Fountain of Youth in a Chlorine Bath?

It's October 1st and I've officially started back to short-course swimming (25 meter pool). Swimming indoors has its advantages (the wall is usually closer - ha ha) but I'll sure miss the beautiful and warm sunshine on my back as I swim through the cool Autumn water, breathing in the crisp fresh air. I find that combination totally invigorating. Keeping with that theme, I was pleasantly surprised to see an ad on the entrance door to the pool promoting the Masters swim team and the pitch - get this - was that adult competitive swimmers stall the effects of aging - retaining muscles tone, maintaining good blood pressure, etc. - by one to two decades! It said that this was a University of Indiana research finding (will have to check that out - anyone have a link?). Stalled aging - so that's why I act like I'm fourteen and keep this blog.

Extending My Freestyle Reach

Want to increase your reach so you can pull more water? I've been practicing and noticed that some techniques work better than others. I've mentioned in past posts how stretching one's torso extends one's reach. Today I found myself working on my arm reach. I was focusing on keeping my arm straight and pulling with my shoulder. In doing so found that I could add what I perceived to be significant additional length to my reach. I did this by exaggerating the depth I turned my shoulder into the water (toward the bottom). In doing so I could distinctly feel my deltoid muscle move and extend further than it naturally did. It almost felt as though my reach extended an additional inch or two (which never occurred to me as a possibility). This may be something any skilled swimmer already knows about, but it felt completely new to me. I do have somewhat loose shoulder muscles (I've temporarily dislocated them on several occasions) so the extension shift I felt in my shoulder muscles may not be reproducible by everyone. I'd like to hear comments on these observations.