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Torres Just Getting Better With Time

BY DAVE HOLLANDER,
AOL
Posted: 2008-02-23 03:47:15
Filed Under: More Sports, Voices
Dara Torres: Fountain of Youth

Satchel Paige once said, “Age is mind over matter, if you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” It doesn’t matter to Dara Torres, who at age 40, is already the winner of nine Olympic medals for swimming. She's trying to make Team USA for Beijing 2008, which will make her the first swimmer to compete on five Olympic teams and the only over-40 swimmer in Olympic history. This amazing woman (and American sports hero) tells us her secret.

Photo Gallery

Marc Serota, Getty Images

A Comeback
For the Ages

1 of 6    

Dara Torres, who has taken a less-is-more approach to her training at this stage in her life, says that she feels good about her body.


DAVE HOLLANDER: Tell us why 40 is the new 30?

DARA TORRES: That’s a good question. Maybe 10 years ago, women especially were worried about hitting 40. I don’t feel that at all. I walk on the pool deck, I see the young kids and I know that I look older than them, but I don’t feel it. Maybe it’s more the feeling than how you look that makes 40 the new 30.

DH: At Sydney in 2000 it was huge deal when you won five medals at 33. You were the oldest American swimmer, male or female, to win a gold medal and coming out of retirement after seven years. What’s different about this comeback?

DT: It’s a little harder. Being 40 you definitely have worry about recovery. You have to worry more about getting injured. I can’t do as much as I did seven years ago as far as training goes. There’s a fine line you don’t want to cross in training where you’ll be completely worn down and really become useless. I’ve crossed that line a couple times but fortunately I have a coach who has a physiology background and knows how much I can and can’t do. It also took me a lot longer to get back into shape. I was using fins on my feet as crutch for a long time to get used to aerobic training. Back in 2000 I just kind of jumped in and started swimming.

DH: After 2000 Olympics you told friends you’d never swim again. You didn’t even watch swimming. What brought you back?

DT: It’s funny, someone interviewed me in 2000. It had been seven years when I had retired in ’92 and he asked “What about in another seven years, you gonna come back?” And I just thought that was most ludicrous thing. I mean, how could someone ask something like that? 41? Back then it just seemed so old. I was thinking I’d have lots of kids and busy doing the mom thing. I thought it was an idiotic question this guy asked but it turns out not to be so idiotic. I was just swimming for exercise when I got pregnant with my daughter and next thing I know, while pregnant, I found myself racing the masters’ guys.

DH: While pregnant?

DT: Yeah, you know I can’t just get in and be casual and float around. Once someone starts racing me, that competitiveness just comes out. I’m sure the hormones didn’t help either, seeing that a guy was beating me. I was just like “Rahh” (makes a scary monster sound). I find myself completely competitive when I’m in the water.

DH: I once asked Natalie Coughlin where she likes to swim for fun -- ocean, lake, pool. She said she can never go in the pool just for fun. You, too?

DT: It’s the exact same way for me. I’ll get in the pool to play with my daughter or dip in because I’m hot and I want to get back on my chaise lounge. I can’t just get in and go swimming.

DH: So you got the racing bug while pregnant and then is it true what I heard about the first thing you said to the doctor when they handed you your healthy baby Tessa Grace?

DT: I said, “When can I start training again.” (laughs) What happened is my head coach now was coaching the kids and I was swimming with masters. He came up to me a week before I delivered and said “We have a meet in month and it would be great publicity if you came.” I was thinking, “Yeah, right.” I didn’t know what to say I was so dumbfounded this guy asked me to do this. I said I’d ask my doctor. I was going in every day to see when I was going to be ready to give birth but I didn’t have the guts to ask my doctor because I knew what he was going to say.


DH: So you weren’t even thinking Olympics at this time?

DT: No, not at all. This guy just wanted me to swim in some relays to get publicity for his meet. I wasn’t thinking I was gonna go back and swim. So when Tessa Grace was lying on my chest the doctor made some great comment. He’s like “Hey your stomach is already flat.” So I was said “Oh, by the way, can I get back in and swim? I have a meet in three weeks.” He’s like, “Are you kidding? You can’t do anything aerobic for six weeks.” I said, “But this coach really wants me to swim.” My doctor said “You can go in the weight room tomorrow but you can’t swim.”

No one tells you what it’s like after you give birth, they only tell you what labor is like. I went to go work out the next day and I could even sit. It took about a week and a half but I went to the gym, did some tricep extensions and out of the corner of my eye I see this guy and I’m like, “Oh my god it’s my doctor.”

