Comment by te_chris | Hacker News Reader

Comment by te_chris | Hacker News Reader

I can relate to this.

I'm a master's swimmer, but I'm only really now picking up pace after having to take a couple of years off to properly build strength in my shoulders to carry on after a rotator cuff injury.

Around May 2016 I decided to try jumping back into the squad training after just under a year of rehab. It was my first session back; I was massively unfit. At the end of the session the coach got us to do a 100m race. I was up against a couple of guys who'd been faster than me in the session and was determined to show I hadn't slipped that much. I ended up swimming a 1:07 for the 100m free beating one of the faster guys. I couldn't believe the time. I don't really know what happened, but I REALLY wanted to win this race and just went for it. A few weeks after this my shoulder wasn't holding up to the training volume and I had to drop back into more gym rehab type stuff.

I finally got back into the pool properly around May of last year. The best time I've swum in a similar scenario since has been a 1:07 and I'm the fittest and strongest I've been for years.

Swimming is great because it doesn't reward effort as much as it rewards form. I came to swimming from a running / cycling background, and I quickly realized that extreme exertion was not the key to getting better speeds. It's only when I started to consciously focus on form and accepted being slower during training, that I saw much improvement.

Also, congrats on the 1:07! I'm not even close to that speed yet.

This sounds a lot like what Tim Ferris says about Total Immersion method / Terry Laughlin. So I'm curious if that was influential on you.

I don't agree with this sentiment, but I came to swimming from a swimming background. Maybe I just had the form down when I was so young I only ever had to think about the effort.

Was going to say that :) Once you get technique then you just have to hammer at it but with more technique

It applies to running, too. I've improved a ton after realizing the importance of training at low speeds as long as form (and yes, cardio endurance) continue to improve.

A 1:07 is really impressive after taking a year off. When I peaked as a club swimmer in high school I did :58 but that was while doing 9 practices a week. Definitely couldn't jump in a pool today and go anywhere near 1:10.

One thing I noticed was that my best races, especially distance races like the 500 or mile, were total statistic outliers relative to my other races. One year I swam the 500(SCY) for my school and averaged ~5:40 +/- 5 seconds. One night I had a really hot heat and stepped up to go 5:18. By the end of the season though I only had one race out of 10 go under 5:30.

I was never able to isolate what enabled me to unlock that extra something that night, but back then I was a teenager who rolled my eyes at 'the inner game of tennis' aspects to sports.

I swam the 500 as my main event and was fairly decent at it. It is crazy how mental that race is. I found drastically different results based on who was doing my card (for those that don't know, longer events use a plastic number to show the swimmer and the ref what lap swimmers are on). I knew a couple of people who could hold a 1:10 100yd pace for a T30, but couldn't get a 5:30 on a 500. Swimming is such a weird sport and the people are even weirder (mostly in a good way).

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