Jim Thornton

Best Life

Dara Torres

Last January, I e-mailed my masters swimming team with news of a dream assignment: I was being dispatched to Florida to swim with Dara Torres. My only worry: could I stay up with her long enough to actually see her swim?

My friend Ronald, an accomplished butterflier from Holland, was the first of many males to e-mail me back. "Lucky man, you are!" he wrote, praising Dara's legendary swimming accomplishments and great looks. "If you can't keep up," he consoled me, "at least the forward view will be great!"

If you're a non-swimmer, chances are you know who Dara Torres is even if you think you don't. Forget the fact that she's held two world records, swum in four Olympics, and owns nine Olympic medals (including four gold) dating back to the Reagan administration. Or that she was the first actual athlete to appear in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

Dara's greatest celebrity has come on the cusp of middle age--and her seeming discovery of the Fountain of Youth in pool water. Last August, at age 40 and after giving birth to her first child, Dara stunned the swimming world at the ConocoPhillips US Nationals by winning both the 100 and 50 meter freestyle. In the latter, she vanquished a gaggle of 20-something competitors, in the process, setting a new American record in swimming's marquee sprint event.

Dara will be 41 in late June when she tries to earn a spot on the Beijing-bound US Olympic team. In a culture where youth sometimes seems celebrated above all else, Dara's quest is as inspiring to a legion of middle-aged female and male athletes as Lance Armstrong LiveStrong example was to countless cancer survivors.

"Dara's genetics are phenomenal, and her ability to glide through the water is unmatched," says her coach, Michael Lohberg. "She also loves to be fit, and she never got out of shape over the last 30 years. But more than anything, she just has this unbelievable willpower to do what she wants to do. For her, it's not about beating other people or proving something to the world. She wants to swim fast because she can."

Here are a few of the reasons why she can:

Team for a dream. Swimming's an individual sport, but when it comes to coaching, Torres takes a team approach. "I work with some of the very best in their profession," she says. For her swimming workouts, 6-time Olympic coach Michael Lohberg coaches in tandem with sprint specialist Chris Jackson to tweak her stroke and optimize training through lactate testing. In the gym, Andy O'Brien, strength and conditioning coach for the Florida Panthers NHL team, tailors a core-focused regimen she credits with optimizing her efficiency in the water. Steven Sierra and Anne Tierney, specialists in resistance flexibility, take an innovative approach to fascia release and stretching that optimizes her flexibility and helps her recover faster between workouts.

Lean fuel. Before hitting the pool at 8 a.m. for a 90-minute swim workout, Torres mixes a shake made with an all-organic "foundational food" supplement from Living Fuel Rx (www.livingfuel.com). "It has everything in it, from antioxidants to protein to every vitamin imaginable," she says. "Living Fuel is all I have every morning before I train and when I got to a meet."

The sea within. During practice, Torres keeps hydrated and energized by sipping Accelerade between sets, then switches to Endurox to replenish during dry land exercise. The latter begins on the pool deck with simulated butterfly drills using heavy resistance stretch cords--45 seconds of explosive pulling, 45 seconds rest: repeat eight times. Over the next hour and fifteen minutes, she strength-trains in the gym. Within 20 minutes of completing this, she makes sure to drink a recovery mix of apple juice and amino acids before starting an hour and half of flexibility training.

Light and lithe. Around 1 p.m., Torres finally indulges in her first "real" food of the day, usually something lean and organic with a cookie or chips for a snack. "I'm 10-12 lb. lighter than I was during the 2000 Olympics," Torres says, crediting the combo of supplements and healthy foods with helping her lose weight without sacrificing strength or endurance.

Less is more. As recently as the 2000 Olympics, Torres trained 50,000-65,000 yards per week in the pool followed by heavy weights in the gym. "Nowadays," she says, "I'm swimming much less yardage but really concentrating on technique and efficiency in the water." Ditto for strength training, where her emphasis is less on brute strength than balance, core strength, plyometrics, and the seamless coordination of interconnected muscle groups. Cynics might argue this is just a concession to age, but the stopwatch doesn't lie: 25 years ago, when she first set the 50 m freestyle world record, her time was 25.62. Her time for the same event last summer: 24.53.

One at a time. A stroke as flowing and efficient as Torres's can seem almost simple in its elegance. In reality, it's as complex as a Tiger Woods golf swing. From head position to torso rotation, hand entry to coordinated kick, there are a bewildering number of interrelated components to optimize and balance. "Just give me one thing at a time to work on," says Torres, "and I will concentrate on it till I master it and then move on. If you give me lots of things to think about at once, it's not going to happen."

