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How to become an Olympic Swimmer

Swimming, self-propulsion through water, often as a form of recreation or exercise or as a competitive sport. Swimming calls more muscles into play with exact coordination than most other sports, and its high repetition of movement makes it extremely beneficial to the cardiovascular system.

The first step is to get swimming. You could join a local swim team with your park and recreation department, school, YMCA, or a USA Swimming club.

Most teams will have different levels based on swimmers ages, skills, and speeds. As you improve, you will advance to keep you challenged ? and to keep you improving. Some swim programs specialize in younger or novice level swimmers, then suggest you move to a different team when you reach a certain level. Others are set-up as ?cradle-to-grave? programs, offering learn-to-swim, novice competitive, advanced competitive, and masters (adult) lessons or practices.

Governing Body for the Sport

USA Swimming is national governing body for swimming in the USA. F?d?ration Internationale de Natation (FINA) is the international governing body for swimming and they manage swimming at the Olympic games. FINA also writes the rules used in the Olympic Games. Those same stroke rules are followed by USA Swimming.

Minimum Requirements to be on the Olympic Team

To make the USA Olympic Swimming Team, a swimmer must finish first or second at the USA Swimming Olympic Trials Swim Meet and they must be a US citizen. FINA rules allow a maximum team size of 52 swimmers (26 men and 26 women). Each country has a maximum of two entries in each of 26 individual events (13 men and 13 women) and one entry in each of the six relays (3 men and 3 women).

Besides individual country?s possible Olympic Trials qualifying standards, there are A and B level minimum Olympic Swimming Qualifying standards for swimmers to take part in the Olympic Games. To quote the FINA Olympic qualifying procedures:

?How to Qualify for Olympic Swimming

How do swimmers become Olympic Swimmers? Hard work, dedication, commitment, ability, skills, speed, endurance, and a little luck. The biggest factor, though, might be the dream. The desire. An Olympic swimmer has to have the goal, the vision, that being an Olympic swimmer is what they want to have happen. That is the real first step on the way to Olympic swimming.Swim On!

Instructions

1. Choose the event in which you excel. The Olympic events are freestyle (50, 100, 200, 400 and 800 meters for women and men and up to 1500 meters for men), backstroke (100 and 200 meters), breast stroke (100 and 200 meters), butterfly (100 and 200 meters) and 200 and 400 meter individual medleys.

2. join your school swimming team if your school offers one. If not, join the one at the local YMCA or Boys and Girls Club.

3. Practice all the time. Practice while the team practices, but also practice on your own. Even when you?re on vacation or when the swimming season?s passed, find a pool, stay in shape and work on improving your times.

4. Advance from competitive level to competitive level. As you grow older and your fitness level increases, you can compete in more advanced competitions.

5. Find the Local Swimming Committee in your area. That information is available at the USA Swimming website. As the site states, ?Each LSC is responsible for administering USA Swimming activities in a defined geographical area and has its own set of bylaws under which it operates.? Through the LSC, you can find swim clubs in the area that offer you an opportunity to advance in USA Swimming recognized events. You need to become a member before doing so.?Meet the Olympic Trails qualifying times for your event. Once you succeed in doing this, you are eligible to compete in the U.S. Olympic trials. The team will consist of 26 men and 260 women.

?Nutrition

Nutrition is an important part of training for any Olympic athlete but even more so for swimmers. Swimming burns a lot of calories. A 150-pound body doing vigorous freestyle laps can burn nearly 700 calories in an hour. Many Olympic swimmers will swim more than six or seven miles a week. Nutrition should be targeted to build a balance between endurance and muscle strength because of the stringent training requirements. Protein, protein supplements and carbohydrates should be a major part of the diet. Michael Phelps consumed 12,000 calories a day, six times the amount of an average man?s intake.

Weight training for Olympic swimmers should be focused on building long and strong muscles. A swimmer?s body should have enough strength to cut through water resistance while providing enough flexibility to perform repetitive motions like the various swimming strokes. The legs should be strong enough to get a good push off of the walls for turns, yet able to maintain the propelling kicks. Some lifting techniques for Olympic swimmers focus on range of motion, especially with the arms. All repetitions should be performed at their maximum length with medium to heavy resistance. One exercise involves strengthening the shoulders through standing raises. Swimmers stand with their feet one foot apart while holding dumbbells at thigh level in each hand. They raise their arms slowly to shoulder level with palms facing each other. Then they turn their palms to face the floor and slowly lower the weights. Weight training should be at least 30 minutes a day (not including warm-ups), two times a week.

* Forty-one-year-old Dana Torres emphasized recovery as part of her Olympic training. She became the oldest person to win a swimming medal in the 2008 Olympics. Torres included massages as part of her regular workout, aiding the muscles in recovering faster from strenuous workouts. Her massages were not the spa-type of relaxing rub downs. They often included two people standing on and kneading her muscles, applying great pressure. Ice baths are also a good way to recover. Since swimming requires use of almost all the major muscle groups, it isn?t uncommon for there to be great soreness after training. Ice baths help reduce swelling and soreness faster, allowing Olympic swimmers to train more often throughout the week.

* Swimming in a crowded gym with thousands of onlookers may seem like a lot of pressure for an athlete. With the entire world watching, the pressure can multiply a hundred fold. That?s why mental toughness is also a part of Olympic training. From sun up to sun down, the focus on swimming could easily be taken away by a multitude of distractions. Interviews, autographs, tours, crowds and competing against the best in the world can?t come easy. Olympic swimmers must strengthen their minds to focus on the event at hand. Some swimmers develop routines like listening to certain songs or self-talk before hitting the water.

* Olympic swimmers don?t just hit the pool and do laps all day; they practice all the techniques needed to shave off those precious seconds from their times. Almost every aspect of swimming is studied, from the mechanics of the stroke to the push-off at the end of each lap. For example, olympic coaches may focus on sculling, the action of moving your hands near your head to complete a stroke. The amount of time an Olympic swimmer spends in a pool training depends on the events they swim. Dana Torres, a sprint swimmer, trained at least two hours a day swimming 5,000 meters worth of specialized laps and drills. Famed Olympian Janet Evans, who set world records in middle and long-distance events, swam up to 12 miles a day when she trained. Rebecca Adlington, another competitive swimmer, reported she swam at least one two-hour session per day in the pool, with a few days of two two-hour sessions. Each session involved 3,000 to 8,000 meters of swimming and water aerobics.

Weight Training

Recovery

Mental Training

Swimming

Tips to develop your swimming?

Here is our simple guide to help you improve your swimming.

* Start and finish each session with a smile on your face.

* There are two important principles that apply to everyone in the world who swims in water.

* Water is 80 times more dense than air, so being stronger in the water will not necessarily help. Being streamlined through the

water is ?the single biggest improvement you can make. Streamlining is the holy grail of all swimmers, skiers, Formula 1 cars and ? America?s Cup yachts.

* Swim faster than you normally do and take more rest! If you are doing more than 4-6 lengths without stopping, you are doing too ? much! Swim two or four lengths at a time, harder than usual, then rest.

* The reason people feel frustrated with swimming is because they don?t know how to improve. Swimming requires skill and that skill needs to be practiced.

* It appears odd, but swimming fewer lengths, with more rest, but at a slightly higher level, will have a far more beneficial impact on both technique and general fitness for the period of time you are in the water, than just swimming up and down non stop.

* Remember it?s nothing to do with how far you swim, but how well you swim.

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Source: http://blogs.studentsarea.com/olympic-swimmer/

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