Champions Mojo for Masters Swimmers
Welcome Masters swimmers, triathletes, and anyone striving to live well and swim well! Hear powerful interviews with world-class champions, leading experts, and everyday heroes—sharing tips, tools, and stories to boost your motivation, training, and life performance. Hosted by Kelly Palace, Masters Swimming Champion, author, and former NCAA Division I head coach. A podcast that champions you!
Champions Mojo for Masters Swimmers
How a World Record Setter Trains, Tapers, And Thrives In Masters Swimming: Jeff Commings, ENCORE EP 291
One of our very favorite episodes on how to train, taper, and thrive in Masters Swimming. In this encore show we sat down with world record masters swimmer and veteran swim journalist Jeff Cummings to map out a smarter path to speed: focused training, practical tapering, honest recovery, and habits you can sustain with a full-time job and a full life. Jeff opens up about training alone and still finding intensity, the “exercise sets” that harden race finish, and why four quality days plus one true recovery swim beat mindless yardage every time. Everyone wants to know how to taper for a Masters Swim Meet!
We dig into how to build speed as an aging athlete, especially for triathletes and distance swimmers crossing into 50s and 100s. Jeff’s method is clear: make sprinting a skill you practice year-round, target stroke rate and pull mechanics, and give your body six to twelve months to adapt. His taper philosophy flips convention—most masters don’t need two weeks off. He keeps sessions at or above 2,500 yards, trims intensity to preserve pop, and stops heavy weights about ten days out so he shows up springy, not stale.
Strength, recovery, and nutrition round out the engine. Twice-weekly lifting maintains muscle mass without bulking. Stretching isn’t optional; Jeff builds mobility into pool decks, showers, and daily routines so soreness doesn’t harden into tightness. His “daytime vegan” approach—plant-forward days with animal protein at night—dropped his cholesterol, stabilized energy, and restored race power. We also explore stress and blood pressure, the realities of running a business, and the mindset tools that turn lactic burn into competitive fuel.
Beyond performance, Jeff champions inclusion through Swimmers For Change. He shares simple ways to diversify the pool deck: invite a friend, buy the first lesson, follow up until it sticks. If you’re looking for masters swimming tips, sprint training for adults, taper strategy, dryland strength, recovery stretching, and inclusive community building, this conversation brings it all together in a plan you can actually live. If it helps you, share it with a teammate, subscribe for more, and leave a quick review so others can find the show.
Email us at HELLO@ChampionsMojo.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.
Check out Kelly's Books at www.KellyPalace.com
Full disclosure, I hate going to the gym. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I do not like it. I never have from the time I started doing dryland gym workouts when I was 17 until now. So 31 years. I have never been like, yay, I'm going to the gym to lift weights, to do squats and all that. I've never liked it, but I do it because I know I have to.
SPEAKER_01:Hello, friends. This is Kelly Palace, host of Champions Mojo, your place for better health, resilience, and master swimming. I'm taking a short break from recording new episodes of Champions Mojo for two exciting reasons. First, I'm launching my latest book, False Cure. It's a whistleblowing investigative journalism book about a denied health epidemic. If you'd like more information on that, it's in the show notes. The second and most compelling reason I'm on a break is here at Champions Mojo, we're preparing for the January 2026 reboot of powerful new weekly episodes with expert guest interviews, inspiring topics, and tips to take your mindset, health, and personal performance to the next level. We will be announcing some incredible partnerships with the show, and I guarantee what we have in store for you will empower you and keep your mojo strong in the new year. While I'm preparing some of this great stuff, we've selected some of our best shows ever for an Encore series. My hope is that if this is your second time listening to this episode, you'll take away even more insight and motivation. Or if it's your first time, you'll love this episode as much as everyone else did. So settle in and enjoy this Encore presentation in its entirety. So we have a wonderful show for us today. We will be talking with Jeff Cummings, author, broadcast personality, and elite master swimmer. Jeff is a decorated swimmer from his college days at the University of Texas, Austin, where he was an Olympic trials qualifier. And currently he is a world record-setting master swimmer. He's also a media personality for USA swimming and has hosted the morning swim show and deck pass, among others. And Jeff has covered the sport of swimming as a journalist for multiple decades. Maria, what else can you tell us about Jeff?