Then my head started spinning. I thought maybe he was kidding when he said I could go to the gym. What am I doing? He’s gonna kill me. He came over and said it was okay. So I said, “Look, this coach really wants me to swim in week and half, can I go to this meet locally?” And he said, “You know, we doctors we tell women to wait six weeks before aerobic exercise but go ahead and just be careful.” Next day I was back in the water.

DH: Fast forward to 15 months later, August 2007 at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, you win the 100 meter freestyle gold and the 50m freestyle, breaking your American record. At 40, people tend to slow down. You’ve gotten faster. How does that happen?

DT: My philosophy with all this is the older you get, the less work you do, the faster you go. Swimming is so much yardage; back and forth, back and forth. You’re training twice a day and your whole life is consumed with training, weight training and running. This time, I’m only working out once a day, five days a week.

I’m doing weightlifting a little bit but I’m being stretched a lot. I have lot of recovery work. I’m just not doing as much and I seem to be going faster. I’ve surrounded myself with such fantastic people in their fields. For example, I’m training with the strength and condition coach of the Florida Panthers and he is just unbelievably smart and so intelligent with the stuff he gives me. I’m doing things in the weight room I’ve never done before.

DH: You’re doing a total training regimen nobody does. What is it?

DT: Basically (the Panthers’ coach) had never seen swimming before, the motion of it. So he watched a video of my stroke underwater and on top of the water and he saw that swimming is a very fluid motion. So when I got in the weight room it wasn’t about lifting heavy weight. That’s what I did in 2000. I got so big -- 10 pounds heavier than I am now. But the philosophy back then was the more weight you lift in the weight room the stronger you are in the pool.

This guy’s philosophy is the strongest person in the weight room isn’t necessarily the strongest person in the pool. It’s more about being fluid and efficient when you swim. Most of the stuff we were doing was body weight related, not about lifting really heavy weight. So that’s one change that’s different.

The other thing is the stretching I do. It’s by Innovative Body Solutions /Meridian Stretching. They stretch me for two hours three days a week and before and after every one of my swims at every meet I go to. That stretching is just a huge, huge thing in recovery. And it’s resistance stretching. It’s not like I’m just sitting there eating food and their yanking my arms back. I’m resisting against them so they can stretch me even further when I resist against them. It’s been huge in my recovery.

You know, I don’t like to stretch in front of everyone so I go off in a corner. The first real meet I went to in Italy some of the swimmers were walking by and looking and seeing and some of them had the guts to come over and ask to be stretched and really liked it a lot. Once you see someone performing well, better than you thought they might, people want to know what the secrets are.

DH: During your time away from swimming, you did broadcast work or ESPN, FOX, TNT, OLN. How much did observing the eating habits of sports journalists make you run back to a strict health regimen?

DT: Man, I was right there with ’em! It’s hard because you’d go to different events and there’d be all this junk food but and you just gotta kind of suck it up and figure out what to do. Look, I’m no saint, I have my root beer floats at night. I’m kind of addicted to them. I’m down to two a week. I was having one every night. I also take this great stuff called Living Fuel. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it?

DH: If you’re suggesting I ought to do something about my figure …

DT: No, it’s not about changing your physique. This is what I have every morning and night before I swim. No pun intended, it is my fuel. I know that if at least I have that I am getting every nutrient and vitamin I need to start the day off. Then I can cheat a little bit after ward.


DH: Given the your less-is-more regimen and that you’re so in touch with nutrition and your own body, how do you feel when you hear all the steroid talk?

DT: It’s hard because unfortunately now and in the past athletes have taken steroids, which have tarnished the sporting world. I was accused of that at in 2000 because I was a big girl, but if they came to the weight room and saw what I was doing they’d know it was strictly lifting weights-related. This year I’ve taken a different approach because when I swam my first real big meet in June I swam really fast. I even surprised myself.

This first thing I thought was “Oh God, people are going to think I’m taking drugs,” because I’m 40 and swimming this fast. So I called United States Swimming and asked them to request USADA (United States Anti-Doping Authority) to test me more frequently than is required; not only urine but blood tests so there will no question about it. I get tested every two or three weeks. I want to say to the naysayers: I am 40. I am doing this. It is possible to do. Here are my results.

DH: What do you want to say to younger athletes who think steroids is the only way achieve the level of performance you’re achieving without drugs?

