Outswim for Masters Swimmers

What happens when you don't hit your athletic peak in your teens or twenties, but decades later?

In this episode of the Outswim Podcast, Kelly sits down on-deck in Sarasota with US Masters Swimming legend Tracy Grilli. Tracy’s swimming progression is nothing short of incredible: she didn't break a minute in the 100 freestyle until her 40s, didn't break 20 minutes in the mile until she was 50, and at the age of 60, she posted the #1 fastest time in the world in the 1500m freestyle.

Tracy shares the secret to her incredible longevity, how she navigates major medical setbacks (including back fusions, knee replacements, and shoulder tendinitis), and the hilarious, gritty story of swimming the English Channel in her 60s with her famous relay team, the Mighty Mermaids.

The Real Problem This Episode Solves:

• The Plateau & Aging Trap: Many adult athletes hit a certain age and believe their best days are permanently behind them, leading to frustration and burnout. Tracy shatters the myth that aging means the end of personal growth. Her story proves that with consistency, you can achieve lifetime milestones in your 40s, 50s, and even 60s.
• Navigating Major Injuries: When sidelined by surgery or pain, it's easy for swimmers to lose their identity and quit. Tracy provides a masterclass on how to adapt your training (like using sculling to heal tendinitis) and how to stay intimately connected to the community through volunteering and leadership when you can't race.
• The Mental Shift: This episode solves the destructive habit of comparing today's performance to your youth. Tracy introduces the freeing mindset of aiming for your "best time of the day" rather than a "lifetime best."

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

• The Late Bloomer Advantage: How Tracy went from a self-described "not very good" college swimmer to holding the #1 time in the world at age 60.
• The "Best Time of the Day" Mindset: How to reframe your goals and expectations as you age, completely eliminating race-day disappointment.
• Staying in the Game Through Injury: Tracy's tactical advice for modifying workouts and using leadership roles (like being President of New England Masters) to stay engaged when your body forces you out of the water.
• The Mighty Mermaids: The epic story of Tracy and her relay team tackling the English Channel, and the unforgettable, colorful motivation they received from their boat captain in the final stretch to France.
• Swimming for YOU: Why coming to Masters swimming is the ultimate act of self-care for busy adults, and how doing it entirely for yourself is the secret to never burning out.

Thank you for listening! We want to help you Outswim the age cure, the competition and life's obstacles! We'd be grateful for a review on Apple! 

Email us and/or find out more about the host at www.KellyPalace.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

Why is the slowing tick of the pace clock the only metric measuring your athletic worth as you age?

Every adult swimmer confronts biological decline down to the mitochondrial level—diminishing V02 max, declining peak power, and loss of muscle mass. Yet for decades, competitive Masters swimming has evaluated your progress against arbitrary five-year age brackets and raw stopwatch times, obscuring your true athletic achievement.

In this episode, host Kelly Palace sits down with Outswim Score co-founder Dr. Jim Parker—board-certified radiologist, Cruzbike inventor, and champion endurance athlete—to introduce a revolutionary breakthrough: The Outswim Score (outswim.io). By crunching hundreds of thousands of real-world performances (900,000+) through 22 distinct regression models, Dr. Parker has engineered an age-grading engine that strips away the biological aging tax, establishing true performance equity across age, course, and stroke.

Whether you are chasing national records, hunting personal milestones, or wondering how your times measure up against swimmers half your age, this conversation will forever change how you measure success in the water.

Inside this episode, you’ll discover:

• The 0.986 Accuracy Factor: How complex statistical modeling and 22 unique regression curves predict Masters performance baselines with scientific precision.
• The Universal Swim Score, 0–1,000+ Scale: Why a single number replaces confusing conversions across SCY, SCM, and LCM, giving adult athletes a common language.
• The "Curve Busters" Phenomenon: What happens when athletes like 85-year-old Joanne Leilich smash predictive models with scores over 1,100, and what "super agers" reveal about human longevity.
• The Stroke-Specific Aging Tax: Why butterfly suffers the fastest physiological decay as peak explosive power declines, while the 50 freestyle defies expectations.
• Reverse-Engineering Your Goals: How to use predictive target scoring to find soft records at team, LMSC, and national levels or calculate the exact split required to break an 800 score.
• A New Era for Meet Directors: How live age-adjusted scoring eliminates empty age heats, levels the blocks between 30-year-olds and 70-year-olds, and creates high-stakes overall championships.
• Redefining Adult Swimming: Why age grading gives post-collegiate and younger Masters competitors a reason to stay in the water and outswim the clock rather than hanging up their goggles. 