SPEAKER_02:Well, Jeff just keeps performing at the world-class level, earning multiple FINA World No. Master's rankings in 2021 in the men's 45 to 49 age group. He's also fresh off the USMS Spring Nationals, where he won five national titles. He does this all with a full-time job. Jeff is a writer and the author of the 2010 book Odd Man Out, an autobiography, True Stories of a Gay Black Swimmer. We can't wait to talk with Jeff and get some mojo for our own lives. Jeff, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, it's good to be here again, Maria and Kelly. After I can't remember how long ago it was.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but it was one of our first interviews, wasn't it, Kelly? I feel it. It was actually, it was show number 21. So it was 147 shows ago. Wow. So a couple of years, which we thought you were one of our most popular shows, Jess. And, you know, in our last show, we didn't talk as much about your, you know, drilling down on your master swimming. You know, we talked kind of broad strokes about how you've become this amazing champion in your life and your book and your career. And now we're kind of doing a season of master swimmers. And also we have a lot of triathletes and people that, you know, we're we're all aging. I can't believe you are already in the 45 to 49 age group.
SPEAKER_03:I was neither can I.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And so we're a bunch of aging athletes out here. So we kind of want to get some secrets. You know, how are you doing this high level? I'm talking, you know, really fast performances of, you know, you had multiple number one, world number ones last year, obvious US number ones, and you're doing this with a full-time job, you know, partner. You're you're just you have a full life and yet you're performing at a high level. How are you doing it?
SPEAKER_03:Nothing's really a secret. I mean, I get asked this all the time. I get, you know, people stop me on deck when I get out of the pool, it's like, you know, how many times are you swimming per week? Do you do this? Do you do that? So I get questions a lot and I'm always proud to answer them. I mean, even if I'm not trying to keep it a secret so that nobody can, you know, be as fast as me. I've I'm I'm totally willing to let people know because I want people to understand that you can continue to swim at a high level, you can continue to swim well as you age. And how do I do it? Sometimes I don't know. Sometimes I get to the end of the day, it's like, how did I get through that day? It was so much. Like, for example, this past Saturday, I got up at five to swim before I had an eight-hour workday. So part of it is you just do it. And if you get in that rhythm, I think that's the thing. You get in a rhythm, you get into some consistency. It's not as hard as you think. But I know a lot of people have trouble with the consistency because their lives are very unpredictable. There's so many things that they can't keep on a schedule because of just their jobs or their families or whatever. And I guess I've been very lucky to have the kind of a job and kind of a life that allows me to continue to be able to train, not the way I want, because I don't like training this hard, but to train the way that I need to and to continue to enjoy the sport. Well, how hard are you training? I swim five days a week. Usually I always take Sundays off. It depends on what day during the week I take off. And sometimes it's Thursday, especially this summer, because the pool where I swim is long course on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. And since this is long course season, I'll take the one of the days off where the pool is just short course. So I swim five days a week. I used to count how many yards or meters that I swam every day, but I don't really try to do that too much because I get bogged down in, oh my gosh, I only did 3,200 today. What does that mean for next week or the next workout? I just try to get the most out of each workout. And I supplement that with two dryland workouts per week. And it's usually just weightlifting, but there's also some core exercises. I don't really need to do cardio in the gym because swimming is my cardio. So it can be very intensive. Some days I get a I have a swim workout that, you know, it's hard to get out of the pool afterwards, but I feel good that I did it. And I also swim alone. And that's one thing that I that is a product of my life. Because I teach swim lessons for a living and I'm teaching them during the day, I can't swim with a master's team during their typical workout times. Either I don't want to get up very early in the morning. The team that I want to swim with, they swim at 5:30 in the morning. And that's, I'm not going to get up that early, especially if I have a day where I'm not starting work until noon. Like, what am I going to do for four hours? Probably go back to sleep, which I don't want to do. And I can't swim at noon because I'm often working at noon. So my only choice was just is to swim alone. And that's really the hardest part because there are days where I'm excited about the workout and then I get to the main set and I'm thinking, yeah, my body's not feeling it. Is anybody going to really care if I cut this in half or only do two rounds instead of three? But I have to do it. And I know in my mind, I have to do it if I want to reach the goals that I want to reach. Are you coached? I'm my own coach. So I don't have somebody else writing the workouts. Actually, something I'm doing this year that's been very helpful for me is back in 2011 when I qualified for the 2012 Olympic trials, I kept a log of all of my workouts for that year after I qualified up until swimming at Olympic trials. And so that was 10 years ago. And I said, you know what? I'm going to try some of these workouts that I did 10 years ago and see how they do. And some of them, I'm like, how did I do these 10 years ago? And some of them were like, I can't believe I'm still doing this. And the times sometimes aren't as fast, but I'm able to do the set. And so that's been a lot of fun. So, you know, like today I did a I'm going, I actually'm going to do a set that I did 10 years ago that when I looked at it, my eyes were just like, there's no way. How did I do this when I was 38? But it's going to be a nice challenge for me.