Get it and forget it. Torres concentrates on a given stroke refinement until it becomes coded into muscle memory and no longer requires conscious attention. Case-in-point: a significant change in head position. Early in her career, sprint coaches routinely recommended freestylers look forward and let the water surface hit mid-forehead, believing a high head position would encourage the body to hydroplane. Later research found this just wasn't true--swimmers go faster looking down, their heads positioned much lower in the water. "Basically, this puts your body into a straight line," says Torres, who practiced the new approach while training for her last Olympics. "It took me a while to get used to it, but it's second nature now."

Distance per stroke. When she was younger, Torres says, her stroke was shorter and her turnover rate higher. Today, she takes fewer, longer, and smoother strokes to go much faster--the result of less drag and greater propulsive efficiency. "You try to get as much distance per stoke as possible," she explains. Keeping streamlined and balanced in the water allows the body to glide with less resistance. Equally important is body rotation to tap core muscles for propulsion. "When you swim freestyle," she explains, "you shouldn't swim on your stomach but rather roll from one side to the other." Bilateral breathing, she says, has helped her to keep the body roll even.

Unconventional wisdom. As changes in stroke mechanics continue to evolve, Torres has been quick to adopt those (like body rotation and lower head position) that shave time off her sprints. But not everything "new and improved" works for her. Take, for example, the submerged dolphin kicks that have become de riguer with many top freestylers. Theoretically, swimming underwater is faster, even without arms, because of the substantially reduced drag forces (this is why submarines can move faster than ships). "My coach and I worked on this," says Torres, "but we concluded I'm just faster on the surface. He recommended I pop up as fast as I can and just start swimming. So that's what I do."

The 40 percent shoulder solution. Freestyle definitely stresses rotator cuffs and other shoulder tissues by repetitive rotation in a forward direction. To help prevent muscle imbalances that can contribute to so-called swimmer's shoulder, Torres swims 40 percent of each workout backstroke.

Elastic limits. Two of Torres's favorite sprint drills use stretch cords in the water. Working against elastic resistance builds strength and forces her to catch the water perfectly to make the most forward progress. Change direction, and the elastic cords now turbocharges her advance. "When you let the cord pull you in," she says, "you get a feel for what it's like to really swim fast."

Get pumped to pump. During her hours of dry land training, Torres bombards herself with energizing Classic Rock tunes, from the Who's Baba O'Reilly to the Doors' L.A. Woman. The key, she says, is to stay stoked and have fun. When it's time for resistance stretching, her music changes, too--soothing ballads that signal her muscles it's time to relax and recover.

3-D strength. Weight machines like Nautilus help build strength, but a major drawback here is the tendency to isolate muscle groups and work them in a single plane. Free weights are more two-dimensional because they require you to balance weights as well as lift them. Swimming, however, is such a 3-D sport that it requires another step on this progression. O'Brien has Torres a series of exercises that combine elements of classic calisthenics, Pilates, and yoga. "Almost every exercise he's given me," she explains, "works a variety muscle groups at once, usually starting with the core." From push-ups on a Bosu ball, to simulating freestyle with hand weights while balancing on a Swiss ball, the regimen builds not just strength but efficient strength.

Explosive reaction. In analyzing her record-breaking swim from last summer, Torres says one key to victory was her start off the blocks. Explosive power as well as nerve conduction velocity both typically decrease as people age, but Torres credits plyometric training--"lots of quick, power stuff in the weight room"--for helping her keep, and even hone, her explosive edge. High-speed vertical jumps with ankle weights, for example, teach her signaling nerves and muscles to contract fast and forcefully. The result: less delay between the horn blast and splash.

Getting mashed. It looks painful, but Torres says it feels great--a deep form of fascia release called "mashing" that's performed on Torres after every workout session. Massage therapists sometimes use foam rollers to accomplish similar results, i.e., breaking up muscle knots, loosening adhesions, and relaxing fascial tissues. Tierney and Sierra use their feet instead, which they say lets them go deeper into tissues and feel affected tissues more readily. They've taught the technique to kids on Coral Gables' junior swim teach, who now routinely "mash" each other after workouts.

Resistance stretching. Just as Torres's weight training emphasizes balance, core strength, and a 3-D approach, her stretching routine is multidimensional. "There is literally no other swimmer in the world that is stretching themselves this way," says Tierney. "We work her core, rotate the legs, twist her in multiple dimensions." All the while, Torres provides subtle resistance to their movements, which relaxes the stretched muscles even more. The plan is based on the pioneering work of flexibility trainer Bob Cooley whose book, The Genius of Flexibility: The Smart Way to Stretch and Strengthen Your Body, shows readers how to do many of these stretches on their own.

