Swimming on the web

How hard should I exercise if I want to lose weight?

The famous “fat-burning zone” is a seductive concept. Keep your workout nice and easy to maximize fat-burning, it argues – no need to waste time and effort by pushing hard.

Unfortunately, this concept suffers from flaws of logic and physiology. But the question of how hard you should exercise in order to lose the most weight remains a complicated one, and there are good reasons to include both very easy and very hard physical activity in your routine.

The full article

 

Posted at 09:25PM Aug 14, 2010 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

How do antioxidants affect my workout?

In a recent updated "Jockology" article on the Globe & Mail web site, Alex Hutchinson reviews the effect of antioxidants on exercise and health.

Recent studies suggest that antioxidants may reduce post-workout muscle soreness but may also slow down muscle repair and recovery.  Furthermore, supplementation may suppress the body's own antioxidant mechanisms.

One study showed that Vitamin C supplementation reduces the insulin regulation benefits of exercise.  It's possible that fruits and vegetables are healthy despite their antioxidants not because of it, so substituting supplements for fresh fruits and vegetables may be doubly counterproductive.

While previous studies have shown that antioxidants can boost immune function after extreme exertion, such as an ultra-marathon, a study last year of people cycling for two hours at moderate pace showed at most a weak effect.

Read the article for more details!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/running/how-do-antioxidants-affect-my-workout/article1394953/

Posted at 10:48AM Mar 17, 2010 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

Circadian rhythms and peak athletic performance

This article discusses a study that looked at the effect of time of day on athletic performance, specifically time to swim 200m. The performance gap between worst time of day (2am-8am) and best time of day (11pm) was a whopping 5.84s! Although not studied the article hypothesizes that it may be possible to shift the circadian rhythm to match competition schedule.

http://www.the-aps.org/press/journal/07/8.htm

Posted at 12:19PM Mar 12, 2010 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

Why You Should Step Up Your Workout

 

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article looking at the possible benefit of exercising at levels beyond the minimum levels often recommended by government health guidelines, guidelines often set to encourage people who don't exercise at all to do something rather than to encourage people who are already active to get maximum benefit.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704350304574638550059084962.html

Posted at 11:17AM Mar 04, 2010 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

Fingers together or slightly separated?

Two scientific studies have addressed the question of whether it is better to keep one's fingers together while pulling, or allow slight separation.  One study used computational fluid dynamics:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/j3m844150606v846/

The other study tested with a mechanical model which was dragged through the water:

http://www.posetech.com/FORUM/finger_spacing.pdf

Both studies found that optimum separation is around 10-12 degrees, or about 8mm apart, about the amount the fingers separate naturally when relaxed.

A slight complication is that the CFD approach shows a non-linear relationship with minimum propulsive force being generated with the fingers separated by 4.4mm.  This sensitivity, 3mm is good, 4.4mm is bad, 8mm is best, raises the question of how precisely swimmers can control their finger separation.  The tests also appear to have tested just the hand area, the 8.8% improvement found by the CFD study would likely be lower if the forearm had been included.

Posted at 02:11PM Feb 15, 2010 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

Common Swimming Drills

Mountain View Masters' web site has a useful list of common drills:

http://www.mvm.org/workouts-drills.php

Posted at 09:56AM Feb 12, 2010 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

Winning never gets old

The Brockville Recorder and Times covered the recent "Almost Serious" swim meet put on by the 1000 Islands Masters where two Canadian relay records in the 320+ age group were set!

http://www.recorder.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2269768

Posted at 01:01PM Jan 21, 2010 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

YouTube Revisited

Some YouTube videos about Masters Swimming.

Chlorination Episode 19: Masters Swimming

Mississauga Masters Swimming 2007

Nike Swim Commercial (not really masters but...)

US Masters Swimming - Why Will You Join?

US Masters Swimming 2009 Nationals Promo

Hamilton sets 50M Masters breaststroke record

The Masters Swim Program at Bucks County YMCA

Chlorination Episode 31: West Hollywood Aquatics

Note: did you notice the wide variance in picture video quality? It makes a huge difference if you encode into a good quality video codec before uploading!

Posted at 03:00PM Nov 11, 2008 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

The 10-Year Rule and Long Term Athlete Development

This information came from the Canadian Long Term Athlete Development web site. It is interesting because it tells you just how much of a time commitment it takes to make it to the elite level, and for those of us that didn't train in our youths just how many hours it might take to get competitive with people who did...