SPEAKER_01:What is that set?
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's a set that I actually like. It's more of an exercise set, but it involves create the lactic acid. And so what you'll do is you'll do a dive 25 sprint and you'll climb out and you'll do 10 push-ups, and then you'll dive back in and do another 25 sprint. And then you'll do a 50 easy. And you do that six rounds. It's very hard. I did this when I was 38 when I was training at the Phoenix Swim Club. And my coach Mark Rankin used to love doing these. He called them exercise sets. And they are exercise. I mean, you really get your heart popping. But the goal is, especially on that second 25 that you do, your arms are going to be burning from the push-ups and you just have to keep sprinting. And you do it six rounds, and I vividly remember these sets. And, you know, you feel like you're failing. You know, you don't even care what the time is. You're just, it's all about the effort. And I'm looking forward to it, but I'm not looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it for the challenge. I'm not looking forward to it because as again, I swim by myself. And when I did the set 10 years ago, I was swimming with the team. And, you know, there would be people there who would I dive in with them and I'd race them. And that creates the challenge and that gets you out of your own head of this really hurt. You're just wanting to race that person next to you. So I don't have anybody to swim next to when I do the set. And it, I know that's going to be the real challenge.
SPEAKER_01:So in general, if you're swimming five days a week, are you doing some short race pace mixed with endurance, mixed with that exercise? So tell us kind of what your training is and how you taper off of that. Because I don't know if you're going to Long Force Nationals, but you know, we're three weeks out. And if you're doing that kind of stuff, I don't know when you start your taper, but tell us kind of how your week looks when you're in a heavy training block and then how you taper off of that.
SPEAKER_03:I would say a heavy training block is kind of the six to seven weeks before I start tapering. And it's not to say, let's say, in the fall, winter, spring season that runs like almost seven months, that I'm not doing anything for the first like three, four months. I really am working hard, but it really is kind of mostly endurance. So in the heavy training, when I'm really getting ready for meet, it's not, it wouldn't be what you call race base. You know, it's not what Michael Andrew does. But I am specifically focused on how am I attacking this race. You know, if I'm thinking about training that day for 100 breaststroke, I'm thinking about how am I going to attack this race? And let's experiment with some things of doing die 50s long course and you know, experimenting with how fast I want to take it out and finding that easy speed kind of thing. So I would say out of the five workouts I do, four of them are definitely have some very hard swimming components. They may not be sprinting, they may be working on my 200 IM, which is another event that I'm working on this year. So it's not all just fast 25s and 50s. There may be some best average hundreds backstroke. There may be some best average hundreds freestyle. I do not like training long course breaststroke. I really, really, really do not like it because my heart rate gets really high. The lactic acid really gets built up. And as much as I don't like turns, sometimes that turn in a short course bull can really help. But I really know I have to do it. And it's really about just making sure that I can finish the race well. Because as you get older, your your aerobic endurance really does decrease. Your anaerobic anaerobic endurance really decreases. And it's really a lot harder to finish races. And so I want to make sure that when I get to those last, I don't know, 15, 20 meters or yards, that yeah, the lactic acid is building up, but I could think back to that hard set I did four weeks ago and think, I made it through that. I can make it through this.
SPEAKER_02:That that is my follow-up question to that. Is what do you say to yourself when that lactic acid builds up and you're in a lot of pain and you're training alone, as you said, you know, what stacking, you know, remembering what you've done, but what else? Anything else you say to yourself?
SPEAKER_03:I basically try to tell myself, just imagine this was the race. This is a race, and you have to get to the wall. Whether I'm racing a clock or I'm racing one or two people next to me, I have to tell myself, get to the wall, not just get to the wall, because you can just flail, but you know, I want to get to the wall with the greatest technique because the technique is going to help. Focus on the technique, focus on getting to the wall. And sometimes it that wall feels like it's never gonna get there. And I also know I probably have one more repeat to do. So, you know, don't think about, oh, I have one more to do, so back off. The whole point is if you're supposed to be building up this lactic acid and trying to basically swim through the pain, you just have to to endure it. And again, it's not, it does not get any easier as you get older. And it does not get easy when you're swimming by yourself. So I have to tell myself, just keep going, just keep going, just keep going, just keep going. And I kind of picture in my head what my, for lack of a better word, I think about what my rivals are doing and the fact that they're probably out there just churning it out. They're probably swimming with the team, and they are they're pushing it every day, and they were probably pushing it that day. And I have to say I can't let down because they didn't either.
