Hey Ya’ll
This is something I need to post. Last night I was watching the women’s swimming at the Olympics with my parents. After a side comment on how I “could have been there” by my mom I realized that she was right. In high school I was a Varsity swimmer with my 100 Fr at 58.54. This was me, not trying too hard, and focusing on other things. This included skipping practices and only working out once a day on school days. I’m now newly 20, and only 3 years out of practice (only…). I want to get back to where I was, if not better.
So as of now I have decided to set a goal to get to the Olympic time trials for London 2012. It’s a big goal, as I’m also in the band, H2O polo and studying to be a Mechanical Engineer. All I said was time trials, if I make it further I’m going for it, but all I want is to make it to time trials. I have 4 years, 14 days, and about 9 hours until the opening ceremonies of those Olympics.
So what do I ask of ya’ll? SUPPORT! Please help me to keep up with my workouts (I will be joining a local masters program). I’ll also be posting more often in this forum.
Thanks for your support, hopefully you’ll start to hear my name more often.
Madeline
So what do I ask of ya’ll? SUPPORT! Please help me to keep up with my workouts (I will be joining a local masters program). I’ll also be posting more often in this forum.
Madeline
Madeline,
Nothing like a Big Hairy Audacious Goal to get you up in the morning and keep you focused. I applaud your ambition.
There have been a number of good ideas in this post thus far. IMHO, the "easy" things to focus on (though not necessarily to do) have been mentioned already: pool training, eating/diet, fitness via outside pool activities like lifting/pilates/running/yoga, etc. Most of these are focused on increasing your propulsion (pool, fitness) and reducing your drag (diet). However, I think that you need to put significant focus on your technique -- learning how to further reduce drag, increase stroke length and reduce the energy you expend to move forward each yard -- as this is going to be a critical way to get faster. I think one of the big differences that we as adult swimmers can bring (and generally have to bring given our reduced time allotment for training) is to focus more mindfully on our strokes.
I'd recommend you get yourself videotaped and analyzed by a coach with a strong emphasis on technique. I'd highly recommend you look into the books and videos by Terry Laughlin's company, Total Immersion (www.totalimmersion.net). Full disclosure: Terry was head coach of my age group team back when I was like 11 to 13; but over the years since that time, he's spent considerable time thinking and innovating on how to teach swimmers to swim fluidly and more "fish-like." I had basically been stagnant as a Master's swimmer since I got back in the water in 2001, but decided to get a stroke analysis in early April this year by one of Terry's TI-trained coaches, Anne Wilson of Camelback Coaching (www.camelbackcoaching.com). I had been training harder to try to do well at the Austin Master's, but had just swum some absolutely crummy times at our Arizona Master's championships.
When I viewed the videos, I was stunned with how many things I was doing wrong. Mind you, I was a serious competitor in college and, although I wasn't world class, I swam at UT-Austin back in the day (85-89) and had come within a second of making Trials in both the 400 free and IM. However, even with that strong base, there were a number of areas that I could instantly see were increasing my drag in the water and decreasing my speed. I spent the next 5 weeks prior to Austin focused almost exclusively on technique, averaging about 15K yards per week. Although my performance was nothing that would get written up in USMS magazine, I dropped times in all my events, notably 3 seconds faster than my previous Masters' best in both the 500 and 400 IM.
As I train now, I'm devoting considerably more 'thought energy' in my workouts to how I am swimming versus how hard or how fast I'm swimming. It remains to be seen if this will translate into further time decreases, but, based how much more in control of the water I feel these days, I'm anticipating further time drops.
Patrick
So what do I ask of ya’ll? SUPPORT! Please help me to keep up with my workouts (I will be joining a local masters program). I’ll also be posting more often in this forum.
Madeline
Madeline,
Nothing like a Big Hairy Audacious Goal to get you up in the morning and keep you focused. I applaud your ambition.
There have been a number of good ideas in this post thus far. IMHO, the "easy" things to focus on (though not necessarily to do) have been mentioned already: pool training, eating/diet, fitness via outside pool activities like lifting/pilates/running/yoga, etc. Most of these are focused on increasing your propulsion (pool, fitness) and reducing your drag (diet). However, I think that you need to put significant focus on your technique -- learning how to further reduce drag, increase stroke length and reduce the energy you expend to move forward each yard -- as this is going to be a critical way to get faster. I think one of the big differences that we as adult swimmers can bring (and generally have to bring given our reduced time allotment for training) is to focus more mindfully on our strokes.
I'd recommend you get yourself videotaped and analyzed by a coach with a strong emphasis on technique. I'd highly recommend you look into the books and videos by Terry Laughlin's company, Total Immersion (www.totalimmersion.net). Full disclosure: Terry was head coach of my age group team back when I was like 11 to 13; but over the years since that time, he's spent considerable time thinking and innovating on how to teach swimmers to swim fluidly and more "fish-like." I had basically been stagnant as a Master's swimmer since I got back in the water in 2001, but decided to get a stroke analysis in early April this year by one of Terry's TI-trained coaches, Anne Wilson of Camelback Coaching (www.camelbackcoaching.com). I had been training harder to try to do well at the Austin Master's, but had just swum some absolutely crummy times at our Arizona Master's championships.
When I viewed the videos, I was stunned with how many things I was doing wrong. Mind you, I was a serious competitor in college and, although I wasn't world class, I swam at UT-Austin back in the day (85-89) and had come within a second of making Trials in both the 400 free and IM. However, even with that strong base, there were a number of areas that I could instantly see were increasing my drag in the water and decreasing my speed. I spent the next 5 weeks prior to Austin focused almost exclusively on technique, averaging about 15K yards per week. Although my performance was nothing that would get written up in USMS magazine, I dropped times in all my events, notably 3 seconds faster than my previous Masters' best in both the 500 and 400 IM.
As I train now, I'm devoting considerably more 'thought energy' in my workouts to how I am swimming versus how hard or how fast I'm swimming. It remains to be seen if this will translate into further time decreases, but, based how much more in control of the water I feel these days, I'm anticipating further time drops.
Patrick