🔥 READY TO OUTSWIM YOUR LIMITS?

• Calculate Your Outswim Score: Head to outswim.io to enter your exact age, stroke, and times for free, track your biological trajectory, and discover your true best events.
• Connect with the Outswim Ecosystem: Visit KellyPalace.com for episode resources and join the movement dedicated to helping you outswim the age curve, outswim the competition, and outswim life's obstacles

TAKEAWAYS:
• why VO2 max, peak power, and fitness decline makes time-only comparisons unfair 
• what the OutSwim Score is and how it creates a universal swim score across ages, events, and courses 
• why this age grading for swimming relies on deep statistical modeling instead of crude time adjustments 
• how to track real progress over years even when race times get slower 
• how to find your strongest event by score, not by guesswork 
• how to reverse-engineer a target score into a goal time 
• why five-year age brackets can distort motivation and how single-year scoring fixes it 
• how super agers and 1,000+ scores spotlight “curve busters” worth studying 
• how meet managers can run live scoring and give awards for best age-adjusted swims 
• where to calculate your score for free at outswim.io while the tool is in beta 

Would you consider leaving us a five star review on Apple? That's like getting a best time for us. Kelly and our team would be so grateful.

Thank you for listening! We want to help you Outswim the age cure, the competition and life's obstacles! We'd be grateful for a review on Apple! 

Email us and/or find out more about the host at www.KellyPalace.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

What does it actually take to outswim the biological aging clock when your body, joints, or cardiovascular system start pushing back? How does an athlete continue getting up on the starting blocks well into their 90s after serious heart procedures? Yes, I confirmed Yoshi said he has 7 stents. 

In this episode, we sit down on the pool deck with 1952 Olympic Gold Medalist and Masters Swimmer Yoshi Oyakawa. At 93 years old, Yoshi is living proof of lifelong athletic longevity. But his secret isn't reckless grit or grinding through pain—it’s an ongoing masterclass in adapting your training, listening to your body, and completely reframing your relationship with competition.

Whether you’re recovering from a medical setback, fighting shoulder stiffness, or wondering how many more years you have in the pool, Yoshi breaks down the daily philosophy and training shifts required to stay fast, healthy, and on the blocks for life.

Inside this episode, you’ll discover:

• The Cardiovascular Boundary: How Yoshi structures his 600–700-meter workouts to stay fit without triggering breathlessness or cardiovascular overload.
• The Shoulder Longevity Choice: Why Yoshi refused to adopt modern stroke fads—and how sticking to his natural biomechanics preserved his upper body for over eight decades.
• The Pre-Race Mindset Reset: The subtle mental prayer shift Yoshi made that immediately cured race-day anxiety and unlocked peak performance behind the blocks.
• The Power Base Secret: The unconventional childhood dryland routine that built Yoshi’s legendary kick power and sustained his speed late in life.
• The Modern Technique Trap: The biggest equipment and stroke evolutions Yoshi has witnessed over 70+ years of racing—and which technical factors actually matter as you age.
• The Century Mark Goal: Yoshi’s mindset on competing into the 95–99 age bracket, and the pact he made with fellow Olympic legends to race at age 100.

Thank you for listening! We want to help you Outswim the age cure, the competition and life's obstacles! We'd be grateful for a review on Apple! 

Email us and/or find out more about the host at www.KellyPalace.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

Big news friends! Champions Mojo for Masters Swimmers is officially changing the name to the Outswim Podcast for Masters Swimmers. After eight incredible years, over 325 episodes, 9 podcasting awards, and more than 1 million downloads, we are officially evolving into Outswim for Masters Swimmers.