SPEAKER_02:I do exactly the same thing. I imagine when my rival's out there racing and pushing. That's interesting. That's a great picking.
SPEAKER_01:But you are really fast. Okay. So what you're talking to a couple of distance girls here. So what you your training sounds a lot like when Maria and I talk about, oh, we did this grueling training. So you have so much speed. Where is your speed mixed in there? Because it is. I mean, you're so fast.
SPEAKER_03:You have to put fast stuff in there all the time. And I guess uh it just comes from me having been a sprinter all my life. And so it's not, it's not difficult for me to. I actually get more excited about the sprint sets than the best average hundreds that I do because they're, you know, there may be 25s on 40, and it's, you know, the point is to kind of get some rest or 50s on two minutes, the point being to get some rest and do them over and over. I get excited about it, even though I get to the end and it's really hurting, it's really burning. I can barely feel like I can't breathe, kind of thing. So it just comes from a life of being a sprinter. If I were a distance swimmer when I was younger and trying to be a sprinter now, I know how hard that is. I coach a lot of swimmers who are trying to be sprinters and they grew up as distance or middle distance swimmers. But mentally, I just get so excited about sprinting. So it's not difficult at all for me to do a sprint set, at least to think about it and right before the set get excited about it. But of course, in the moment, sometimes the thoughts come in of like, uh, maybe it would have been better to be a distance swimmer. You don't have to go 100% the whole time.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I have first question and then a follow-up. What are your best average hundreds on? What's the interval?
SPEAKER_03:For freestyle, I'm gonna tell you long course just because I'm in that long course mic. Sure. Long course, the interval will be 145, and I'm trying to hold between 110 and 115.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:And it's about 30 seconds rest.
SPEAKER_01:And then the follow-up is so most people don't come into swimming with this great sprint background. Like Maria is swimming, her, she's she's a new master swimmer. She's gonna swim her first master's event, albeit it's it is a two-miler. But for those people that generally like triathletes come in, people come in that when they go to meets, they may have an endurance base, but they're gonna swim in their first meet, the 50-free, the 100-free, the 50 breast, the 100-breast. How would you recommend that those swimmers transfer kind of their endurance muscles to being quick in the pool?
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's very hard to transition from someone who used to do the mile to doing the 50. That's a big junk. I would say if you want to be a sprinter, probably a 50 is gonna seem way too short. You're by the time the race is over, you're gonna feel like, okay, I'm ready to go. So I would say 100 is the best is the best place to start for a distance swimmer who wants to be a sprinter. It's still a sprint, it's still pretty much all out. And, you know, the best thing to do is to know you're gonna do this meet well in advance because you can't say, oh, in three months, I'm gonna do my first 50 freestyle on a meet. You need to give your body time to start training for that and adapting to it. So I would say six months to a year out, you need to start thinking like a sprinter, getting into that mindset and in the pool, don't shy away from doing all those sprint sets and just embrace it. And your body's gonna rebel because you have slow switch muscles. And when you age, it's hard to turn those over to fast switch. But you could do it if you work on stroke rate, if you work on how you're pulling through the water, and if you just do the sprints. And again, I coach master summers and I have I have a few of them that want that are tri athletes, and they think of 200 freestyle is a sprint, and it is for for some of them. And I tell them they got to work on turning their arms over faster, and it's really hard for them to think about that because they're they're in that mindset of, you know, and I just did an Iron Man, so I'm thinking of keeping it long and strong and to think about basically turning it over really fast is foreign to them, but they're working on it. It's not that they have this meeting them up. They've been working on this for a year, preparing for it. And if you don't give yourself time to prepare for it, it's probably not going to turn out the way you want it.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, cool. Well, that's good. And you're dry land training, you're doing that two days a week. What does that look like?
SPEAKER_03:It's mostly weights, as I said. The hard part about this is the knowledge that I'm at the point in my life where muscle mass decreases. And I know as a sprinter, I have to keep my muscle mass. And I've been so fortunate and kind of surprised that the weights that I'm lifting now, like let's say for bench press or lat pull or leg press, they're pretty much the same weights that I've been doing since I was in my early 30s. So for example, you know, I'll bench press about 190 for 10 reps right now. And I've been doing that for a long time. Now, I could probably try to max out on that, but I don't, you know, I'm 48 years old. I don't want to break something. But I also, you know, I know that even when I was in my 30s or when I was in college, the point is not to like bulk out because that's very hard to you can't pull yourself through the water if you've got these heavy, dense muscles. And you just don't need it. I mean, you look at people like Caleb Dressel, I mean, he's lean, but he's strong. I mean, you almost all those sprinters, you know, Rowdy Gaines always says when, you know, they're stepping up on the blocks for a 50 freestyle, they're built like linebackers. I know linebackers, they're not built like linebackers, but they are big and they're they got broad shoulders, but they're not looking like Mr. Olympia out there. And, you know, they really push the weights and they make the muscles they have stronger. It's not necessarily about like increasing the muscle mass. But for me, it's about keeping that muscle mass because if I want to try to swim the times I want to swim, I can't just rely on the swimming part. I've got to stay strong and I've got to make sure those muscles are continuing to stay at least kind of the way they used to be. It's not to say that yes, I'm lifting the same weights, it's not as easy, but I am quite surprised that I'm still able to do them.
