{"id":473168,"date":"2021-05-21T05:10:42","date_gmt":"2021-05-21T12:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=473168"},"modified":"2021-05-21T05:10:42","modified_gmt":"2021-05-21T12:10:42","slug":"why-graduates-choose-masters-swimming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/why-graduates-choose-masters-swimming\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Graduates Choose Masters Swimming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Why Graduates Choose Masters Swimming<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Waking up at the crack of dawn to the ambulance-like siren of an alarm clock is the lifestyle that college swimmers become quickly accustomed to. Going straight from hours of early morning practice to dryland training, and then to a second practice, already sounds like a packed day. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now add classes, club meetings and homework, and you get an idea of just how many tasks fill a college swimmer\u2019s average day. This rigorous, nonstop way of life takes a lot of motivation to adjust to and is a major reason why so many club and high school swimmers decide to hang up their cap and goggles and retire from their swimming careers when they enter college. These former swimmers do not necessarily want to stop participating in their favorite pastime. Rather, it is the fact that college swimming is not only a major time commitment, but also a physically and mentally draining one.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As high school and college seniors near graduation this spring, they find themselves face-to-face with the inevitable question of what to do next in regards to their swimming careers. High school seniors may not want to deal with the pressures of swimming for a college level team, while college seniors may not want to endure the challenges of practicing on their own. However, there is a perfect solution for both graduating classes: Masters swimming.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">U.S. Masters swimming teams exist throughout the country and offer a supportive and laid-back environment to sustain effective training, allowing this sport to continue to play a role in swimmers&#8217; lives post-graduation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cSwimming was what I knew and did,\u201d said former Bucknell University swimmer <strong>Dave Dunlap<\/strong>. \u201cI swam competitively from elementary school to college and took a few years off after graduating before starting to say, \u2018I need to get back into shape.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Offering practices from 7-9 p.m. five nights a week, Dave Dunlap\u2019s Masters team became the perfect place to foster his drive to get back in the pool. By not tracking attendance and allowing meets to be optional, Masters swimming provided him and his teammates with a shared space to encourage their love for the sport in a way that was not as overwhelming or time-consuming as college swimming tends to be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"277671\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/u-s-masters-swimming-announces-new-officers-and-award-winners\/usms-masters-swimming-logo\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/usms-masters-swimming-logo.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"800,500\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"usms-masters-swimming-logo\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;9\/17\/17&lt;br \/&gt;\nusms-masters-swimming-logo&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/usms-masters-swimming-logo-700x500.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/usms-masters-swimming-logo.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-277671 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/usms-masters-swimming-logo-700x500.jpg\" alt=\"usms-masters-swimming-logo\" width=\"386\" height=\"276\" \/>There are about 65,000 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usms.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. Masters<\/a> swimmers across the country, varying from lifelong competitive swimmers all the way to beginners and ranging in age from 18-104 years old. This nonprofit organization helps provide a welcoming environment for all levels to embrace their passion for swimming.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf you\u2019re 80 years old and just want to swim a few laps, you can get into one lane, while a former college swimmer who wants an intense workout can get into another lane,\u201d Dunlap said, in regards to the flexibility of Masters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fact that Masters swimming can be so <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/coaching-masters-swimming-a-different-sport\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">adaptable and accommodating<\/a> for such a wide variety of skill sets is part of its great appeal, as you get to decide how vigorous a workout you want and how competitive you want to be about it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI was ready to be done with the sport when I finished college. But when I started doing masters swimming, I could come and go as I pleased. I could compete however often I wanted and just having that freedom of choice was huge,\u201d <strong>Ken Dunlap<\/strong>, a former University of Virginia swimmer and younger brother of Dave Dunlap, said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Allowing swimmers to have a say in all aspects of the sport, from what they swim at meets to whether they even want to compete in competitions, is what makes Masters so refreshing. High school and college swimmers become attuned to the notion that their coaches make most of the decisions for them. In joining a high school or college team, swimmers understand that they are making a commitment to train and do their part for their team. Even if this entails having to hold tight intervals in practice or being forced to swim the 400 IM at meets, high school and college swimmers acknowledge that this is what they signed up for. It is this factor of high school and college swimming that makes Masters all the more liberating of an experience, through giving swimmers the power to be in control of what they do in the pool.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cYou can get out of it whatever you want to get out of it,\u201d Ken Dunlap said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the end of the day, that is the real beauty that comes from Masters swimming.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why Graduates Choose Masters Swimming Waking up at the crack of dawn to the ambulance-like siren of an alarm clock is the lifestyle that college swimmers become quickly accustomed to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57502,"featured_media":136520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[36297,67849,142,6123],"class_list":["post-473168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college","category-masters","tag-college-swimming","tag-graduation","tag-swimming","tag-u-s-masters-swimming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium 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and visual ways. Competing for her college\u2019s swim team, Kaitlin\u2019s main events are the 100 and 200 backstroke. Starting in June, Kaitlin will be head coach of her town\u2019s summer league swim team. Outside of the pool, Kaitlin can be found running, painting, baking or playing with her 13-year-old beagle Bear.","url":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/author\/kaitlin-balasaygun\/"}]}},"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/north-carolina-masters-relay-e1434383457977.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p56Jja-1Z5K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57502"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}