Whilst it would be great to have the world stop so you could train whenever you wanted to, the reality is that work, family, study and other life issues are always going to be there – and therefore for the masters swimmer – life and training need to be balanced and managed.

So what would be a great masters day: one that would allow you to do what you have to do but still create the environment to get the most out of what you want to do?

6:00am – Get up (before the kids). Grab a rug or yoga mat and do ten minutes of gentle stretching. Then work on “the basics” some good old fashioned swimming strength training exercises: sit ups, push ups, dips – all modified for your own personal level of fitness of course.

Set a target for your exercises. A good system is the units system. Each sit up / push up / dip etc is one unit.

On the first morning, aim to do a total of 30 units – this could be ten sit ups, five dips, three push ups, another ten sit ups and a few step ups.

The next morning aim for 31, then 32 the next day and so on. Soon you will be doing a hundred general body strengthening exercises with ease.

6:30am – Healthy breakfast. All the usual suspects…….whole grain toast, fruit, low fat yoghurt, muesli or a similar grain based cereal (natural not baked, fried or toasted), coffee if you want to (with low fat milk if that’s your preference).

8:00am – Getting to work or study. When time is short, the critical factor in maintaining a successful exercise program is efficiency in using your time. If you drive, park a few blocks away from the office and walk ten-fifteen minutes to work. If you can, ride a bike to work. Or if possible jog to work once or twice a week. There are plenty of creative ways to get more fitness into your life.

The critical issue is clothes!!!

Try this routine:

• Monday: Drive to work and take with you a few days of clothing changes (i.e. work clothes and training gear)
• Tuesday: Gym at lunchtime
• Wednesday: Ride to work. Ride home.
• Thursday: Lunchtime swim.
• Friday: Drive to work to collect your pile of dirty work and training clothes!

10:00am – Fuel!!! Eat something healthy and nutritious. Fruit is always a great option.

1:00pm – Lunch. How about two meat and salads sandwiches on whole wheat bread with no mayo? Or how about a tuna and salad wrapped in pita bread? Or chicken and salad on a large whole wheat bread roll? Or if you are well organized and have the opportunity how about a bowl of pasta with a tomato based sauce that you made up last night and carried to work in a plastic container to reheat in the office microwave? The principles of a great lunch are:

• Light foods (heavy foods / high fat foods tend to make you feel slow and sluggish in the afternoon)
• Plenty of salad / vegetables
• Low Fat
• High fibre
• Low salt
• Low processed sugars
• As natural as possible
• Limited use of butter, heavy sauces and mayo

If you have a flexible work environment, you may be able to fit in a short swim, a jog or a gym session at lunch time followed by a light meal – like snacking on a salad sandwich at the desk.

Lunch time fitness should focus on F.U.N. – Fitness, Unwinding (relaxing in the middle of the work day) and Natural (e.g. relaxed, easy swimming rather than hard intervals). Try to make your lunch time training a non stressful, enjoyable, relatively unstructured activity.

3:00pm – Snack time. A nice tub of low fat fruit yoghurt. Why not add a handful of fresh strawberries? Or a few slices of banana? Another good afternoon snack is breakfast cereal!! Try a bowl of a healthy nutritious cereal topped with fresh fruit and a tub of low fat yoghurt!

5:00pm – Now……….the big decision: to eat before or after training. Most Masters Programs start in the early evening after the peak training times for squad swimmers. This leaves the Masters swimmer with a choice – to eat before training or leave it to after training.

The dilemma is this:

If you eat before training, it needs to be light and healthy so you don’t feel weighted down in the water. Also you need to consider the rest of the family. It is difficult to prepare a meal for them and another meal for yourself.

If you eat after training – which usually means eating around 9-10 pm – you often feel tired and flat and you can’t be bothered preparing a healthy meal. This is why Fast Food joints near Master’s swimming programs do so well!!

The answer is both! Have a light snack before training and another (that you prepared earlier in the day) after training.