SPEAKER_02:How many hours a week do you train all together? How much in the pool and how much dry land?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I would say a typical swim workout is about an hour and 15 minutes. So that's five, six hours and 15 minutes in the pool. And then full disclosure, I hate going to the gym. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I do not like it. I never have from the time I started doing dry land gym workouts when I was 17 until now. So 31 years. I have never been like, yay, I'm going to the gym to lift weights, to do squats and all that. I've never liked it, but I do it because I know I have to. And when I get there, sometimes I'm like, okay, this is a really good gym day. And it kind of boosts my morale about it. So I'm there twice a week and I'm usually around 45 to 50 minutes. So all in all, it's about seven, no more than eight hours in a week of actual training. It's not that I don't have the time. I can make the time to do more yards in the water. I don't feel like I really need to do that. And like I said, I could probably add, I've been asked, you know, why don't you add a day in the gym? Would it help you? And I it probably wouldn't really change much, especially since I don't like going there. So adding a day to do something I really don't like doing mentally probably wouldn't be a good thing for me either.
SPEAKER_01:We've got this training block. How do you taper?
SPEAKER_03:Taper is an art. It's not a science. It varies wildly from season to season for me. But the general framework is I don't taper officially for more than six days. You know, there is no such thing in the matter. I can't imagine there's a master swimmer who needs a two-week taper unless they're training like 7,000 or 8,000 yards a workout because there's nothing to taper from. I mean, if you're going, I'd say the average master swimmer swims, let's say elite level, swims between 3,000 yards and 4,000 yards in a workout. I mean, if you're trying to taper down, you shouldn't really go too far. You couldn't, I mean, going 2,500 is probably the minimum you should be doing. Because when you get to a meet, you're gonna, if you count your warm-up, your races, and your warm down in a day, you're probably gonna be doing 2,500 yards. So if you do less than that, then the the swimming at the meat is gonna feel like you're doing more. So I always keep that mindset of never going less than 2,500 on my taper workouts. So I don't have far to taper down. And it's really just about reducing the intensity for me. So if I'm doing four out of my five workouts normally that are really, really hard, really intense, and having one recovery day, during a taper, I might do three days where I just do no more than like a hundred fast. But some days I'm one day I might do like a set that's 500 yards and total sprinting just to keep up that energy and kind of keep my muscles in shape. And people are like surprised when I say it's like six days. But you know, I remember the last time I did a two-week taper and it failed miserably. Failed miserably. I felt out of shape when I dove in for each race. I felt like I couldn't move, like my muscles, I had no muscles. You know, I was just going on autopilot. I knew what I was doing. The times on the scoreboard were absolutely terrible. And I said, I don't need a two-week taper. I just don't need it. And so I said, the next season I'm gonna try one week. And so it was seven days, and it worked out much better. I had, I felt like I was in good racing shape, good swimming shape. I was ready to go. And so I've stayed with that pretty much since this was 2014 when I had that two-week taper. So eight years, and it's never varied much from the length of time. But sometimes it depends on the training season I've had. If I feel like I've been training really hard and I feel broken down, I may take more days of hardly doing any sprinting. So you just have to listen to your body. And whether you're swimming by yourself or whether you're swimming with the team, you have to listen to your body. If your body says three days out, I'm ready to race, it's probably a little too early, a little too soon. So you kind of maybe should the next day do some hard stuff just to kind of get your body pepped up again, kind of break it down a little bit and then give it another day to rest. And then by meet day, you should be ready. But it's it's so hard. Kelly and Maria, I can't tell you how many times I have fretted over a taper where I've gotten to halfway through and I feel terrible. Like I feel like I am not gonna have a good meat. And then the next day, just fine. It's just fine. I'm actually more ready to race. So if you go through a taper and you every day feel like you're ready to go, it's probably not gonna be a good taper because probably at the meat, you're gonna start to feel like you're a little bit out of shape. Or yeah, because you peak too early in your taper. So just the bottom line is listen to your body and make sure that you're not feeling race ready too soon.
