On a serious level, I mean. There’s a thread somewhere else here about people who are Olympic athletes in more than one sport, where the pentathlon and biathlon were also discussed. With regards to the biathlon, it was said there and I’ve heard it said elsewhere that you can learn to shoot, ride, fence, and run as an adult, but if you don’t already swim at a high competitive level they can’t really teach you that. Is that true? I assume that “as an adult” means “after high school” in this scenario, right?
In other words, I see no reason why if I dedicated my life to shooting starting now (assuming I had true binocular vision and no job) that I, given sufficient natural talent, couldn’t learn to be an Olympic shooter. I don’t know about the other sports. I do, however, kind of have a sense that I couldn’t learn to swim at that level at this point. On the other hand, most of the runners and cyclists and such that I know (who compete in races) only started as adults. They may not be Olympic caliber, but they compete regularly. Don’t know any grownup swimming competitors, which might be another aspect of it - it’s hard, I guess, to get into competitive swimming as an adult.
So, can you start your Olympic swimming career at age 25? Can you start any Olympic career at that age? (I’m thinking that events like archery and shooting, as well as some of the winter games like bobsledding and maybe skiing might have wider age ranges.)
I’m just brainstorming here, but since all the swimmers I’ve been watching this week have had enormous shoulders and long bodies, and since swimming tends to make the body’s long muscles (arms and legs) even longer, as opposed to other sports where the muscles tend to develop compact and muscular (horseback riding does this), I’m going to guess that maybe it’s like with ballet, where you have to start early, because what you’re basically doing is taking a span of years to completely reshape the entire body, its entire biomechanics. Ballet dancers must develop the “dancer’s turnout”, which is an actual rotation of the hips, and you have to get 'em early. Maybe swimmers have something similar going on, and maybe by the time you’re out of adolescence, and your body has basically “set”, the window of opportunity for doing that has passed. Maybe you can learn to swim as an adult, and even swim competitively, but maybe not at the level of the Olympics, where you’d be up against swimmers who did put in the years from a very young age, developing their entire bodies to be swimming machines.
All of the competitive swimmers that I know (and I know quite a few - I used to be a Masters Swim Club groupie) had really deep chests from over developed lungs (i.e. the rib cage expands to accomodate the larger than usual lungs), so I think you might be on to something here.
I’ve got me a set of these. I’ve never had a new doctor fail to make a comment when I’m asked to “take a deep breath”. I had a bad cough a while back (and I cough loud) and the doctor gave me a lung test. I blew so hard the little needle hit the back of the device. And it’s been ten years since I swam competitively, but I did it from the time I was 5. No one else in my family has lungs like mine (and the ribcage to go with it)
I also still have ridiculously flexible shoulders, which may also be trained from youth like a dancer’s turnout. Most of the strokes require a somewhat unnatural motion for your average person off the street.
so, could mrAru win the lottery and train up to be competitive? He swam in HS competitively … and what about something like shooting? He used to work in a shooting club and said that a number of the match grade competitors were ancient older than dirt retired guys… and he is still a very good shot =)
I could [if I didnt have a badly damaged back, and a handicapping condition in my feet] probably get back to competitive level in dressage again. I still have the kinesthetic memories to work with, and would just need a good mount and training time.