Elitism in Masters Swimming

Steve, You may (or may not) be able to speed up the descent of your times. I am not sure I'm an elite swimmer yet in my age group (50-54), but I came back after a 24 year layoff and in less than a year progressed from a 1:03 for the 100SCY down to 56.9 in about 1 year. Having a feel for the water, and some time when I was young hardwiring the basics, definitely helps - but so does training in a way that gives you the maximum benefit. Ande has an important tip (among many in his Swim Faster Faster series) -- anything you measure will improve if you focus on it and work hard. When I started up again I knew I needed to work on my aerobic swimming fitness, my anaerobic swimming fitness, and build muscles that I hadn't been using. My workouts interleaved these three components as much as possible, pushing myself on distance work, interval work (50's, 100's and eventually 200's), and stroke mechanics. I kept track of all times in my workouts. I tried to stay clear of garbage yards, only doing as much as I could with reasonable form, and pushing hard (defined differently for each distance). At the start my workouts would only be 1000 to 1600 yd. One year later they average about 2700 yds. I kept track of how many yards I did within 2-sec ranges for my 100 yd. times in each workout. I tried to have a pyramid with some yardage at my fastest range, and successively more in each higher range up to my cutoff speed (the 1000 yd rate for any time period). As a key measure, I tried to get my pulse into the 160-170 range at least once each workout, preferably toward the end where I was pushing when it was hardest to do so. As soon as I could finish 500 yds in less than 7:30 ( not far from your 9:00 for 500m), I made sure to do a 500 yd time trial as part of my workout at least once a week. At least one other day I tried to see how far I could go just slightly off that 500 pace. By the time I could do 1000 yds in 14 minutes. I did time trials for the 500 and the 1000 each week as part of separate workouts. At the same time, in each workout, I would do at least 3 x 100 yds on whatever interval I could stand -- to start it was 2:00, but I pushed it down to 1:50, and then 1:40 as soon as I could without falling too far behind in my 100 yd. time in these. Now it is often 1:30. The key here is to make these fast, but keep then close in times -- and slowly bring these times down over the months while slowly bringing the interval time down. At the end of the first month I could do 1:15's or 1:16's on an interval of 2:00. Now, one year later, I'm down to 1:09 on 1:30. These interval sets, especially the last one I can handle, are where my pulse hits maximum and it's mind over matter with every stroke. But I can feel the payoff as the weeks go by. I also make sure I recover before moving on to the next set where I push myself (pulse down to 90 works for me). By keeping track of all my workouts on a spreadsheet I could see that I had a natural 9 to 11 week cycle of hitting a temporary plateau (as well as feeling really tired) and then moving on to the next level. I used this to modify my training to take advantage of where I was in each cycle and get the most out of it without breaking down. One caveat. I had some incredibly fitful sleep during the first six months as my muscles were building, and repairing, and the heat output and some general muscular discomfort was quite a lot to handle. But I only went as fast as I felt I could go without overstressing my shoulders -- I backed off if I felt any twinges. Eventually my shoulders were strong enough that they felt pretty well protected and could be more easily pushed. I'm not a coach, and not yet an elite swimmer. This kind of approach may not work for everyone, and it may just work for me, but I think that working simultaneously on pushing yourself on distances and on interval work may lead to more rapid improvement. The problem with muscles is that they become habituated to doing anything, and to get them to go to the next level you need to convince them that it is expected of them. To do that you need focus, and you need a mix of little recovery time within a set, more recovery time between sets, and distance with no break. (Attached graph of best 100 yd times over the past year) What an awesome post! Thanks for sharing!

Steve, You may (or may not) be able to speed up the descent of your times. I am not sure I'm an elite swimmer yet in my age group (50-54), but I came back after a 24 year layoff and in less than a year progressed from a 1:03 for the 100SCY down to 56.9 in about 1 year. Having a feel for the water, and some time when I was young hardwiring the basics, definitely helps - but so does training in a way that gives you the maximum benefit. Ande has an important tip (among many in his Swim Faster Faster series) -- anything you measure will improve if you focus on it and work hard. When I started up again I knew I needed to work on my aerobic swimming fitness, my anaerobic swimming fitness, and build muscles that I hadn't been using. My workouts interleaved these three components as much as possible, pushing myself on distance work, interval work (50's, 100's and eventually 200's), and stroke mechanics. I kept track of all times in my workouts. I tried to stay clear of garbage yards, only doing as much as I could with reasonable form, and pushing hard (defined differently for each distance). At the start my workouts would only be 1000 to 1600 yd. One year later they average about 2700 yds. I kept track of how many yards I did within 2-sec ranges for my 100 yd. times in each workout. I tried to have a pyramid with some yardage at my fastest range, and successively more in each higher range up to my cutoff speed (the 1000 yd rate for any time period). As a key measure, I tried to get my pulse into the 160-170 range at least once each workout, preferably toward the end where I was pushing when it was hardest to do so. As soon as I could finish 500 yds in less than 7:30 ( not far from your 9:00 for 500m), I made sure to do a 500 yd time trial as part of my workout at least once a week. At least one other day I tried to see how far I could go just slightly off that 500 pace. By the time I could do 1000 yds in 14 minutes. I did time trials for the 500 and the 1000 each week as part of separate workouts. At the same time, in each workout, I would do at least 3 x 100 yds on whatever interval I could stand -- to start it was 2:00, but I pushed it down to 1:50, and then 1:40 as soon as I could without falling too far behind in my 100 yd. time in these. Now it is often 1:30. The key here is to make these fast, but keep then close in times -- and slowly bring these times down over the months while slowly bringing the interval time down. At the end of the first month I could do 1:15's or 1:16's on an interval of 2:00. Now, one year later, I'm down to 1:09 on 1:30. These interval sets, especially the last one I can handle, are where my pulse hits maximum and it's mind over matter with every stroke. But I can feel the payoff as the weeks go by. I also make sure I recover before moving on to the next set where I push myself (pulse down to 90 works for me). By keeping track of all my workouts on a spreadsheet I could see that I had a natural 9 to 11 week cycle of hitting a temporary plateau (as well as feeling really tired) and then moving on to the next level. I used this to modify my training to take advantage of where I was in each cycle and get the most out of it without breaking down. One caveat. I had some incredibly fitful sleep during the first six months as my muscles were building, and repairing, and the heat output and some general muscular discomfort was quite a lot to handle. But I only went as fast as I felt I could go without overstressing my shoulders -- I backed off if I felt any twinges. Eventually my shoulders were strong enough that they felt pretty well protected and could be more easily pushed. I'm not a coach, and not yet an elite swimmer. This kind of approach may not work for everyone, and it may just work for me, but I think that working simultaneously on pushing yourself on distances and on interval work may lead to more rapid improvement. The problem with muscles is that they become habituated to doing anything, and to get them to go to the next level you need to convince them that it is expected of them. To do that you need focus, and you need a mix of little recovery time within a set, more recovery time between sets, and distance with no break. (Attached graph of best 100 yd times over the past year) What an awesome post! Thanks for sharing!