SPEAKER_01:That is one of the best summations of a taper for masters that I've ever heard. And I just to drill down one more degree, so I I've clearly got what you said. Where do you stop the weights, the dry land?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the weights will start a little bit before that. So I stop weights maybe 10 days out. Okay. But I'll actually start to taper that off. So let's say, for example, my I'm not going to Long Course Nationals. I'm actually going to Mission Viejo for a swim meet in August, the week after nationals. So that meet starts on the 12th. Actually, the 13th is the first day I'm swimming. So I'm going to stop weights probably the second or the third, whichever that Thursday, because I lift weights on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So that'll be my last day of actually doing weights. And it'll be very light. You know, I'll just do two, two sets of 15, just kind of light weights, just kind of just making sure I feel like I'm doing something. And then I don't go to the weight room anymore after that. I may, you know, after, let's say on a particular day, I may do some core stuff just to kind of keep that intact. But it's I never touch a weight, never go in the gym at all. And I think that's actually good. I actually, one time I stopped doing weights the same day I stopped my taper, and I was still broken down for me. And I knew it was because of the weights. So I figured 10 days, I wouldn't say it's perfect, because again, it's a it's an art. There's no such thing as a perfect taper, but that seems to work best.
SPEAKER_02:I just have to ask, I woke up this morning really sore. And I was thinking, you know, I wake up every morning sore. Is that I'll ask both of you, is that a classic master's athlete thing? You're pushing yourself, you're doing different things, and you're just going to be sore all the time. I mean, I usually my mental attitude about it is, oh, great, that's great. But I sometimes wonder if I'm going too hard. What do you think, Jeff?
SPEAKER_03:Well, being sore is good. It's a sign that you're working hard, you're breaking your muscles down. But again, we're not in our 20s anymore. Right. So the one thing that I know people don't do, I would say, I would bet you if I pulled 200 master swimmers of all abilities, and I asked them, Do you stretch after your workout? The majority of them would say no. They just get out of the pool, take a shower, get dressed girl. You have to stretch. You know, that's how you get your lactic ass out. People just think, oh, you know, when the coach says do a 200 easy at the end of the workout, that cures it. But of course, you wake up the next morning, you're still feeling it. You have to stretch. You know, it could be while you're in the shower. It could be while you're on your way home in the car, you're on your way to work. I do that myself. I actually in the shower after the workout, I'm stretching. Before I get out of the pool, I'm doing some stretching. I'll always, depending on the pool I'm in, the lifeguards get a little freaked out because I'll go down to the bottom of the pool and I'll just stand on the bottom and just do this stretch. He's pulling his elbow. He's pulling his elbow up. Pull the two elbows up. Pull the elbow behind my head, do a nice tricep stretch. And so I'll stand there underwater for like 10 seconds. It's not that I can't get out of the pool and do it, but I don't know. It feels better doing it in the water. And I know the lifeguards, they know who I am at the pool where I swim mostly, so they know I'll be okay. But I'm sure they're looking. It's like, okay, is he coming up? And I'll blow bubbles just to kind of let them know. But I do that a lot. I'll sit there after I'm done and in the pool, on the side of the pool, stretching for like five minutes. And like I said, I'll do some more stretching in the shower. If I'm feeling it an hour later, I'll do a little more stretching. It might be my upper back and I'll do some stretches for my upper back. I'll just raise my arms over my head and hold my hands and just stretch my arms. That always helps. Stretching is very important. It's not to say it's going to help you not feel sore the next day, but at least you'll be able to get out of bed and not feel like you're, you know, hunched over. You can't, you know, stand up straight.
SPEAKER_02:That's good advice.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So I love having a roundtable discussion because I think our listeners will really appreciate that. So in talking about being sore every morning, do you ever take training blocks where you rest?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, obviously I'm not sore on those times when I'm not doing anything. But when I'm when I'm doing so many different things now because I'm I'm doing running and I'm also I'm not a triathlete right now, but I am swimming, you know, which is new for me and different different kinds of swimming. So and then I also go to the gym and I do something different at the gym every time. So I feel like I'm I'm waking up a new muscle every day that I'm working out. So yeah. What do you think about being sore, Kelly? Is that part of your experience?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but I do rest when I'm sore. Like if I'm super sore, then I will not beat myself up and I'll just take a day. I mean, it'll just be that one day out of a hard training block. Like if I plan to swim five days hard in a week and I swim four days hard, and then I have a hard, like let's say I swim Monday through Thursday, and I'm really, really tired and I know I have a hard workout Saturday. I might just not do something Friday. How about you, Jeff? Do you like beat yourself up if you just say, you know, today I'm just not gonna do this?
