This was originally published in our e-zine Total Swim, but is not currently available for reading, so I’m republishing it as a blog.

The primary reason most of us stop progressing is because we believe we were born "ordinary" and stop striving to improve long before reaching our "overachiever potential."

In 1963 I tried out for my grammar school swim team and was the only one cut — probably because my tryout lap prompted the coach to attempt a rescue. In 1968, as a high school senior, I failed to qualify for the NYC Catholic Schools championship (no cradle for Olympians) and happily swam in the "novice" championship, mostly with freshmen. As a college senior, in 1972, my prelim times in the Met Conference championship (Brooklyn, Lehman, Hunter — not Auburn, Arizona, Texas), were too slow to qualify for any championship final. All in all, my first decade of swimming indicated no particular promise.

So you can imagine what a heady experience it’s been, since turning 55, to have won four US Masters national open water championships, broken two US Masters Long Distance records, won a medal at the World Masters Championships, and finished 2006 as the top-ranked long distance swimmer in my age group. For good measure, I’ve swum 28.5-miles around Manhattan on two occasions.

Such late-blooming achievement raises two questions: (1) If a swimmer who showed no early promise can break a national record in middle age, what goals might be realistic for other "average" swimmers; and (2) Can we get better with age? Recent research suggests that natural gifts have much less influence than you may think. You can develop yourself in surprising ways. You can particularly transform yourself into an "elite" swimmer — if you conceive it as possible and apply as much mental, as physical, muscle.

In virtually every endeavor, most people learn quickly at first, but eventually settle into a state one swimmer called "Terminal Mediocrity." Yet a handful continue improving for years — even decades. That phenomenon has been closely studied by the Excellent Performance Movement. Anders Ericsson Ph.D., a psychology professor at Florida State University and colleagues studied fields as diverse as sports, music and chess, in which performance is relatively easy to measure and plot over time. They found that "talent" is overrated and masterful performers are most often self-made, not born.

The primary reason most of us stop progressing is because we believe we were born "ordinary" and stop striving to improve long before reaching our "overachiever potential." A study of grandmaster chess players found that players at the elite 2400-point level had no greater capacity for memory or mental processing than players at the 1600 or 2000 level. The primary difference was that lower-ranked players were satisfied with their ranking. The 2400 players always felt they could improve!

While, we may feel talented people "make it look easy," Ericsson found that the best performers practiced the most. He found that winners of piano competitions had practiced over 10,000 hours by the age of 20, compared to 2,000 to 5,000 hours for also-rans. (And we’ve heard that Michael Phelps never missed a day of practice for some 10 years – I’m talking 3650 days!)

But long hours alone don’t explain excellence. Tiger Woods may dominate the PGA Tour, but his rivals aren’t exactly slackers. The difference, Ericsson explained, is "Deliberate Practice." (I call it "Examined Swimming.") Deliberate Practice has three common elements:
1. Set specific goals.
2. Obtain immediate feedback. (In swimming that will often come from feel.)
3. Concentrate more on process than outcome. I.E. shift your focus from the pace clock to the details of each stroke.

When swimmers talk about training, it’s mostly about yards, intervals and repeat times. How often is it about what happened between the walls? You probably feel good about finishing a challenging 3000-yard workout. Would you feel as satisfied if you recognized those yards represent 2500 "same old" freestyle strokes added to your "muscle memory bank."

Expert performers seek to learn or improve with every drive, swing, or stroke, and never become complacent. Alexander Popov, who remained a dominant sprinter for an unheard-of 11 years, practiced exactingly efficient repeats (24 strokes per 50 meters – can you do that once?) tirelessly and refused to "practice struggle." When asked why Popov swam four or more hours a day to race for 48 seconds, his coach, Gennadi Touretski said "More opportunities to imprint correct technique."

The compelling message is that we should tackle new challenges in middle age and beyond — particularly those we thought required ‘talents’ we weren’t born with…like swimming well. For 99% of us, swimming well is a learned skill. Moving through water efficiently requires so many subtle skills that the combination of time and clear focus can add more to your mastery than age subtracts from your physical capacity.

The essence of Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) Swimming isn’t getting to the other end of the pool, but examining each stroke. While other swimmers are following the black line, I’m looking for opportunities to reduce drag. While others think about how far they’re going, I visualize electrical signals traveling from my brain to the nerves in my hand, deepening muscle memory, so it will persist over any distance or in any racing conditions.

Because perfection is always out of reach, I return to the pool each day anticipating new experiences, insights, and discoveries. In fact, every time I begin a practice, my explicit goal is to swim better than I ever have in my life.
Best of all, unlike the aerobic system, the passage of time will not diminish any of the qualities I’m focused on. Consequently I’ll set my sights even higher: Now that I’ve won a national championship, I’ll be aiming to become a World Champion. What’s your goal?

Portions excerpted from Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body.