Commentary by Ailish Dougherty, Swimming World College Intern
Sophomore Division III distance swimmer Christiana Hug can still recall what one teammate said to her after her mile at last year’s NESCAC swimming championships.
“I was counting your strokes, and you took 20 strokes on every single lap. That must’ve been tiring!”
It took a teammate’s eagle eyes to point out something that Hug had been doing wrong for all her years as a competitive swimmer, but that was so ingrained in her swimming routine that she hadn’t even thought to change. Over the past year, Hug made it her mission to reduce her stroke count in her distance races by increasing her length and working on further off-the-walls.
During weekly doubles with a low coach-to-swimmer ratio, she was able to focus specifically on these goals without having to worry about making an interval or keeping up with her teammates. One drill that she found especially helpful was the Golf Drill, in which she counted her strokes during a 50 freestyle, recorded her time, and added the numbers together. The goal of the drill is to decrease your “score” with each successive 50.
With a year’s worth of work under her belt, Hug went in to her mile at this past NESCAC’s with determination to decrease her stroke count but still swim a personal best time. During the race, she could see her teammates lining the side of the pool, buzzing with excitement. As she came out from behind the blocks after her personal record-setting race, the same teammate from a year before approached her elatedly:
“You only took 16 strokes per lap during that race! I don’t know how you did it!”
With a lot of determination and focus. Stephanie Nasson, Olympic trials qualifier and coach at Kingfish Swimming, explains the difficulty of changing technique as late in the game as college: “It is so much harder to improve on technique the older you get because of habit, and even if you manage to modify an aspect of your stroke, it will probably only be a slight change.”
Most swimmers and coaches know that the older you get, the more difficult it is to adjust things about your stroke, learn new skills, and evolve as a swimmer. Drastic changes are usually reserved for young swimmers, who are in the midst of learning and developing their swimming habits.
Jose Avila, a college freshman hailing from Parkland Aquatic Club, describes how hard he had to work to fix his freestyle: “It took me all summer. I was doing 3,000 yards of catch-up drill a day, and I’m still working on correcting my catch.”
He mentioned how it was really only possible for him to improve upon technique during the off-season, because of his drive to keep up with teammates and to stay with the intervals during a hard set in-season. “I ended up going back to my sloppy ways to make the times,” Avila recalls.
Drill and technique work are often correlated with going slower, which has a negative connotation for most swimmers. It is easy for an older swimmer to get frustrated with slower times when they are changing up their stroke completely. However, as Hug found, the sacrifice can pay dividends with faster times in the end.
Repetition, focus, and patience are key when working on technique improvements as an older swimmer. Furthermore, while most coaches may not have the time or resources to fix every single one of their swimmers’ strokes, it is up to the swimmer to go the extra mile to find time to focus their training.
Although it will certainly be difficult, all hope is not lost for those older swimmers who want to overhaul their stroke. Old dogs can absolutely learn new tricks, with a little bit of patience, focus, and support.
All swimming and dryland training and instruction should be performed under the supervision of a qualified coach or instructor, and in circumstances that ensure the safety of participants.