records in 1982, at 14, and she has retired from swimming and come back three times, her latest effort built on an obsessive attention to her aging body....
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When a person first starts lifting and makes big gains as their muscle fibers start to fire in a more coordinated fashion, is that an adaptation in the muscles or in the nervous system?
That's the nervous system. A lot of it has to do with learning the skill of lifting. When you start lifting, you establish motor memory for the exercises you do, and you become more efficient at them. It's like altering your stroke in swimming.
When a person first starts lifting and makes big gains as their muscle fibers start to fire in a more coordinated fashion, is that an adaptation in the muscles or in the nervous system?
That's the nervous system. A lot of it has to do with learning the skill of lifting. When you start lifting, you establish motor memory for the exercises you do, and you become more efficient at them. It's like altering your stroke in swimming.