The web site also provides some food for thought as to what sort of development process might be ideal for people who come to swimming without an age group background. Even though adults are not going through the same development process as children and adolescents, the insight that chronological age is a weak predictor of development and performance is at least as true in Masters swimming as in youth swimming.

The 10-Year Rule

Scientific research has concluded that it takes a minimum of 10 years and 10,000 hours of training for a talented athlete to reach elite levels. For athlete and coach, this translates into slightly more than 3 hours of training or competition daily for 10 years.

This factor is supported by The Path to Excellence, which provides a comprehensive view of the development of U.S. Olympians who competed between 1984 and 1998. The results reveal that

• U.S. Olympians begin their sport participation at the average age of 12.0 for males and 11.5 for females.
• most Olympians reported a 12- to 13-year period of talent development from their sport introduction to making an Olympic team.
• olympic medallists were younger — 1.3 to 3.6 years — during the first 5 stages of development than non-medallists, suggesting that medallists were receiving motor skill development and training at an earlier age. However, caution must be taken not to fall into the trap of early specialization in late specialization sports.

http://www.ltad.ca/Content/10 Key Factors/10Year Rule.asp

The stages of development in the LTAD model are:

1. Active Start
2. FUNdamentals
3. Learning to train
4. Training to train
5. Training to compete
6. Training to win
7. Active for life

On initial inspection one might think that Masters is primarily about the Active for life stage, but for people who didn't train in their youth, some of the earlier stages seem pretty relevant. Sometimes it seems that some people assume that Masters swimmers come from an age group swimming background, but it isn't at all clear that a majority of our members, let along our potential members do.

Posted at 06:49PM Nov 09, 2008 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

Michael Phelps in Toronto, discounted rate for MSC members

Chris Smith asked me to post this. Posting it does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement of this event by Masters Swimming Canada.

Posted at 02:13PM Oct 09, 2008 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

Swimming Schedule and Results in Beijing

Wading through the event and coverage schedules can be tedious and confusing so here is the official schedule, down to the minute, when the various swimming events are taking place:

http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/Schedule/SW.shtml

Along with the start time and starting list for each heat of each event there are links to the results.

There are no guarantees that these events will be shown live on your television channel of choice of course, but it's better than only knowing that there will be some coverage of swimming sometime between 7pm and midnight!

The times are in Beijing's time zone which is 12 hours ahead of Eastern Time here in Canada so an event starting at 10am Sunday morning in Beijing will start at 10pm Saturday night in Toronto or Montreal. You can do the math for your time zone or use this converter:

worldtimeserver.com China time converter

Canadian swimmers have already broken some Canadian records! Go Canadians!

Posted at 05:30PM Aug 09, 2008 by Lindsay in Olympics  |  Comments[0]

Summer reading for swimmers - and more from the Halifax Trojan Masters August Newsletter

I got a copy of the Halifax Trojan Masters August Newsletter in my inbox yesterday and thought that a wider audience might be interested in some of the content.

---

Dear swimmer

Whether in the pool, lake, ocean or shower we can be sure that you are experiencing water in one way or another this summer - one that has not been characterized by a shortage of rain! Many of us also use the summer period to immerse ourselves in books. Accordingly I have taken the opportunity to identify seven books that take a variety of approaches to meeting the challenges that swimming can present, and to provide a brief background on each that might be sufficient a catalyst to get you turning pages. I hope you'll read on!?

Some Swimming Books For Summer
Nigel Kemp

Want to find out what its like to swim in Antarctica, the Amazon River, the English Channel, to try to qualify for the Olympics, to become an athlete, swim past 50, or finding out more about Masters swimming? One or more or all of the following books are for you.

STAYING WITH IT - ON BECOMING AN ATHLETE
by John Jerome 1982 Penguin Books
ISBN 0 14 00.870 0 224 pages

This is a book that has stood th test of time. At the age of 47 John Jerome decided to become an athlete.He put himself into serious training for Masters competition swimming - weight lifing, calisthenics, lap after lap in the pool, even attending an adult swim camp ( with sometimes hilarious results). He investigated too the science of athletic training, and came to realize that it might actually work in opposition to aging. He passed throught the stages of pain and growth to a joyful mental and physical reawakening. STAYING WITH IT is the story of that passage - a fascinating, lyrical, funny, suspenseful, and personal exploration of the ideaof athleticism (what it is, what it means, how it is achieved.) and its seeming obverse, the idea of age.