SPEAKER_03:Well, like I said, I know which day is my recovery day. Saturday is always my recovery day because one, I have to swim at six in the morning and it's just way too early to do anything really hard. My body is not awake. And I have a very long eight hour day of teaching swim lessons. So I'm not gonna, you know, beat myself to a pulp in the pool and then have to teach swim lessons all day because I'm not gonna. To be in the right physical or mental frame of mind. So I always know Saturday's going to be easy or let's say easier. Some days it's not going to be like a full-on just floating through the pool. So let's say on a Tuesday, I just don't feel good, like it's really hard. And I'll say, okay, so let's say on Wednesday, maybe I won't do sprinting. Maybe I'll just do some aerobic work. You know, I won't try to beat my muscles up too hard, but I'm not going to take it as a rest day. And, you know, I don't like that feeling of having too much rest because, like I said, I don't taper very long. I think my body's going to kickstart a taper. So I don't want it to start feeling that in the middle of the season. So that's why the one day is important and the two days off where I don't do anything. I don't go to the gym. I don't swim. I just, you know, that gear really gives my body a chance to rest. So I know I have those two days. So I just don't try to fully implement a rest day until Saturday. And the other days, it's really, it can be hard because mentally I'm like, I just don't feel like doing this that my body does not want to do it. That's the point. Yeah. You know, you have to, you have to break your body down and you have to train your body to push through its limits. Unless it's an if it gets to the point where it's an injury, then I'll say, okay, I won't do freestyle today because my shoulder is not feeling it today. But I'll do something else. I'll just put on bends and just kick that whole day.
SPEAKER_01:So on the day you're saying that you have a rest day, so you must be lifting on days that you swim then, right?
SPEAKER_03:Well, yes. I swim on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I lift on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And then the other two days are completely off. And then your recovery day is the Saturday where you're just going easy swimming. Okay, gotcha. So four days a week is when you're really torturing yourself. And I already have my takeaways, Maria. I mean, I know where I'm going to sit. Like this is clearly, clearly, Jeff, you are so successful because you work your tail off. I mean, you are like super hard. And we, you opened kind of with saying, like, we said, how do you do it? People want to know your secret. And you said, you know, you just get into a routine. And we love to hear from champions like, what other routines, rituals you covered a lot with just your swimming, but outside of your swimming that make you a champion?
SPEAKER_03:Something I've really stuck with since 2015 is having a partially vegan life. And this comes from my biology with high blood pressure and high cholesterol, something that medication wasn't really was helping, but it wasn't really doing all that it could do. You know, I'd get to a point after workout and I'd take my heart rate, and my heart rate would be about 180 after heart set. Wow. And then I'd take it a minute, or you're supposed to take it 30 seconds later, and it would only get down to 150. And usually a fit athlete, it should be down in the 130s. And so I was thinking, okay, I told my doctor that. And so in 2015, I said, you know what? Maybe I'm going to try this vegan thing. And I read books that athletes could be vegan. Very famously, Rebecca Sony, the 2012 Olympic gold medals in 200 breasts. She was vegan. So I figured if those people could do it, I could do it. I couldn't do it. I was fully vegan for three months, fully vegan. And I lost like 15 pounds in three months. And I didn't see it. My husband did. And he was like, this has got to stop. And I went to a swim meet, and because I'd lost those 15 pounds of muscle, I swam terribly. And so that was my wake-up call. Because I was like, oh, I'm 185 pounds. Oh, that's great. That's awesome. And it just wasn't for me. 185 is too light for me. I couldn't really pull through the water the way I wanted. But I loved being vegan because it got my cholesterol numbers down. I felt better in training. Actually, I was trained best I'd ever trained. But I wasn't racing well. People looked at me and said, gosh, you're so lean. Like at that meat where I swam horribly, people were like, You're so lean. And I'm like, thanks. It's not something I'd ever heard. And so I said, okay, I like the vegan lifestyle. It's helping my body. It's helping my cholesterol. I could feel better in training, but it's not helping my racing. So the answer was that I needed more and put animal protein back in my diet. So I call myself a daytime vegan. So for breakfast, lunch, I have vegan foods. I have oatmeal with almond milk every almost every morning. Lunch might be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich pasta. Pasta is big for me. I'll have a tofu salad. Some of the plant-based hamburgers that they sell are very, very good. And I'll, you know, make some of those. So I could do that. And then at night, chicken breasts, beef, pork, whatever. You know, there's no limit to what I'll eat. And I found that really helped. It put the muscle weight back on. And the next season I swam normal. I swam my normal stuff again. So that's been true for me since 2015. And I have not looked back. I love doing it. It's hard when I travel sometimes, but it's really worked well for me.
