ugh Master coach

[geochuck]

I have been out of the water too long - last competed in May of 1998.

I have been doing a little bit of swimming when on vacation and have tried to swim with a couple of master swimming clubs, but the coaches seem as if they want you do die of a heart attack. They try to break the strokes into little pieces and even though the swimmers are in good shape they spend too much time at the end of the pool explaining to their charges how to do the work out. They also say a varied work out is more fun. I am 70years old, have bad knees and they keep pushing the breaststroke on every one. I also get sick in the stomach when I swim the backstroke, these varied workouts aren’t fun for me. I think I'll do my own thing.
George www.swimdownhill.com

[Unfit]

don't give up - tell your coach you can't do breast-stoke because of your knees, and backstroke because it makes you feel ill. any decent coach should accept that and alter the session for you. we are adults, therefore we should be more vocal about what we expect from our training sessions. good luck

[adamlelean]

Keep at it george. We had a grandmother of one of our families that liked swimming, but her local club wouldn't let her join. She like you had bad knees, so couldn't do breaststroke and had never learned fly because it wasn't invented when she started.

She swam at the Nationals under our club, became national champion in her age group for the 50 free, and then went back to her local club to ask to swim.

They then let her join.

[GettingFaster]

Coaching masters is not easy. In my club we have a very wide range of abilities, ages and aims. Our coach writes at least 3 sets each session, and even then the swimmers adapt them to meet their own needs, e.g. 4 x 100 free turns into 2 x (100 free, 100 fly) or for the longer distance swimmers turns into 1 x 400 free. Speak to the coach, see if you can work something out with him/her. Any reasonable masters coach will try to build in some flexibility to take into account their swimmers' different abilities.
As for breaking down the stroke, brilliant! For some of us who didn't actually learn to swim as a child (I see from your website this DEFINITELY doesn't apply to you!) this is exactly what we need. It might even be worth listening in to these little talks to see if there's anything you can pick up that might improve your own stroke, even if it's already pretty good. Alternatively, your coach might say, "get on with 200 free while I'm explaining the finer points to the rest of them."
Whether you stick with the club you're at or find another one, don't give up. Your experience will tell you what fun masters swimming is and you sound like a great ambassador for older swimmers. Oh, and welcome to the forums, by the way!