How long does it take?

i started swiming 4 weeks ago trust me i could hardly keep up with sets but i had to push myself a little-it pays off big time -. Now there is problem we do on average 4500-5000yds. My time for 50m from block is 32sec-slow but if i consider that i just started and have not swam past 15 years i think that's good. patience is the key-iwill do some weights , I swim ~2hours Monday -Friday then weights on Sat or Sunday. jjpj :wiggle:

It all depends on how much you swim, how you train, and what kind of shape you are in. Straight talk: 6'1 and 225-230 = not in shape. Unless you are some sort of body builder. On a good swimmers body, you are 35-50 pounds over weight - and I bet you are that amount above what you were in your 21.5 days. How much do you train - 3x times a week is great for a Masters swimmer, but not enough to get back into racing shape for most. How do you train - our team does almost no sprint work and if we do it - it's at the end of practice. Speed needs a lot of fast swimming. Having said all that - at 32, there is no reason you can't swim under 22 again. I agree. I said earlier I have about 20 pounds to lose before I am at my ideal weight, it may be closer to 30. I dont know if 180 will ever be healthy for me without sacrificing some muscle, but I could be wrong. I was 180 in high school. Currently I am doing 3-4 evening workouts of around 3000-3500 yards, I will add saturday at some point. Our team does a decent mix of distance and sprint training, but when I start hitting a wall, I will re-focus my workout appropriately, I have plenty room to gain just getting back into shape.

I'm 6'1 and 240-245 and most likely you wouldn't say "that guy is out of shape" if you saw me swim. "out of shape" is a relative term.....compared to what? Compared to what I was at 21, then yes. Compared to most 37 year olds, I highly doubt it. The truth is somewhere in the middle. I certainly have a long way to go to where I want to be but I certainly don't consider myself out of shape based on my size...or even my athletic ability right now.

I actually set a PB in my first meet in the 50 free and my 100 free was right on target with my old times. I was out of the water for 7 years and had only been training about 6 weeks (very lightly too). I am much stronger than I was before though and stayed in good shape in the years off with basketball and weight lifting.

Thanks for all the replies. As for what shape I was in, during my 10 or so years away, I had gained about 50 pounds at the peak, but about a year ago I got really really sick and lost 40 pounds in 1 month. I gained about 15 back when my health returned, so I started swimming on my own and doing some treadmill work for a few months prior to joining the masters team. As of now I am about 225-230 and I think my ideal weight will be something like 200-205. So I dont know exactly what that means as far as "shape", but I was definitely probably in better starting shape than some. I think if I can lose about 15-20 pounds I can remove that barrier to my times. But I am going to focus on maybe 2 years to try and work really hard to get as close to my original best times as possible. I dont expect it to happen overnight. David, Welcome to Masters swimming! Although my story is different from yours and most others here (I started Masters straight out of College), I would caution you not to make your best times the end-all be-all for your swimming. Remember, you have the rest of your life to swim and live, try to enjoy the trip. That being said, HS times are a great goal to work for, as long as you realize that training now is not as simple as when you were in school. Unless you have won the lottery, you have work, family and other social commitments to deal with, so put swimming into perspective, but enjoy the time you have with it. This may seem like a lot of burden to deal with, but I have witnessed too many good people set high swimming goals for themselves. Even if they accomplished some of the goals, they burned out getting there. USMS is a lifestyle, not just a sport. We want you when you are 90, too.

I'm doing pretty well. I've dropped 8 seconds on my 50yd free in a month. Yeah, I'd say that's pretty good! Nice job and keep it up! As for "how long does it take?" My feeling is you can get back in pretty good shape in a few months. Yes, it's easier to get reasonably close to times in the 50 than longer events. Still, half a second in a 50 is quite a bit, so perhaps percentage wise it's the same. When I first started back into it I was only swimming three days a week. I found that I really needed to swim at least four to start improving substantially.

This is a great thread. I am back in after 20 years and I am finally to the point where I am beginning to do more structured workouts. Considering I'm much heavier (I won't say how much LOL) than I was when I had my best times (when I was about 14 ish) I'm doing pretty well. I've dropped 8 seconds on my 50yd free in a month. I'll have to report back after a couple of more months. I'm hoping to join a team after the first of the year.

Thanks for all the replies. As for what shape I was in, during my 10 or so years away, I had gained about 50 pounds at the peak, but about a year ago I got really really sick and lost 40 pounds in 1 month. I gained about 15 back when my health returned, so I started swimming on my own and doing some treadmill work for a few months prior to joining the masters team. As of now I am about 225-230 and I think my ideal weight will be something like 200-205. So I dont know exactly what that means as far as "shape", but I was definitely probably in better starting shape than some. I think if I can lose about 15-20 pounds I can remove that barrier to my times. But I am going to focus on maybe 2 years to try and work really hard to get as close to my original best times as possible. I dont expect it to happen overnight. Hey David, good to see you on here! You and I are in the same boat, although I'm a little heavier and "used" to be a distance guy. Just keep up with the training, try to incorporate some weights/drylands/cardio on the off days if possible (I know how its tough with kids, full time work and all). Most likely you are a good bit stronger than you were back in HS so you'll have at least one advantage there. If you want to focus on the 50 you'll want to focus in on explosiveness and turnover....off the blocks, break out, walls. Me, I just don't have the fast twitch muscle to pull it off. I may be okay for low/mid-level meets but I'd get waxed at bigger meets. I need to get back into the middle distances where I belong!

David, Welcome to Masters swimming! Although my story is different from yours and most others here (I started Masters straight out of College), I would caution you not to make your best times the end-all be-all for your swimming. Remember, you have the rest of your life to swim and live, try to enjoy the trip. That being said, HS times are a great goal to work for, as long as you realize that training now is not as simple as when you were in school. Unless you have won the lottery, you have work, family and other social commitments to deal with, so put swimming into perspective, but enjoy the time you have with it. This may seem like a lot of burden to deal with, but I have witnessed too many good people set high swimming goals for themselves. Even if they accomplished some of the goals, they burned out getting there. USMS is a lifestyle, not just a sport. We want you when you are 90, too. This is really a reply back to everyone who posted, I appreciate the encouragement. As to the comment above, I definitely agree not to focus solely on those original times, I want to do this for fitness first. Those times are just a good motivational tool for me. Even if I never reach them, I will still enjoy getting as close as I can! It would be really neat if there was a site where you could track your race times over weeks/months/years and see a graph of % change, etc etc. Then after enough data was gathered, you could see averages by age group.

It all depends on how much you swim, how you train, and what kind of shape you are in. Straight talk: 6'1 and 225-230 = not in shape. Unless you are some sort of body builder. On a good swimmers body, you are 35-50 pounds over weight - and I bet you are that amount above what you were in your 21.5 days. How much do you train - 3x times a week is great for a Masters swimmer, but not enough to get back into racing shape for most. How do you train - our team does almost no sprint work and if we do it - it's at the end of practice. Speed needs a lot of fast swimming. Having said all that - at 32, there is no reason you can't swim under 22 again.