2010 SCM Zone Championships

Though I agree that there is clearly an age effect across the population, I would argue that: 1) this is mitigated significantly by ongoing training 2) that when swimmers age up, they often--consciously or not--increase their training intensity in the hopes of doing really spectacularly when they become the new babies of the older age; thus the "age effect" is more likely to be seen, practically speaking, in the middle to later part of the age group, that most of us get a "motivational bump" in the first part Keep in mind that the "record curves" used to adjust for aging were derived from masters swimmers. Presumably record-holders train fairly regularly (or they generally wouldn't hold records, Paul Smith notwithstanding). So I think your first point is not correct. As to the second, that's going to depend on the individual of course. The "age effect" predicted by the record curves is clearly an average, it doesn't mean you can't temporarily reverse course on that famed downhill slide. I will point out one observation that probably won't make people feel all that good about aging: as you get older, the effect seems to snowball. I certainly see it all the time in the upper age groups (75+) where yearly increases of 1-2 sec per 50 are easily the norm. What's more, unfortunately, the *rate* of the increase is also seen to increase with age. Looking at the men's SCY 50 and 100 free (where there are lots of competitors and so the data will be better), for example, here are the predicted relative time increases per year as one ages: age 20: +0.05% for 50 free, +0.08% for 100 free age 30: 0.11%, 0.15% age 40: 0.20%, 0.26% age 50: 0.36%, 0.45% age 60: 0.65%, 0.77% age 70: 1.11%, 1.26% age 80: 1.81%, 1.94% age 90: 2.72%, 2.79% age 100: 3.72%, 3.68% So as stellar a physical example as Rich Abrahams is, I think it is quite questionable to completely disregard all effects of aging (sorry, Rich). But as I mentioned, the above are just *averages* and it is entirely possible that Rich momentarily swam against the onrushing tide of aging...

Though I agree that there is clearly an age effect across the population, I would argue that: 1) this is mitigated significantly by ongoing training 2) that when swimmers age up, they often--consciously or not--increase their training intensity in the hopes of doing really spectacularly when they become the new babies of the older age; thus the "age effect" is more likely to be seen, practically speaking, in the middle to later part of the age group, that most of us get a "motivational bump" in the first part Keep in mind that the "record curves" used to adjust for aging were derived from masters swimmers. Presumably record-holders train fairly regularly (or they generally wouldn't hold records, Paul Smith notwithstanding). So I think your first point is not correct. As to the second, that's going to depend on the individual of course. The "age effect" predicted by the record curves is clearly an average, it doesn't mean you can't temporarily reverse course on that famed downhill slide. I will point out one observation that probably won't make people feel all that good about aging: as you get older, the effect seems to snowball. I certainly see it all the time in the upper age groups (75+) where yearly increases of 1-2 sec per 50 are easily the norm. What's more, unfortunately, the *rate* of the increase is also seen to increase with age. Looking at the men's SCY 50 and 100 free (where there are lots of competitors and so the data will be better), for example, here are the predicted relative time increases per year as one ages: age 20: +0.05% for 50 free, +0.08% for 100 free age 30: 0.11%, 0.15% age 40: 0.20%, 0.26% age 50: 0.36%, 0.45% age 60: 0.65%, 0.77% age 70: 1.11%, 1.26% age 80: 1.81%, 1.94% age 90: 2.72%, 2.79% age 100: 3.72%, 3.68% So as stellar a physical example as Rich Abrahams is, I think it is quite questionable to completely disregard all effects of aging (sorry, Rich). But as I mentioned, the above are just *averages* and it is entirely possible that Rich momentarily swam against the onrushing tide of aging...