Sports Medicine & Science presentations

Would love to hear presentations on ideal water temperature and swim training. It would be great to hear about how the body handles training at 78 versus how the body handles training at 88. Differences in heart rate, core temperature, heart rhythm, lactate, and CO2 would be interesting.

Nutrition and muscle recovery as we age would be a good topic too.

Nutrition and muscle recovery as we age would be a good topic too. Recovery is always uppermost in my mind as well. I'd be interesting in knowing more about how whether and how women taper differently than men. Do we need less rest or not? When should women stop weights during taper? Should weights be tapered too? Do you need more or less of a taper as you age?

Recovery is always uppermost in my mind as well. I'd be interesting in knowing more about how whether and how women taper differently than men. Do we need less rest or not? When should women stop weights during taper? Should weights be tapered too? Do you need more or less of a taper as you age? I agree Fort. This would be a very interesting topic. Possibly something related to muscle trigger points and Active Release Therapy. How to effectively treat muscle issues before they become bigger problems. I know I have had to do alot of research on the subject and have had used it successfully many times.

Q raises an interesting point. Perhaps you could video tape the presentation and put it up in segments on YouTube. There are a ton of topics that I would be interested in hearing about. For example, the latest thinking on swimmers shoulder, ways to prevent, ways to treat, nitroglycerine patches vs. anti-inflamatories. Ditto for any other common swimming overuse injuries, from breaststrokers knee to lower back pain. Maybe something on nutrition and timing thereof. When I interviewed Dara Torres for an article, she was taking all kinds of amino acids and "greens" type supplements that she swore by. Then you hear about great distance runners who basically live on Twinkies. Is "optimal" nutrition just a way of selling expensive products, with most of the benefit being a placebo effect? Or have nutritional interventions been proven in trials to make a difference? (We all remember how much Vitamin E was touted, only to find out it does nothing for your heart and may actually increase cancer rates slightly.) Finally, how about something on the physiology of aging endurance and sprint capacity--and anything proven to slow down the deterioration (or perhaps even override it?) This might not be of tremendous interest to the 40 year old and younger swimmers, but it becomes of increasing interest in later age groups.

Pinot Noir as a recovery drink. How alcohol affects our performance and things to keep in mind during post meet celebrations. Biomechanics is always interesting, but there is nothing specific from the field that I am really interested in. Pinot Noir is good but how about Cab Sav. Let's not discriminate. :wine:

How about current thinking on the biomechanics of swimming propulsion? Actually, I'd be up for anything dealing with swimming biomechanics - the math is more interesting than on the physiology side. -LBJ

Nutrition and muscle recovery as we age would be a good topic too. I like this topic very much, but I think it will be too broad. Some subtopics inside Donna's topic I would like to see: Muscle recovery differences at varying work loads. How quickly are elite swimmers recovering compared to competitive masters compared to non-competitive masters and what factors age plays in those times. Is swimming enough? The benefits of multiple discipline exercise over single discipline exercise programs as we age. The differing nutritional recovery needs comparing post practice to post meet. Portable meals, pack it or purchase it. How to meet the nutritional needs of the masters swimmer on he go. Pinot Noir as a recovery drink. How alcohol affects our performance and things to keep in mind during post meet celebrations. Biomechanics is always interesting, but there is nothing specific from the field that I am really interested in. For those not going to nationals, will the information be available by other means?

I think there have been some great suggestions and I don't have anything specific to add at this point though I'll probably think of some. But I have a general comment: given that only a minority of USMS members compete (about one-third?) in meets, and probably only a subset of them is really deadly serious about their performance, I would probably favor topics that are of general interest to all our membership, not just topics relating to peak performances. (Of course, there is some overlap possible.) For those not going to nationals, will the information be available by other means? Good point. For the last two conventions, I've heard some good presentations by Jim Miller and others. It would be nice to have a spot on the site to archive all of these. it would be interesting to see the effects of alcohol on recovery and peak training performance. And I don't mean beer relays. I do!

Joking aside, it would be interesting to see the effects of alcohol on recovery and peak training performance. And I don't mean beer relays. I don't know about this, but I can tell you the effect of peak training performance has on alcohol: it makes that first beer taste really damn good.