I bet I could convince even the coolest of the cool on my team to wear a watch during practice and sync it with their computer if it would further swimming research.As the self-proclaimed coolest of the cool, I'm not even with geek ...
Hmmm, I'll take that bet. I suspect you could get a few to do it for a practice or two but long term die hard swimmers will not wear watches, as a general statement...
... because I wouldn't even wear a watch for one workout because I'd fear that the imbalance would screw with my technique ... which brings me to Dr. Q:
...What would logically explain this? ...
No, it is technique. Swimming is like riding a bicycle. You get a little rusty, but you never forget. Better technique is what allows them to become elites in the first place.
... where I am in wholehearted agreement. Where the analogies/comparisons between swimming and running fall down is the environment in which we compete and the relative impact of technique on performance. While I know technique matters in running, I posit that it matters way more in swimming because of the fluid and the resistance we compete in.
People who had good technique in the past have a far shorter hurdle to clear than people who had poor technique. Go to any triathlon swim leg and you can not only see that, in general, the better technique'd swimmer wins, but, often, the better technique'd swimmers exit the water looking far more refreshed.
But, I disagree that base doesn't matter, particularly for any event over a 50 or even 50 events in LCM. Like JimRude ...
...
But the give-away, for me, is that I am much closer to my "all-time bests" in short events; the longer the distance, the further away I am.
...I have swim (B70-adjusted!) lifetime best in the 50, close to it in the 100 ("now base" not the "20 year ago base" matters now for mid-distance to distance performance.
... There may be some exceptions to this rule, but I think they are exceptions. Unless they were distance swimmers to begin with and have stayed in shape (Jeff Erwin)I don't know Jeff's best times, but, I would hazard that even his mile is off more than his 500. Maybe not, but, if so, he's in a very small group with guys like Kostich (whose 15:50-something 1650 this year blew my mind).
I bet I could convince even the coolest of the cool on my team to wear a watch during practice and sync it with their computer if it would further swimming research.As the self-proclaimed coolest of the cool, I'm not even with geek ...
Hmmm, I'll take that bet. I suspect you could get a few to do it for a practice or two but long term die hard swimmers will not wear watches, as a general statement...
... because I wouldn't even wear a watch for one workout because I'd fear that the imbalance would screw with my technique ... which brings me to Dr. Q:
...What would logically explain this? ...
No, it is technique. Swimming is like riding a bicycle. You get a little rusty, but you never forget. Better technique is what allows them to become elites in the first place.
... where I am in wholehearted agreement. Where the analogies/comparisons between swimming and running fall down is the environment in which we compete and the relative impact of technique on performance. While I know technique matters in running, I posit that it matters way more in swimming because of the fluid and the resistance we compete in.
People who had good technique in the past have a far shorter hurdle to clear than people who had poor technique. Go to any triathlon swim leg and you can not only see that, in general, the better technique'd swimmer wins, but, often, the better technique'd swimmers exit the water looking far more refreshed.
But, I disagree that base doesn't matter, particularly for any event over a 50 or even 50 events in LCM. Like JimRude ...
...
But the give-away, for me, is that I am much closer to my "all-time bests" in short events; the longer the distance, the further away I am.
...I have swim (B70-adjusted!) lifetime best in the 50, close to it in the 100 ("now base" not the "20 year ago base" matters now for mid-distance to distance performance.
... There may be some exceptions to this rule, but I think they are exceptions. Unless they were distance swimmers to begin with and have stayed in shape (Jeff Erwin)I don't know Jeff's best times, but, I would hazard that even his mile is off more than his 500. Maybe not, but, if so, he's in a very small group with guys like Kostich (whose 15:50-something 1650 this year blew my mind).