" An exiting .... warm, amusing story of victory over internal limitations... a consistently informative, invigorating performance"
- Los Angeles Times

MASTERS SWIMMING - A MANUAL
by Blythe Lucero and Cornelia Bleul-Glohlke 2006 Meyer and Mayer Sport(UK)
ISBN 1-84126-185-8 184 pages

Written jointly by a Masters swimmer and a Masters coach this publication provides an exciting and comprehensive look at the universal phenomenon of Masters swimming, its opportunities, rewards and challenges. Adult swimmers of all ages and levels of experience will find an abundance of useful information , ideas and resources in this book. The many faces of Masters participants are identified; a brief history of the sport is provided; and the question "WHY Masters swimming?" answered. Sections on readiness, working out ( including stroke analysis), the Masters swim team and sticking with it make this a winning read.

OFF THE DEEP END by W. Hodding Carter Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2008
ISBN-13:978-1-56512-564-3 209 pages

Every kid dreams of defying all odds to become the next Bruce Jenner, Mary Lou Retton or Eric Heiden. And then on to the Wheaties Box. Hodding Carter dreamed of being the next Mark Spitz ( or Michael Phelps?). Though he'd failed to qualify for the Olympics year after year after year, he never stopped believing he could get there. And as with most men, upon reaching midle age, he had trouble accepting tathis body - not to mention his hairline - was changing, and that he could no longer pass for a college kid. So Carter did what any reasonably insane erson would do. He set out to pursue his childhood dream once again of being a champion. Only now it meant being the oldest swimmer to quaify for the Olympics.This outraheous and courageous chronicle of a man chasing the gold is an exhuberant celebration of determination in the face of time and of achieving your goals at any age.

"Carter inspires people to go for their dreams at any age, and you can never get enough of that! This book is far more than a book about swimming."
Lynn Cox - author of Swimming to Antarctica

THE GREAT SWIM
by Gavin Mortimer Walker & Co NY 2008
ISBN-10: O-8027-1595-8 322 pages

During the summer of 1926, four American swimmers battled the weather, the odds, and each other to become the first woman to conquer the dangerous waters of the English Channel. In a race that captivated millions around the world, they forever changed the place of women in sport. Gertrude Ederle who shattered the men's record on August 6th, 1926 found out very quickly that her celebrity would be very fleeting and would come at a high price. A compelling read.

SWIMMING PAST 50
by Mel Goldstein & Dave Tanner 1999 Human Kinetics
ISBN 0-88011-907-1 216 pages; Illustrations 64

Swimming is a sport especially well-suited for older adults. But most books cater to younger, competitive high school and college swimmers and their coaches.

Swimming Past 50 offers age-appropriate fitness and competition training programs as well as many valuable insights for swimmers who have lapped the 50-year mark. Swimming is increasingly popular among this growing age group as it is an ideal sport for developing cardiovascular fitness while putting little or no wear and tear on bones and joints. This book provides special insights and recommendations for mature swimmers. Whether you swim to stay in shape or compete as a Masters swimmer, you'll find the material useful and accurate.

Authors Mel Goldstein and Dave Tanner know their subject matter well. Both swam at Indiana University under the tutelage of legendary coach James "Doc" Counsilman. Goldstein went on to coach Masters swimmers and to swim competitively, and he currently ranks among the top ten nationally in the 60 to 64 age group. Tanner is a world champion and All-American swimmer and also competes in a variety of endurance sports. As an exercise physiologist and high school swim coach, he has studied training methods and schedules for fitness and performance in swimming.

Whether you want to be a more efficient and fit lap swimmer or a faster competitor in the next Masters competition you enter, Swimming Past 50 is your guide to success. Training methods, stroke technique instructions, and drills are accompanied by important age considerations. The book also provides dryland and in-pool training programs for different levels of age 50 and over swimmers. As a special bonus, the authors have included sample workout schedules for the entire year.