Natural woman. Over the course of her career, Torres has competed against the East German and Chinese women's teams later disqualified for steroids. In an age where any extraordinary performance triggers rumors and accusations, Torres invites drug testing anytime anywhere. She says she tries not to dwell on the possibility some of her competitors may be cheating. "You just have to train and swim your best--and hope that if someone is seeking an unfair advantage, that there will be enough advanced testing they'll get caught eventually. But you can't let other people's behavior dominate your thoughts."

Nice guys finish first. Olympic swimming, like any high-stakes international competition, is not devoid of psychological warfare that can sometimes make NBA trash talk seem coy in comparison. One female swimmer, for example, spits in the lane of her competitors. "I just laugh this kind of thing off," says Torres. " I try to be very friendly, say hello to people I know, and try not to distract them when they're concentrating on their race. I don't believe in psyching people out, and when others try it on me, I just tune it out."

Do the work--then trust it. "If I've done everything I can to prepare," says Torres, "when I got to a meet, I just go to have fun. I definitely get just as nervous as I did when I was younger, but I don't over think things. I just go and do."

It's not enough that I succeed--my friends must, too. Though she downplays her role here, Torres's generosity towards her much younger teammates is clearly rejuvenating. "Dara is just the most open, giving person," says teammate Leila Vaziri, 22, who last summer set world records in both the 50 and 100 m backstrokes. "She has such a great attitude that everyone feels better, trains better, and races better."

One step at a time. For now, Torres says, she's focusing entirely on the upcoming US Olympic Trials. "What happens after this summer, we'll have to see--but I think I'll always have swimming in me," she says. " I love masters swimming, it's a lot of fun." Then there's daughter Tessa, not quite 2, who loves swimming with her mom several times a week. "She's a lot like me," says Torres, beaming about the prospect of a new Torres one day claiming the family record in the 50. "Knowing her, it probably won't be too far down the road."

Ronald's prediction proves right: the forward-looking view of Dara is great. After an 800-meter warm up, we're swimming a set of 12 x 100's--i.e., two lengths each of the 50 meter pool. Coach Lohberg has suggested we leave on an interval of 1:45, but Dara thinks this will give us too much rest.

"Is 1:35 okay with you?" she asks me in a voice reminiscent of Mariska Hargitay's.

I nod yes, conserving air.

For the record, Dara's left knee currently sports twin sutured holes, the remnants of arthroscopic surgery completed just five days ago. She also had surgery on her shoulder seven weeks earlier. Lohberg and the doctors alike have banned Torres from going anywhere close to all out yet, and her impatience to resume life at full speed is palpable. It's like forcing her to drive her beloved Lexus (a perk from Toyota, one of her corporate sponsors) down I-95 without shifting out of third gear.

Despite the pesky demands of healing, Dara's stroke is so flawless and efficient, her body so lithe and drag-resistant, that she still cuts through the water like a marlin. During the short interludes when I do manage to almost keep up, I monitor our respective stroke cadences. For every three times her left fingertips silently spear the water's surface, mine slap it four times.

By the far wall, Dara is consistently a body length ahead, which provides an excellent perspective on her flip turn. Like everything about her swimming, this is elegant and economical, as fast and tight as a figure skater's spin. I execute my own turn, struggle to catch up, and enjoy maybe five meters of the "forward view" before she disappears altogether in a landscape of bubbles and blue.

It's a not unfamiliar position for most swimmers, Olympians included. Ray Antonov, a 26-year-old sprinter who represented Bulgaria in the Athens games, admits Dara sometimes beats him in practice. "I don't care when I'm not trying," he says about his favorite training partner. "But sometimes I am trying, and she still beats me. That's the worse feeling."

On the 11th of the 12 x 100s, I finally make my move. After the turn, Dara once again holds a comfortable lead. She knifes through the water, oblivious--I'm hoping--to the ambitions of the 55-year-old guy in the adjacent lane, the same geezer she's beaten by at least 10 seconds on every other 100 so far.

Slowly but surely, I begin notching up my speed, trying to time things just right. Five feet from the wall, I finally catch up to Dara, who is breathing to the other side and doesn't see me closing in. She begins a leisurely glide into the wall, at which point I drive my left arm forward, touching her out by a fingertip.

Dara still doesn't look over, opting to chat instead with a teammate in the next lane. I'm sure she has no clue about this "victory" of mine. But even if she did know and/or care, what can she expect? Swimming records will always come and go. But when you inspire the world with a new "no-limits" perspective on age and glory, you have to expect more than a few motivated codgers to go for it ourselves.