What does it mean to Outswim? It’s more than dropping tenths of a second on the clock. It’s what happens when you dive in and choose to keep moving forward, we can:

• Outswim the age-curve: As we age our aerobic capacity, VO2 Max, growth hormones, recovery windows all shift. We'll cover ways to still thrive against the biological aging tax.
• Outswim the competition: The "competition" can be yourself or others, but we love to cover topics that make us better swimmers no matter who we are competing against.
• Outswim life's obstacles: Pushing past time away from the water, injury, illness, fear, grief, and trauma.

What You Need to Know:

• No action needed: Your subscription, show feed, and back catalog remain completely intact. You don’t have to change a single setting in your podcast app!
• Same championship content: Expect the same deep-dive interviews with world-class coaches and Olympic champions, practical training takeaways, and weekly pool-deck inspiration. And most importantly how to swim better as we age.
• New digital home: Explore our fresh look and episode library at outswimpodcast.com (all previous links forward automatically).
• In this special announcement, host Kelly Palace shares the heart, purpose, and deeper meaning behind our new name.
  
  

When we launched in 2018, our mission was to bring you the mindset and mojo of champions. Over nearly a decade, we discovered that our most impactful conversations weren’t just about winning races—they were about how swimmers overcome life’s toughest obstacles.

To every listener who made those 1 million downloads possible—thank you. This evolution is for you.

Keep training, and let’s go outswim whatever holds us back!

Connect with the Show:

• Website: outswimpodcast.com
• Follow & Subscribe: If you love the show, please leave a quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

Thank you for listening! We want to help you Outswim the age cure, the competition and life's obstacles! We'd be grateful for a review on Apple! 

Email us and/or find out more about the host at www.KellyPalace.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

We talk with All-American masters swimmer and physical therapist, 55-year-old Margaret Conze, about the day she suffered a sudden stroke at a swim meet despite being in peak shape, and the split-second choice to call 911 that got her life-saving treatment in time. We also dig into the hidden causes behind unexpected health events in active adults, how she returned to racing even stronger, and what masters swimmers can do to train hard while staying health-aware.

• The subtle first warning signs at the pool—and why embarrassment cannot win in a medical crisis
• Trusting your gut when something feels off and insisting on immediate emergency care
• Visual changes, strange body sensations, and one-sided weakness as urgent red flags
• How a standard home blood pressure cuff can serve as a quick reality check
• The unexpected cardiac finding behind her stroke that affects up to 25% of people
• The "golden window": what it takes to stop neurological damage in real time
• The psychological and physical path from the ICU back to national top times
• Strength training essentials every masters swimmer needs for long-term joint health
• Using physical therapy as proactive maintenance rather than injury reaction
• Hand paddles and shoulder risk: why you can’t judge the strain until 24 to 48 hours later

Would you consider leaving us a five star review on Apple? That's like getting a best time for us. Kelly and our team would be so grateful. 

Thank you for listening! We want to help you Outswim the age cure, the competition and life's obstacles! We'd be grateful for a review on Apple! 

Email us and/or find out more about the host at www.KellyPalace.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

Are you logging thousands of yards each week only to watch your pace stay frozen in time?

Most masters swimmers and triathletes fall into the same trap: they try to engineer their stroke into looking smooth and effortless, yet they find themselves stuck grinding out laps at a single, unchanging speed.

In this episode, we sit down with Brenton Ford, the mastermind behind Effortless Swimming. Having coached thousands of athletes worldwide—from beginners to elite triathletes and national champions—Brenton reveals the fundamental disconnect between how adults think about freestyle and what actually generates forward propulsion.

If you’ve ever felt awkward trying new drills, wondered why pool-deck critiques don’t translate into faster race splits, or felt guilty resting at the wall, this conversation will completely reframe your approach to training.

In this episode, we explore:

• The Adult Learning Bottleneck: The single psychological obstacle adult swimmers bring to the pool that kids never face—and the simple drill to rewire it.
• The "Pretty Stroke" Fallacy: Why an obsession with smooth, splash-free recoveries could actually be sabotaging your power under the surface.
• Finding Your "Lost" Gears: Why relying on a single training pace locks you into the "gray zone," and how subtle kick timing adjustments unlock true sprinting ability.
• The Rest Paradox: Why cutting your rest short between sets may be the exact reason your top-end speed has plateaued.
• The 40-Minute Threshold Blueprint: The exact "best average" set Brenton used to qualify for Australian Open Nationals at age 38 against teenagers—and why elite distance Olympians swear by it.
• Why Technique Changes Feel Worse First: The uncomfortable biological truth every swimmer needs to accept before real speed breakthroughs happen.