SWIMMING TO ANTARTICA - Tales of a long distance swimmer
by Lynn Cox Harcourt 2004
ISBN 0-15-603130-2 359 pages

At age 16 legendary swimmer Lynne Cox reached her lifetime goal of setting a new wold record for an English Channel swim. So she set her goals even higher: She became the first to swimmthe Strait of magellen, narrowly escaping a shark attack off the Cape of Good Hope, and was cheered across the twenty-mile Cook Strait New Zealand by dolphins. her daring eventually led her to the 38F waters of the Bering Sea which she crossed in her usual outfit - just a swim suit, goggles and a cap. She even swam a mile in the iceberg-choked seas of the Antarctic. With a poet's eye for detail Cox shares the beauty of her time in the water in this classic sports memoir.

"Every recorded sea adventure by this celebrated American ocean swimmer is a triumph of a positive outlook, hefty preparation, and raw courage....It's the sharing of the swimming experiencethat create's the book's magic and the understanding of physilogical and mental endurance which supplies it's substance."
- The Economist

THE MAN WHO SWAM THE AMAZON - 3,274 miles of the world's deadliest river
by Martin Strel & Matthew Mohlke The Lyon Press 2008
ISBN978-1-59921-358-3 213 pages

Thirty-two hundred miles, piranha, crocodiles, anaconda, river sharks, blistering, and relentless sun, dangerous currents, river pirates and drug runners and the insideous candiru. Martin Strel swam throuh it all. Why? To call attention to the continued deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and to river pollution. This is a gripping and inspirational story of perseverence, passion and endurance: a real life odessey of a rare and driven man.

---

Canadian Amateur Sports Network (CASN/RSAC)

On the initiative of the Canadian Olympic Committee the CASN/RSAC is in the process of applying for a television network with the CRTC. CASN/RSAC will be the first 24-hour amateur sport network and will extensively and exclusively cover Canadian amateur athletes competing in both Olympic and non-Olympic sport disciplines.

For more information on the television network please visit their website www.casn-rsac.ca. They need the support of as many Canadians as possible, while you are visiting their site please take the time to fill out your letter of support for the network.

---

FREE Swimming World Magazine Olympic Games Preview Issue Now Available

PHOENIX, Arizona, August 4. THIS special Swimming World Magazine issue marks the second time that Sports Publications International has published a digital-only version of the magazine, allowing every swim fan throughout the world to download it for FREE.

Download FREE 2008 Olympic Games Preview here.

This one-of-a-kind issue, featuring Michael Phelps on the cover, is your best resource leading into the Olympic Games. The issue offers complete Event-by-Event Previews of all the pool swimming races, written by senior writer John Lohn. Steven Munatones rounds out the swimming events by telling us what to expect in his 10K Marathon Preview article.

The issue also features an article on the Top 10 Olympic Moments by Jeff Commings. Commings takes us back in time to relive historic moments in swimming, including Dawn Fraser's back-to-back-to-back gold-medal performances in the women's 100 free; Team USA's shocking win in the women's 4 x 100 meter freestyle relay over the drug-laced East Germans at the 1976 Olympics; and Janet Evans' record-breaking 400 meter free in Seoul.

For those traveling to Beijing, you'll have to read The Beijing Experience, which was written by Beijing resident Darryn Salt. For those staying home, you will enjoy reading Erica Ellis' article, All Eyes Are on the Cube, about the Olympic aquatic facility.

Ellis offers two additional stories in this issue. The first is entitled A "Clear" Concern, which discusses the challenges faced by the Olympic athletes due to the poor Beijing air quality. The next is called There's More Than Meets The Eye, which unravels the clever reason as to why there are five mascots for the Beijing Olympics.

Posted at 01:19PM Aug 06, 2008 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

Olympic Medal Count History

Here's an interesting presentation of the number of medals per country for all the past Olympics:

Olympic Medal Count History

You can use the slider at the top to move back and forth through the Olympic years and see how each country's medal counts went up or down.

Each country is represented by a circle whose size is proportionate to the number of medals they won and you can mouse over a country to get the number of gold, silver and bronze medals.

You can also chose to either have the circles placed according to where the country appears on a map of the world or in rows ordered from highest to lowest medal count.

Give it a look, it's more interesting than I make it sound describing it in text. One of the better uses of animated graphics I've seen.