DT: I don’t understand how people can have conscience and do that. Unfortunately there are people out there still getting away with it. I think each year testing will get better and better and at some point, hopefully, it will get to the point where no one can cheat anymore. For those young people out there, it’s not worth it. You see what happens to wrestlers and other people who have died and their bodies are deformed. You can do it without taking drugs.

DH: How great does it feel right now to be doing this at your age with you own body and your own hard work?

DT: My coach and strength and condition coach call me a freak. At first I was hurt by that word but now I kind of like it. My body is just responding really well and it’s nice to know that I can go out there and be in shape. I was at a Speedo shoot and they asked me and another swimmer to put these two-pieces on. The other swimmer was like “No, no I’m not in good shape. Have Dara do it.” I was like “C’mon I don’t want to do it.” But really I’m thinking, “Gimme that suit, man. Let me show my abs!” It’s great to feel good that I’m in great shape and I feel good about my body.

DH: How are you getting along with the young swimmers?

DT: I don’t really know them. There’s a couple I know and only a few left from he 2000 Olympics. But I walk out on that deck and I don’t know anyone there. I know the names, but I couldn’t put a face with a name if you paid me. There’s a couple that have come up to me who have been very sweet and very glad I’m in the sport, but I think deep down there are some who are not too happy that I’m back, because if I do make the team I might be taking their spots.

DH: Not only do you compete with them in the water but for sponsorships as well. Are you able to draw from a different sponsor pool -- herbal teas, high fiber cereals memory enhancers -- more interested in your age demographic?

DT: You mean like Metamucil? (laughs) Well, I’m sponsored by Speedo with which is great. I have Toyota which I’ve had before so that can be for the young or for moms driving a mini-van. I definitely appeal more to the 35-45 year olds. I think the older stuff comes more with the magazines. I’m not in youth magazines like Amanda Beard or Natalie Coughlin. I’m more hitting the mother thing.

DH: Amanda Beard’s done some very interesting magazine work lately.

DT: Yeah (laughs), I’m a mom. I wouldn’t do that. But I’m used to being in Maxim and Sports Illustrated swimsuit so it’s a little different for me to be in More magazine or Redbook. But I’m proud. I like it. What’s funny, is that when I was out at nationals signing autographs, I was looking at the line and it used to be all kids. Now it’s 60% adults, 40% kids. So it’s definitely much different now.

DH: Evander Holyfield, 45, recently fought for a heavyweight title. Brett Favre is almost 40 and some thought he should’ve hung it up years ago. Baseball has so many 40-plus pitchers. Isn’t this “not letting go” all about competitiveness?

DT: Why should I let it go? If I’m doing the times that are good enough and faster than the kids to make the Olympic team, then why don’t I deserve to go? Why does there have to be an age limit on what you can and can’t do? If I’m faster than them, it doesn’t matter that I’m 40 I deserve to make the team. I deserve to go.

DH: What drives you to say to yourself, “Do this now"?

DT: You’d think that competitiveness and desire would fade a little bit as you get older but it just doesn’t. I think there are a lot of factors as to why I’m swimming so fast. Like I said, I have a great support staff. I have a great nanny. The technology at Speedo is so incredible. I remember the idea used to be the less suit the better because your skin was faster than the suit. Now they’ve got these suits that are so fast that you go flying through water. How could I not go faster with these suits? And the recovery thing and having a coach that understands what I can and can’t do. All those factors are why I’m swimming fast.

DH: If you do make the team you’ll be the first person to make five Olympic Games and you’ll be the oldest swimmer ever in the games. You were part of President Bush's inaugural ceremonies, serving as guest speaker and host. You were the first athlete to model for a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. You raced cars competitively. What else is on your to-do list?

DT: When I was standing on the awards platform for my last Olympic medal [in 2000] I was bawling. It was kind of because I was done but there was also a sense of “God, what am I gonna do now?”

I don’t have a plan. Right now my plan is to make the 2008 Olympic team and see what happens there. I never think beyond that. That’s why I think athletes sometime get letdown after an Olympic games because you have so much adrenaline leading up to that and then you hit this low. I mean I was doing Hollywood Squares, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire -- all these things and I was still walking around so bummed that I was done swimming. I think a lot of athletes go through that.

I think if you think, “Oh, this what I want to do next. I want to do sponsor stuff, and I want to hopefully be on this show and that show.” I think that where you lose your focus -- thinking about the perks and what comes after. I never think about what’s going to come after. The main thing I do I want to do is hang out with Tessa and be a good mom. I sort of miss part of her day every day because of my training.

The way I look at it is, I’m a working mom. But it’s a really great job.

