7 Reasons Why Sprint Squad is the Best Squad
“All right folks! Split up into your groups! Let’s rock and roll!”
Your coach cheers and graciously pairs those words with a few enthusiastic claps. You quickly hop out of your warmup lane, carefully organize your equipment in your mesh bag and make your way over to your group. Every day, your swim team divides into sprint, mid-distance, and distance groups – according to each swimmer’s individual specialty.
And your group is the best of them all: Sprint group! You throw your mesh bag behind a sprint lane and give your teammate a smirk. Today is going to be a good day.
Here are seven reasons why being a member of the sprint group is the best thing ever.
1. Sprinters are Explosive
It’s in our DNA! Every day, we train for a race that is shorter than the amount of time it takes to heat up a frozen microwave dinner. It’s in the job description: Take your mark, go, dive in, and BOOM! Explode! They call it a 50 freestyle, but they may as well call it a 50 firecracker, since that’s practically what we must emulate during the race. Luckily, this colorful character trait translates quite smoothly into real life.
Bored? Call up your sprinter friend. They’re bound to have something fun planned in a jiffy. In a rush to get somewhere? Have your sprinter friend drive you there. Yhey’ll be your personal NASCAR driver! Their bursts of energy might be short-lived, but it’s bound to be a great experience for the both of you.
2. Sprinters Have Gills
I mean, basically, right? Maybe not actual gills, but our lungs are massive. Countless hours of insane breath-control practices gets pretty intense, but we can handle it. Not only are we swimming as fast as we possibly can, but we’re holding our breath the entire time. We’re like superheroes!
Think about it: Humans need oxygen to survive. Quite literally, breathing is the thing that keeps us going. But we kind of just… disregard that. We’ll do anything it takes to be better. And if that means oxygen deprivation, then sign us up.
3. We Get to Play with Toys!
Parachutes, power towers, bungee chords, oh my! The sprint group is toys GALORE. It’s important for sprinters to utilize various pieces of resistance equipment to build strength in the water. So while the distance group is swimming in circles until the sun goes down, the sprint group is having fun on the playground.
4. Sprint Group = Perfectionist Group
It’s true, I’ll admit it: All sprinters are perfectionists. But this is a good thing!
Sprint events are as short as they come, which means we have an extremely limited amount of distance to cover from point A to point B. The 50 yard freestyle is only two lengths, which means we must get everything right. Every little bit. One slip-up, and the entire race is over. Slow start? Better luck next time. Bad breakout? Oh well. Miss the wall on your turn? Ouch!
Because it is so crucial to get every little thing correct, this often translates into our everyday lives. Big art project coming up? You better believe the sprinters will be pulling an all-nighter just to make sure it looks the way we’d like it to. Manicure-pedicure party? Let the sprinter do the painting. Your nails will look as if you went to the salon and dropped $60! The perfectionists may seem like overachievers, but I promise you want us in your life.
5. Strong Sprinters are Strong People
This rings true both physically and mentally. Sprinters need to be super strong in order to swim at maximum speed. But it takes a great deal of mental toughness, too. Swimming as fast as we possibly can, all while holding our breath and making zero mistakes? That’s a lot of pressure. We do so much in such a short amount of time, and it gets stressful. But don’t worry. Sprinters get the job done with our heads held high.
6. Sprinters Know How to Have Fun
In order to be good at sprint events, it is practically a law that you must be enthusiastic about life. If you aren’t enthusiastic about life, then how do you expect to be enthusiastic in the water? Sprinting demands you to be bold, underlined, and italicized. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen! Add some spice to your life!
7. Sprinting Takes Guts
Contrary to popular belief, by the way. Sprinting is overlooked way too often. Sure, we swim substantially less yardage. Sure, we sit on the wall a lot. But this only means that every yard receives our greatest efforts. Every second that passes has our undivided attention. Every stroke is produced with the fastest speed and most perfect technique that we can possibly contribute to the sport of swimming.
It’s scary. It takes guts. But we’re sprinters, and it’s all just a part of the job description.
All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.