For example, if the family is having salad and pasta for dinner, eat the salad and some bread with them before training, then eat the pasta when you get home after training.

If the family is having meat or fish or chicken and vegetables for dinner, eat the vegetables with the family, then reheat the meat, chicken or fish and have it with a small salad after training.

In three words, balancing life and swimming for a Masters swimmer is about planning, planning, planning.

Wayne Goldsmith

But, eventually they ask themselves this question: How do I get faster?

What is speed?

Speed is defined in physics as:

The rate or a measure of the rate of motion, especially:

1. Distance traveled divided by the time of travel.
   1. The limit of this quotient as the time of travel becomes vanishingly small; the first derivative of distance with respect to time.
   2. The magnitude of a velocity.

But in learning to swim fast, speed has three key elements – the mechanisms of speed:

• Physical speed: Which comes from fitness, strength, power
• Technical Speed: Developing an effective stroke which is capable of propelling the body fast through water
• Mental Speed: The ability to think “fast”

How can you improve your swimming speed?

1. Swim faster

Now this seems like a dumb thing to say but one of the key principles of training is called specificity note the first 8 letters: “specific”. Specificity means that your body adapts to the specific training loads you push it through. For example, if you lift heavy weights, you get really good at lifting heavy weight. If you run long distances regularly you get really good at running long distances.

To learn how to swim fast, you need to practice swimming fast.

2. Allocate time to speed development

We know that the best time to work on speed development is at the beginning of training sessions.

This is because the ideal conditions to stimulate those three key speed mechanisms is at the beginning of training when you are fresh, relaxed and not fatigue and importantly “mentally” fast.

So you might write your workout plan as:

• Stretch
• 10 x 10 metres maximum speed (no breathing in freestyle or fly) with one minute rest between each swim
• Stretch
• Warm up and then the rest of the workout.

First things first – if speed development is your priority, give it priority in your workout.

3. “Holding Speed”

This is a critical concept. Many swimmers can sustain, long powerful strokes at slow speeds. Then, as speed increases they lose control and their stroke technique becomes short and inefficient. Coaches will often says “They can’t hold their stroke” at speed.

This means that in the effort to move their arms faster, the swimmer loses feel and “grip” on the water as the pressure (resistance) of the water gets greater.

A good way to improve this is to practice “builds”.

A “build” is a swim which starts out slow then gradually builds in speed. A good way to look at it is to think about changing gears in manual car. Over a one hundred metre swim a “build” effort might be:

• 1st 25 metres at 800 Pace (1st gear)
• 2nd 25 metres at 400 Pace (2nd gear)
• 3rd 25 metres at 200 Pace (3rd gear)
• 4th 25 metres at 100 Pace (4th gear)

However the crucial concept is not just changing pace, it is stroke efficiency as the pace increases. Ideally aim to maintain the minimum number of strokes per 25 as the speed gradually increases.

4. Wrists: Don’t break them!

The start of any movement is important. In swimming as you start to catch then pull with increasing speed, your wrists need to be strong to “hold” the water and keep your elbow in a high catch position.

The general idea is Fingers lead, Wrist leads, Elbow. Fingers lead with feel, the wrist and fingers start the catch, then the elbow position is high for maximum force production.

Some swimmers “break” their wrists i.e. they lack wrist strength so their fingers actually face up at the beginning of the pull – the exact opposite of what they are trying to achieve.

A really good way of improving wrist strength is to grab a large piece of newspaper by the corner and hold it in one hand. Use your fingers and hand only to gradually “scrunch” the newspaper up into tight little ball. Grab another sheet and do it again with the other hand.

Another good wrist strength technique is to take a small piece of wood and tie a piece of string one and a half yards long to middle so that is hangs down loosely to the ground.

