Rapture And Ruts In the Pool
Some scientists theorize that swimming promotes an emotional regression to the experience we all had floating in amniotic fluid while in utero. Dr. Richard A. Friedman loves the idea, but doubts it since brain regions governing long-term memory don’t develop until around age 1.
But he does love to swim.
“There is no drug — recreational or prescription — capable of inducing the tranquil euphoria brought on by swimming,” Dr. Friedman wrote in The Times. “I do all my best thinking in the pool, whether I’m trying to figure out how to treat a patient’s complicated ailment or write a paper.”
Swimming raises the level of BDNF, a protein that promotes memory, but so do other forms of exercise. Immersion in chest- deep water increases blood flow to one of the brain’s major arteries by 14 percent, Dr. Friedman reported, so he thinks there is something special about swimming.
“Cut off from sound, you are mostly aware of your breathing,” he wrote, describing how boredom allowed his mind to wander. “You are not sure what elapsed in that strange discontinuity, but the solution to a problem that escaped you on land is perfectly obvious emerging from the water — a rapturous experience.”
For Michael Phelps, the pool was both a blessing and a curse. Mr. Phelps, the most- decorated competitor in Olympic history, gained fame and fortune through swimming, but all those years of honing his body for athletic triumph left him in emotional turmoil.
Before heading for his fifth Olympic Games next month in Rio de Janeiro, Mr. Phelps spent 18 months on a mission of self- discovery. He went into therapy for six weeks after an arrest for drunken driving and returned to the pool, which “started out as his sanctuary, became his glassed-in aquarium and now serves as his platform,” Karen Crouse wrote in The Times. “His message: Vulnerability is a strength.”
Mr. Phelps wants to leave the sport without remorse over his poor training before the 2012 Olympics and bad behavior after. “This time, it’s about trying my hardest, giving it my all,” he told The Times. “I don’t want to live the rest of my life with any regrets.”
So for Mr. Phelps the pool has had therapeutic effects. But for the women who participate in synchronized swimming, it can be a hazardous place.
Mariya Koroleva, a swimmer on the United States Olympic team going to Rio, was hit in the head during practice last October, which was not unusual. But later in class when she could not focus, had a terrible headache and had blurry vision, she realized she had a concussion. One coach said she expected that all her swimmers would suffer a concussion, either mild or severe, at some point.
“The thing with synchro, which a lot of people don’t realize, is it’s a lot more of a contact sport,” Ms. Koroleva told The Times. “The closer you swim to each other, the more difficult it is because you’re battling each other in the pool.”
Sarah Urke had her Olympic dreams derailed in 2009 when she was kicked so hard in the head that she missed half a year of high school and took three years to fully recover.
“I think a lot of people think the pool is not a dangerous place,” Ms. Urke, who has begun to swim recreationally again, told The Times. “We make it look pretty above the water, but below, it’s a battlefield.”