Connect with Brenton:

• Website: Effortless Swimming
• YouTube & Instagram: @effortlessswimming

Thank you for listening! We want to help you Outswim the age cure, the competition and life's obstacles! We'd be grateful for a review on Apple! 

Email us and/or find out more about the host at www.KellyPalace.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

What do you do when the body that carried you to Olympic Legend Status changes in the blink of an eye? How do you stop comparing yourself to the athlete you used to be and build unshakeable mental resilience in the face of life-altering obstacles?

In this episode, six-time Olympic gold medalist Amy Van Dyken sits down with Kelly Palace to share how she completely redefined her identity, athletic drive, and relationship with her body after a traumatic 2014 ATV accident left her paralyzed from the waist down. Amy reveals how she transitioned from Olympic sprinter to adaptive CrossFit champion, why comparing your present times to your past self is a recipe for frustration, and the practical mental reframing technique she uses to turn paralyzing race-day nerves into pure excitement. Whether you are navigating an injury, battling an aging body, or seeking the grit to conquer daily setbacks, Amy provides the ultimate blueprint for choosing joy, grace, and relentless forward momentum.

Inside this episode, you’ll discover:

• Adapting When Your Body Rebels: How Amy shifted from Olympic sprint dominance to floating and finding peace in the pool with paralyzed legs and minimal core.
• Ending the "Old Times" Comparison Trap: Why measuring your current performance against your younger self drains the joy from swimming—and how to give your body grace at every stage.
• Reframing Pre-Race Nerves: The physiological trick to turn racing anxiety into explosive excitement behind the starting blocks.
• Why Swimming Keeps Getting Faster: Amy’s expert perspective as an NBC Olympic analyst on training quality over junk yardage, hydrodynamics, and modern sprinting speed.
• The Training Shift That Saved Her Career: How leaving high-volume yardage for speed work and fun at Colorado State helped her claim four Olympic gold medals in 1996.
• The Power of Daily Micro-Wins: How conquering small, frustrating tasks builds true athletic resilience and gratitude on hard days.
• Channeling Competitive Fire: How Amy took her sprint drive to adaptive CrossFit and became the second-fittest seated woman on Earth in her mid-40s.

Thank you for listening! We want to help you Outswim the age cure, the competition and life's obstacles! We'd be grateful for a review on Apple! 

Email us and/or find out more about the host at www.KellyPalace.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

Breaststroke is notorious for sidelining adult swimmers with groin, hip, and knee strain. But what if joint degradation isn't an inevitable part of competitive aging?

How do you step away from the sport for 13 years, return at age 40, and capture 13 World Aquatics Masters titles and nine individual world records—all while racing the most joint-punishing stroke on the program?

In this episode, City of Cardiff, Wales, UK, swimmer and Freestyle Media Podcast host Helen Gorman joins Kelly Palace to reveal the training routines and mobility habits that preserve joint health in the 50–54 age group. Helen breaks down why breaststrokers can't rely on in-water yards alone, how she maintains pace alongside teenagers without burnout, and the weekly volume balance required to keep joints functioning at an elite level.

Inside this episode, you’ll discover:

• The 20-Minute Joint Armor Habit: Why showing up early for mandatory dryland mobility, foam rolling, and hip activation is non-negotiable for long-term breaststroke health.
• The 13-Year Layoff Reset: How Helen avoided the frustration trap at age 40 by starting the clock over and setting realistic targets within 5-year age bands.
• Surviving "Butting Kicking with the Kids": The tactical boundaries of swimming with elite youth squads—and why Helen avoids double workouts to preserve recovery.
• The 200 Breast Back-End Blueprint: Helen’s go-to broken sets and race-pace repeats to build holding power on the final 50 meters.
• Technique Over Brute Force: Why elite Masters longevity comes down to holding water rather than muscling through fatigue.
• The UK Breaststroke Legacy: Cultural coaching insights from the home of Olympic champions David Wilkie and Adam Peaty.