To the other end of the string tie a small weight no more than ¼ pound. Now holding your arms out straight in front of you parallel to the ground that is, start rolling the stick so that the string begins to wind and the weight gets lifted from the ground. When you have rolled up all the string and the weight is almost to the stick, reverse the action and un-wind the string using your wrists only. As an added load, make sure your abdominal muscles are tight and strong throughout the movement.

5. Hand Speed = Swimming Speed

Don’t underestimate the importance of hand speed – or rather hand acceleration in fast swimming. Your hand speed will largely determine how fast you swim providing you are accelerating them while maintaining feel and pressure on the water. Just moving your hands fast achieves nothing – it is maintaining feel and pressure on the water as your hands increases speed that makes all the difference!

6. Think Fast

The mental side of fast swimming is rarely discussed but it’s your mind and your muscles working together that generate real speed.

When doing speed development work think “fast” – focus on words like “power”, “explode” “drive” “zoom” etc. Imagine yourself “flying” through the water. Thinking “fast” is a key element of going fast.

Speed is the most precious element in swimming – it’s what the drills, skills, technique work and training are all about. Give it priority and work on it every session.

Wayne Goldsmith

What about having the opportunity to coach a team of swimmers where you have no discipline issues, who turn up on time, those who remember to bring their swim gear and enjoy every moment of their training?

You are thinking, “where do I sign?!”

Coaching senior swimmers is a wonderful coaching experience because you get committed athletes with great attitudes who love swimming. What else could you want?

Coaching senior swimmers is great because:

1. They really want to be there at every training session. Many of them have had to make sacrifices and manage their day to attend workouts.
2. They “think” about their swimming. They listen to coaching instruction and apply it to their swimming training and racing.
3. They manage themselves, their eating, recovery and all aspects of their training with great passion and energy.

So they are coachable, passionate, self driven, enthusiastic and motivated…the perfect swimmers!

In general senior swimmers, let’s call them goldies (as in older swimmers who strive for gold medal performances) come in five categories:

• Former swimmers coming back into the sport after some time out of swimming
• Non swimmers looking to come into the sport for the first time for fun, fitness, health and well being
• Active sportspeople without a swimming background who are looking at swimming as a non weight bearing cross training option
• Injured active sportspeople without a swimming background looking at a non weight bearing fitness option.
• Age group Tri-athletes (who may or may not have a strong swimming background) who need to improve their swimming

Each group has a unique set of needs and challenges.

With Former swimmers coming back into the sport the key is patience. Former swimmers can sometimes aim to get back to their PB swimming performances of 10-20 years ago without preparing adequately or taking into consideration the passage of time.

The key here is thinking “I will aim to train to be the best I can be now and enjoy the thrill of moving through the water again” and not “I am going to be as fast as I was when I was 16” which is unrealistic and will only end in frustration.

Non swimmers entering the sport need to focus on two words; technique and technique (it’s so important it needs to be said twice)….and particularly on relaxation in the water. Non swimmers have a lifetime of tension in and around water to “unlearn” so in some cases coaches need to take adult first timers back to the basics of floating, breathing, kicking and having fun in the pool.

Injured or ill swimmers joining the team, need to be managed intelligently and all care taken to work with them around their limitations. To borrow a phrase from the medical community…first do no harm! It is smart to ask all goldies about their medical history and to ask for a medical clearance if you have any doubt or uncertainty about their capacity to join in with the team’s training program.

Tri-athletes should be coached not just in terms of their swimming abilities but with consideration for the overall training program, work commitments and other life pressures.

As a coach it is important that you learn as much as possible about the needs, limitations and motivations of all the goldies in your team – don’t assume everyone has come to the pool with the same attitudes and requirements.

You can start the “get to know” process by asking all new team members to complete a simple Swim Team Profile.

It’s not old old old………its old bold gold – senior swimmers are capable of achieving outstanding performances and working with them is enjoyable, challenging and very rewarding.

Wayne Goldsmith

1. How much training do I need to do?

A great question. The answer is…as much as you want to!