Dave Hollander is the author of 52 WEEKS: Interviews with Champions! Info at: www.davehollander.com

2008 AOL LLC. All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-21 17:17:51


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rcott1019 11:15:48 AM May 06 2008

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To compete at a world class level at age forty in a sport dominated by teenagers is to be admired. If there's an Olympic Hall of Fame, she should definitely be in it.

manchu25 11:51:31 PM Apr 01 2008

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That has to be Danny Torres or she is juiced up.

ironcyde 01:27:46 PM Mar 06 2008

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She's a lock for making the team.... if she goes in healthy, she's come home w/ hardware for the 5th consecutive time, which would be the athletic feat of the year.....

gregorydarson 08:23:04 PM Mar 01 2008

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juicer!

oliveme 10:25:26 AM Feb 29 2008

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I was rereading my comments, and I realized that I someone searching to trip up Torres could miscontrue my comments so one more time, just to make it clear.

1)I believe that Torres has never taken any steroids to enhance her performance or to build muscle with the hope of improving her performance.

2)I believe that Dara Torres has never used Human Growth Hormone. I do think her body may have benefitted from the increase of HGH that occurs naturally in a woman's body when she is in fact growing a human, i.e. when she is pregnant.

3)Unlike many swimmers before her, Torres has been able to utilize experts to help fine tune every aspect of her swimming. Furthermore, she is even able to a nanny to sit manage child care while she trains. It is not clear to me whether Torres financial resources are the fruits of her labor, a result of sponsorships, or a pooling (no pun intended)of family resources. I do not think it matters except that having these finacnial resources has allowed her t

oliveme 01:00:30 AM Feb 26 2008

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Finally, as a forty something I applaud Torres pushing the limits of age. In jjust the past months, there has been much said about forty being the new thirty or even fifty being the new thirty. Sylvester Stallone bulked up for Rocky whatever foloowed by Rambo whatever says that in a generation testosterone and HGH will be available over the counter as supplements, indistinguishable from Vitamin C. Suzanne Sommers and her husband, both in their sixties, tout the effects of testosterone and other hormones on the quality of their lives. Sommers cites her use of testosterone specifically as keeping her love life young. If you conceed, as even the Catholics Church has, that sex serves a purpose besides procreation, then it makes senese to replace the hormones that the body no longer makes in such abundance.

Finally, I envy Torres the opportunity to train with a team of coaches and the resources to afford top flight child care. Mostly, these are resources that have been unavailable to

oliveme 12:49:15 AM Feb 26 2008

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were growing a human. Andy Petit and others who have used HGH have spoken about the use of HGH in repairing and rehabbing injuries. When an athlete stops using steroids, the effect of steroids disappear. The rehabilitative effects of HGH remain even after the HGH has left the system. For obvious reasons, there has not been a lot of study on the effects of pregnancy on top flight athletes or on their abilities to return to competition after giving birth. Also, swimming offers a slight advantage in that the temperature of the pool helps keep the athlete's and fetus's bodies from overheating.

Torres also speaks of technology changes, specifically swim suits have gotten faster. Pools are also designed better now so that there are fewer waves to add resistance to a swimmer's progress. And she has benefitted from having expert analysis of her stroke. Also, there is a far greater understanding of the nutrition that maximizes a body's abilities to produce. One example of this change

oliveme 12:36:23 AM Feb 26 2008

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I understand that Marion Jones was using different steroids and combinations of steroids. And let us be clear (no pun intended) that Jones as well as her former husband, have had positives on tests since 96 or so. In contrast, Dara Torres has never had a positive test. Her physique is a little leaner, a little ropier than when she was younger, but not significantly different. While athletes who compete in regular track and field events do seem to peak in their thirties, marathoners and triathaletes seem to peak in their forties. I trained with Torres and her sister at USC about twenty years ago. During that time, no coach or athlete would have ever suggested that Torres was training to her full potential let alone racing to that potential. Finally, Torres returned to peak form in the wake of a pregnancy. Let's be clear, for the nine months prior to delivery her body was coursing with Human Growth Hormone, though not from any outside source. Her body and eventually the fetus we

jkellyswim 09:52:54 PM Feb 24 2008

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I believe Dara is an athlete that should inspire all of us to pursue excellence in

whatever indulgence we so choose and not put any self made mental

limits preventing us from accomplishing our pursuits. I for one am cheering her

on to not only qualify for the Olympic Team, but to win several gold medals.

Dara, you are my American idol and inspiration.

gregorydarson 12:29:51 AM Feb 23 2008

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4 sho zqu7

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