Thank you for listening! We want to help you Outswim the age cure, the competition and life's obstacles! We'd be grateful for a review on Apple! 

Email us and/or find out more about the host at www.KellyPalace.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

If you've ever battled crippling race anxiety, felt air-starved mid-race, or wondered how to fall back in love with swimming, this on-deck conversation with 25-year-old coach and former collegiate swimmer Geffen Chang is a must-listen. Geffen opens up about overcoming panic attacks in the 400 IM, his go-to stretch for breaststroke groin pain, and the mental shift that helped him step onto the blocks purely for himself.

Inside this episode, you’ll discover:

• Race-Day Panic Attacks & Air Hunger: Geffen addresses mid-race hyperventilation, anxiety, and the feeling of choking during grueling events (like the 400 IM and 200 Fly), sharing how mental self-talk ("I'm going to be okay") and high practice repetition desensitize fear.
• Post-College Burnout & Lost Motivation: Offers a blueprint for transitioning from rigid collegiate expectations (swimming for times/coaches) to Masters swimming for personal joy, autonomy, and fulfillment.
• Breaststroke Groin Pain & Tightness: Provides a specific pre-race mobility stretch (wide sumo squat with lateral shifts) to release hip and adductor tension before getting on the blocks.
• Event Overwhelm & Multi-Race Endurance: Demonstrates how to mentally approach a heavy, multi-event meet lineup (including long-distance events like the 1500m) as a test of will and celebration of racing rather than pressure for perfection.

If this resonates, subscribe to Champions Mojo, share the episode with a swim buddy, and leave us a review so more masters swimmers can find it. Thank you for listening!

Thank you for listening! We want to help you Outswim the age cure, the competition and life's obstacles! We'd be grateful for a review on Apple! 

Email us and/or find out more about the host at www.KellyPalace.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.

Are you worried that your best performances are behind you? Do you ever step up to the blocks—or walk into a room—and feel entirely underestimated because of your age or size? Or worry that your time out of the water will prevent you from success?

This week on Champion's Mojo, we are sitting down with a true generational talent who is completely rewriting the rules of super agers and performance in athletics. Jeannette Brits, a 65-year-old Australian powerhouse, recently did the unthinkable: she shattered the women's 65-69 age division world record in the 800-meter freestyle by almost 30 seconds, clocking a breathtaking sub-10-minute time and also broke the 200 and 400 world records as well.

But Jeannette didn't achieve this by being the tallest, the strongest, or the most naturally gifted swimmer in the water. Standing at 5'3" (160cm) and having taken a massive 30-year hiatus from the sport to raise a family and build a career, Jeannette relies on a ferocious work ethic, a "dog-with-a-bone" racing mentality, and the courage to train daily with a squad of men 15 to 20 years her junior.

If you've ever felt like the deck is stacked against you, or if you are looking for the motivation to finally make your own comeback, Jeannette’s story is the ultimate blueprint for relentless endurance.

In this episode, we dive into:

• The Comeback Blueprint: How to successfully and safely return to high-level training after decades away from your sport.
• Using Doubt as Fuel: The exact mental framework Jeannette uses when competitors judge a book by its cover and expect her to go to the back of the lane.
• Outworking the Advantage: How to overcome a lack of natural height or physical leverage through sheer grit, technical focus, and brutal consistency.
• The HRT Conversation: Jeannette's candid reality on achieving world-dominating endurance without Hormone Replacement Therapy.
• Balancing the Grind: How mixing grueling 27km pool weeks with joyful, soul-filling ocean swims keeps injuries and burnout at bay.

Tune in to discover why it's never too late to get back in the water, toughen up, and completely surprise yourself.

If you loved this episode, please consider leaving us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts— more masters swimmers can find the show.

Thank you for listening! We want to help you Outswim the age cure, the competition and life's obstacles! We'd be grateful for a review on Apple! 

Email us and/or find out more about the host at www.KellyPalace.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.