Posted at 12:49PM Aug 06, 2008 by Lindsay in Olympics  |  Comments[0]

CBC Olympic Swimming Coverage

I was glancing at the swimming page on the CBC Olympic coverage site this weekend and noticed they have some basic background information on swimming. Unfortunately, some of it makes you scratch your head. The Butterfly Essentials for example is under the title More air please which may be a little cutsie for my straight-laced tastes, but the caption under the lead photo is "The butterfly is the most efficient stroke and saves a lot of energy.", huh?

Backstroke is described under the title Slow and awkward with the subtitle "Backstroke least favourite event for swimmers" and has the caption "The backstroke might be the equivalent to watching an NHL team play the dreaded neutral zone trap." I admit I don't know enough about hockey to know what they are getting at, but surely, even in hockey-loving Canada we can describe backstroke swimming better than that?

There's a page for each of the four strokes, one for IM and one for relays, and they all contain something, usually several things that make you scratch your head.

In the upper right corner there is a "Animated sport explainer" for swimming which is an animated slideshow giving the basics about the swimming events. In this case the information is ok, but the choice of animation technology is rather lacking given current web technology. At best the animated swimming just looks clunky, at worst it can be confusing or actually misleading, e.g. the backstroke and butterfly turns. Why not use video of actual swimmers? Maybe Swim Canada can have something prepared for the 2012 Games.

Just for fun I thought I would try putting together a demonstration of what a more video-based introduction to Olympic swimming might look like.

---

The Events

There are four strokes used in Olympic competition: backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle. Back, breast and fly, as they are commonly abbreviated, are contested in 100m and 200m distances, freestyle is contested in 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1500 metre distances. At the Olympics the 800m freestyle is only contested by women, the 1500m freestyle by men, at the World Championships and most other meets men and women can swim in either or both of these distance events.

In addition to the races in each stroke there are two individual medley races in which each swimmer swims all four strokes, 50m each in the 200 individual medley, 100m each in the 400 individual medley. The individual medley events are commonly referred to with the abbreviated names 200IM and 400IM. The order of the strokes in individual medley races is butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.

The final pool events are the relays, where four swimmers each swim one leg of a relay. There are three relay events swum at the Olympics, the 4x100 free relay, the 4x100 medley relay, and the 4x200 free relay. Because backstroke is swum starting in the water rather than diving from the blocks the medley relay is swum backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle.

Finally, there is a new swimming event at the Olympics starting in 2008, the 10 kilometre open water race.

The Butterfly stroke

Butterfly is the second fastest stroke after freestyle. Rather than describe it in words, here are two short videos that allow you to see what the stroke looks like, plus a complete race from last year's World Championships:

The butterfly stroke - slow motion view from various angles of Michael Phelps in Barcelona in 2003	An underwater slow motion view of Michael Phelps swimming butterfly
The Mens 100m Butterfly race at the 2007 World Championships

Starts

There are two basic types of starts, the forward start from the blocks used for the breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle strokes, and the in-the-water back start used for backstroke and medley relay races.

There are a few variations on the forward start, the most common being the grab start, with both feet at the front of the blocks, the track start, with one foot at the front, one at the back, and relay take-over starts. The second and later swimmers in a relay are allowed to initiate their start prior to the preceding swimmer touching the wall, as long as their feet don't leave the block before the previous swimmer touches. Swimmers use a variety of styles to try to maximize momentum and minimize delay, including various forms of swinging their arms.

Slow motion video of Ian Thorpe demonstrating a forward track start

Grab start (both feet at the front of the blocks)

Track start (one foot at the back of the blocks)

Backstroke start in slow motion from above water and below water

Well, it's far from complete but I think that's enough to get a feel for what it might look like. Perhaps I'll expand on it as time allows.

Posted at 02:41PM Aug 05, 2008 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]

USMS LCM Nationals Enquirer

Chris Smith suggested this entry: Nationals Enquirer which is the August 1st edition of an online newspaper being put out for people going to USMS LCM Nationals in Portland Oregon.

Pages 4 and 5 have an interesting editorial on changes in the sport of swimming and the potential impact on masters swimming.

Pages 6 and 7 feature "Coaches Corner" with hints on "Strategies for the Big Race".

Regardless of whether you are going to the meet, anyone traveling to Portland Oregon might find the sightseeing suggestions starting on page 13 interesting.

The meet runs August 14-17 and there will be additional editions of this newspaper at: http://www.lcnationals2008.net/meet_newspaper.htm

Posted at 09:19PM Aug 02, 2008 by Lindsay in General  |  Comments[0]