Articles and Videos
Can I Swim After Getting My Ears Pierced?
Any kind of piercing, whether the traditional earlobe kind or on a less common location on the body, can expand your world of jewelry and accessorizing fun. But they can also open a chance of infection. And swimming can increase your risk of developing infections after a piercing.
How to Catch a Wave in Open Water Swimming
There’s no feeling like catching a wave into shore and surging onto the beach.
How You Can Achieve Peak Swimming Fitness After Turning 40
Gone are the days when turning 40 meant you were “over the hill.” Now, 40 is the new 30, and for many of us, we’re just hitting our stride as we enter our fourth decade.
Ask the Coach: Mark Stori
Friday morning is sprint freestyle day at Santa Barbara Masters. Whether the majority of those attending favor distance, the 200 backstroke, or the 400 IM, everyone is working on speed that day under Coach Mark Stori.
How to Do Breaststroke Kick
You may struggle to perfect your breaststroke kick because of how different it is from flutter and butterfly kick. Here are the key skills for developing an effective breaststroke kick and how to improve those skills, so you can swim a faster and easier breaststroke.
Swimming May Be Your Brain's Best Defense Against Aging
Many Masters swimmers are maturing into the demographic in which dementia becomes more common, and they should consider when and how they might be able to continue swimming even as their cognitive abilities change.
Living the Good Life
Anthony Kung is succeeding as an actor in Hollywood and racking up Top 10 times in breaststroke events. The heart of his truth comes from experience. The pool, and his close-knit community of Rose Bowl Masters, anchor the best parts of his life.
Finding Refuge in the Water
Learning to swim has been a triumph for a group of Muslim women in MInnesota who previously had difficulty finding somewhere they could remain adherent to their faith while also overcoming their fear of water.
Charlemagne the Swimmer
The near-mythical European leader, also known as Carolus Magnus, Charles I, Karl der Große, and Charles the Great, was healthy—despite a tendency to eat a little too much roast meat—perhaps because of swimming.
Volunteer Profile: Britta O'Leary
When Britta O’Leary was 5 years old, her parents unsuccessfully tried to teach her how to swim. But when they put her in a swim club, she turned out to be good at it.
What to Expect When You Undergo Rotator Cuff Repair
Recovering from rotator cuff surgery can feel like a long, lonely road. Here’s what the recovery process looks like and how you can ease your way back into swimming without risking reinjury.
Tomato, Red Bell Pepper, and Cucumber Salad
Hydration is essential for your health and performance, and 20% of your hydration comes from the food you eat. This recipe includes seasonal foods packed with water.
Swimming for Strong Bones
Recent scientific research shows that swimming may be better for our bones than we realized. In an article published in 2020 in BioMed Research International, researchers sought to understand whether swimming could effectively treat osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Time in the water, it turns out, matters.
Why Bad Days Are Actually Good
Plenty of other top athletes, coaches, and mental performance consultants will tell you that a bad day in the water is only bad if you let it deter you from what’s next. Learn from it and do your next thing with improvements and a bad day’s really not so bad.
Lab-Created vs. Real Food
There are now so many options available to swimmers that there’s no excuse for not nailing your nutrition on that big swim you’ve been training so hard for. Whether it's a lab-created electrolyte replacement drink or cookies and potato chips.
Use Bracing and Breathing to Improve Your Swimming Posture
We take breathing for granted—on land, at least. We don’t have to think about each breath we take throughout the day. That said, taking a few focused breaths at the right moment during dryland exercises can help you reset your swimming posture.
From the Center Lanes: Kelly Link
Kelly Link took on a big challenge during the 2024 short course yards season: compete in five of the six freestyle racing distances. The result was Top 10 times in four events. But her focus is sprint freestyle, which has been her specialty since she was an age-group swimmer.
Taking Nothing for Granted
John Seelen made a splash at the 2025 USMS Spring National Championship in San Antonio, coming in fifth place in his 50 backstroke. That result might seem par for the course for a former college swimmer, but Seelen isn’t taking anything for granted after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
Shift Your Focus to Keep Things New
Swimming, I’m often told, is so boring. All you do is mindlessly swim back and forth, lap after lap, set after set, day after day. I never found this to be the case. For me, swimming is a time of quiet, a time to reflect, a time to think, and a time to pay attention to my body. I focus on how my body moves me through the water, my breathing, and my stroke.
Finding Her New Sport
Rachel Henning was a three-time high school state champion growing up in Louisiana and a seven-time All-American at LSU. Her career-best performance in 2011 still ranks second in the LSU record book. That was in her first sport of pole vault. She’s now a Masters swimmer.