As a Masters swimmer you have many demands on your time – work, family and friends to name but three. Training load is very much dependent on the demands on your time and importantly your swimming goals.

It’s all about priorities.

If you have significant business commitments and this is your top priority but you also want to swim for fitness and health then training two-three times per week is fine.

If your aim is to break the Masters 100 freestyle record in your State, then the priority to your training and fitness is higher so four-five times per week might be appropriate.

Sit down before you start your swimming training program and list the top ten priorities in your life. Then based on where swimming is on your list determine how much of a priority your training needs to be.

2. How do I improve my technique?

Find a good coach. There are two basic ways to improve – the hard way and the easy way.

The hard way is to keep training and training and training and sooner or later you will improve because you are fitter, leaner and stronger. But you will also risk injury and “forcing” improvement by simply increasing training volume will lead to a dead end as ultimately your speed will be limited by your technique.

The easy way is to find a good coach and spend time every workout improving your technique. In the long term this is the path to speed and success.

3. What sort of training do I need to do?

For most Masters swimmers training should consist of four basic training types:

• Speed development: Short, explosive efforts over 10-15 metres with good technique.
• Endurance development: Long, slow, rhythmic, relaxed swimming over long distances at low intensity
• Technique development: Skills, drills and technique work Race specific work, doing repeats at your target race pace over ¼ and ½ race instances.

Yes I know about “anaerobic threshold” and “VO2 max” and “lactate tolerance” and all that stuff but for most Masters swimmers they are just not relevant. Keep it simple.

Develop great technique. Get fit. Get faster. Learn how to apply it specifically to your target race. That’s about it.

4. I only have one hour to train, two times each week what should I be doing?

If you only have one hour to train two times each week focus on the big three:

Speed, Endurance, Technique and Skills

5. Do I need any special foods or supplements?

No. Unless you have a food deficiency or under lying illness or disease special diets, miracle supplements and dynamic sports foods only make your urine more expensive and colorful!

6. What do I need to start swimming?

The will and commitment to stick to it! Swim suits help, a good pair of goggles, and a silicon cap is useful. But the most important thing is to just get to the pool and start swimming. Your desire to start swimming and get better at it is the most important piece of swimming equipment you can buy.

7. Do I need to join a Master’s team?

You don’t need to – especially if you are self motivated and enjoy training by yourself. The reality is that some Masters swimmers train by themselves because they enjoy the peace and quiet of training alone, they enjoy their “own time and own space” (busy moms particularly!!!).

However, other people love the positive environment of working out with others and the camaraderie, support and friendship that exists in most Masters swim teams.

Give it a try. Go to a Masters training session. If you don’t like it, try another team. If you still don’t like it, maybe it’s not for you. Or maybe form your own Masters group and encourage people who share your philosophy to join.

8. I haven’t done any athletic training since College. Do I need to see my doctor before starting a swimming program?

That’s a great idea; particularly if you are over 40, over weight and have a history of illness or significant injury.

9. What equipment do I need?

A basic swim bag would contain:

• Swim suit: Good quality, comfortable and made to last.
• Goggles: Not the most expensive or the ones worn by the world record holder – the most comfortable for you.
• Silicon Cap: They last longer and are easier to clean
• Fins: (not too big – this is swimming not snorkeling)
• A Pull Buoy
• Two Large Towels: You can never have enough towels.
• A Large Water Bottle: To drink during and after training
• Two Pieces of Fruit: To eat immediately after training to help your body recover.

The great thing about being a Masters “Mom” or “Dad” is that the kids always know what to buy you for birthdays, Christmas, Mothers’ Day etc…Swim Gear!!!

10. How do I fit in swimming with my work, family and other commitments?

It’s tough, but if it’s important you will find time.
Start by planning your week.

Write in the things you have to do, e.g. work.

Then write in the things you want to do, e.g. swimming, family time.

Then, make a commitment to yourself to ensure the things you want to do are as important in your plan as the things you have to do.

Wayne Goldsmith