What it Really Takes to be a Great Swimmer

During the Dot Com stock market bubble of the early 2000s, many many technology companies ended up dying and going bankrupt. During that time, a little-known website that sold books called Amazon lost 95% of its value and its stock price went down to around $7. Almost 20 years later, it was one of the few companies that survived and its stock price at one point was over $2,000 with a company itself worth almost two trillion dollars!

The journey of the stock price from $7 to $2,000 was not a straight line. There were many ups and downs along the way and during the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 Amazon stock got cut clean in half. 

Your swimming journey will most likely be similar to that of a company's stock price. If you do the right things, follow your coaches’ instructions, and generally give it your best effort, your stock price/swimming ability will generally go up, but there will be plenty of down days. In fact, there may be entire seasons and years where you may be in the negative. These are natural and normal and provide the best learning experiences for you to adjust your technique and training to get your swimming journey on the next bull run up!

Eventually however, everybody reaches a limit. If they have done everything right, this limit will be their maximum potential. This is where many swimmers will plateau, but it doesn't mean that their swimming journey is done. You're still a valuable teammate and a representative of your team’s efforts and values. For instance, many of the consistent Olympians rarely achieve lifetime best after their peak. But many of the names that we remember are those who stick with the sport and maintain a very high level of performance regardless. One of the best examples is Olympian Nathan Adrian. His best 100m time was performed in 2012 at the London Olympics at a time of 47.52 seconds. For the next 5 years, he would go under 48 seconds in that race a total of 10 times! Well, he never hit another lifetime best but it is an incredible achievement to be so consistent at such a high level. The lesson to take away from this is that just because you plateau doesn't mean your value as a swimmer is going down. It doesn't mean that your work is done. That's what it means to be on a swim team, your work is never done.

I don't know what your maximum potential or your maximum plateau will be. More importantly, your parents don't know, your coach doesn't know and you don't know. There is no reason to ever believe that you have reached your maximum potential and you should never stop striving for it. But at the same time, we know it will happen eventually and it doesn't have to be something to cry about. 

Everybody's maximum potential is different and mostly set in stone by our genetics. Yours might be to reach high school state, maybe Junior Nationals, maybe even the Olympics itself. What I want you to remember is that somebody else's maximum potential has nothing to do with you. Your job is to worry about your maximum potential. Your teammates and competitors should do the same. Don't be jealous of someone else's achievements. That may be their best or it may not be. If they have great talent and choose to waste it, that's their problem.

Now that we know where our journey is going to take us, the question is how do we get there? When you were first starting out in your swimming career, just like how no one knows what your maximum potential is, nobody knows what your best event will be. In this sport, we say that the event chooses the swimmer. What that means is that you will naturally be good at a certain event like distance swimming or butterfly. But we

 won't know what this is until you're deep into high school or even you’re in college. Until then, train to be the best at everything. Be a generalist swimmer and swim everything from the 50 to the mile and all the strokes. Every event has a lesson to teach and you can apply that to whatever you will be best at later on.

For instance, the 50 freestyle teaches perfection. While everyone can perform a 50 freestyle, very few can perform it perfectly. And perfectly is what is needed to be good at that event. Breaststroke may seem like a simple stroke, but technique, timing, and returning to a great streamlined position are essential to master this event. Lessons from both these events (freestyle and breaststroke) can be applied to anything from the 200 butterfly to the 500 freestyle.

As you get older and develop in your training, your natural talents will start to show and your coaches will decide when it is time to start specializing in certain races. Most of the time this happens in college. Don't be in too much of a rush to be known as a sprinter or a butterflyer or whatever. I can tell you right now, everybody thinks they are 50 freestyler and a true 50 freestyler is extremely rare. Trust me, your coach has heard the "oh I'm a sprinter" talk before…

Another important thing to know is that just because you are good as a young swimmer doesn't mean you're guaranteed to be good as an adult. Lots of studies show that top swimmers in the 8 to 10-year-old range rarely, if ever become top swimmers in the few years after. This means two things: If you are lucky enough to be one of these swimmers, the fight is not over! And if you are not one of these swimmers, your chance is still there.

We will never, and no one should ever, tell you that any goal is out of your reach. But we also want to be clear on what it takes to get there. If you want to be an Olympian, you ought to know how Olympians train and live. If you want to swim in a division 1 school, you should know the kind of sets and speed required to earn that right. Below is a list of typical training sets and racing times that are required to get you to all kinds of different levels. We’ll use the 200 freestyle as a comparison for each level:

State Meet

-        Train 4-5x per week

-        1.5-2.0 hours per day

-        Boys 200 free cut ~ 1:50.00

-        Girls 200 free cut ~ 2:00.00

-        Practice times: Holding 100s at 1:15

Sectionals

-        Train 5-6x per week

-        2 hours per day

-        Boys 200 free cut ~ 1:43.00

-        Girls 200 free cut ~ 1:53.00

-        Practice times: Holding 100s at 1:05-10

Junior Nationals

-        Train 6-8x per week

-        3-4 hours per day

-        Boys 200 free cut ~ 1:38.00

-        Girls 200 free cut ~ 1:47.00

-        Practice times: Holding 100s at 1:05

Division 1 College

-        Train 9x per week

-        3-4 hours per day with weights too

-        NCAA Boys 200 free cut ~ 1:31.00

-        NCAA Girls 200 free cut ~ 1:42.00

-        Practice times: Holding 100s at 1:00

Here are some examples of training sets NCAA champions and Olympians would routinely do (in yards):

Distance set

2x 50 @ :30 hold 25s

100 @ :60 hold 54s

150 @ 1:30 hold 1:21s

200 @ 2:00 hold 1:49

250 @ 3:00 hold 2:18

300 on 3:00 hold 2:41

Swim/kick set

10 rounds

1x 50 @ :35s kick hold 31s

1x 50 @ :30 swim hold 25s

Sprint set

4x50 @:50 from push holding 22.7s, 22.5s, 22.2s, 21.8s

3x50 @ :45 dive 1, push 2/3 holding 20.9s, 22.4s, 22.s

Whatever level you reach in your swimming journey, remember to enjoy every day. It's good to have goals, motivation, and something to strive for. But when those thoughts overtake your daily life, you'll reach the end of the journey, look back and realize you forgot to enjoy the moment!

Swimmer's Starter Guide book here!