SPEAKER_02:How about your cholesterol? Did it stay down on the partially vegan diet?
SPEAKER_03:It's in the 150s.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, wonderful.
SPEAKER_03:It dropped 50 points and it stayed there. And so my doctor's very happy with it. I'm still on the cholesterol medication, then that'll never go away. But yeah, the vegan diet has really helped. And again, it's not like I was eating junk food, but you know, I think it's the processed food that we eat every day that contributes to it. You know, I'm not big. I actually, before I went vegan, I would always look at labels and try not to eat foods that had high fructose corn syrup or anything like that. And it's hard to get away from that. It really is. But, you know, with the vegan foods, you can kind of forces you to really do that. It kind of makes you feel like you're going more organic. And, you know, I used to love vegetables. Broccoli is like almost daily food for me. I put it in my pasta, I'll put it in my tofu salad. I'll put it, you know, if I'm having a burger, I'll have burgers with, you know, steamed broccoli. And I love the lifestyle. It's very easy to do. Again, like swimming, if you're consistent with it and you really want to do it, it's not a problem.
SPEAKER_02:Did it help your blood pressure as well? Does it help your blood pressure as well?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it does. I would say probably the big thing that's affecting my blood pressure now is stress. You know, the stress of being the owner of a company and being your own boss and having a full-time job, it can carry some stress. And I know it does create some of the blood pressure problems. And I'm getting better with it. But yeah, I go to the doctor and you know, it's actually pretty good. But, you know, when my diastolic is above 130, they're kind of give me this look. But in general, it's much better than it used to be.
SPEAKER_01:So, Jeff, when you explain swimmers for change, and then tell us what we can do to bring more people of color into the sport of swimming. What can we do? What's swimmers for change and what can our listeners do to bring more people of color?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, swimmers for change is a really good program. We're just trying to get, we're just trying to create the diversity on the pool deck. And when you're talking about what you can do, if you know someone who may be Hispanic, African American, Asian, who is just thinking about that little thought about I could be a swimmer too, take them to the pool. Sign them up for a swim lesson. Don't just say, oh, you should do it. You know, be actively involved in getting that person into the pool. Don't just have them say, oh, I'll think about it. You know, if they think about it, six months later, they're going to tell you again, I'll think about it. You know, like I said, surprise them with a swim lesson. Say, okay, let's just start with a swim lesson. Let's see where you are. Or if they know how to swim, say, hey, come join me for a master's workout. Or, you know, maybe go to a public pool with them and just let's just swim together for 15 minutes and see what it feels like. Don't just assume that they'll do it by themselves. You have to kind of give them that gentle shove and they'll do it. And they really will. And I I've built a career off this for the past, well, full-time career for the past seven years of talking to people about, you know, you should get in the water. And they say, Yeah, I'll think about it. But I I know they'll never do it the next day or that day. And I say, Well, let me take your phone number and I'll give you a call and talk to you more about it. And I take their phone number. If I don't see them sign up for a swim lesson within a week, I call them and I say, What questions do you have? And I they actually are having questions about, you know, I don't know if this is right for me. And I tell them, there's nothing wrong with just doing it. And when you're talking about especially African-American people, it's a built-in fear of 50 plus years of society saying, swimming's not for you. They were kicked out of pools. They were, you know, bleach was thrown in the pool because they were in it. So that's built into their parents saying, that was my experience. And yeah, society may be changing, but yeah, it's not a good memory for them, and they're not going to put their kids in the water. Thankfully, my mother didn't think that way. And, you know, here I am.
SPEAKER_01:I love the advice of grab your friend, grab the person that you know you think might be a candidate to learn to swim, or even just join your master's program and bring them down to the pool. But that I love it. Beautiful advice, man. That is good stuff. Jeff, are you ready to play?
SPEAKER_03:Let's go. Joe Bar.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Cat or dog?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I can't answer that because I have a cat and a dog.
SPEAKER_01:Oh no. That's like saying which is your favorite child, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I grew up with dogs and I was always a dog person. We got the cat, I said, I don't know if I'll be a cat person. Then I spent two minutes with her and I was a cat person.
SPEAKER_01:So cat and dog. Okay, okay. Are you a bed maker or not a bed maker?
SPEAKER_03:I am not a bed maker, not in the least.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Milk chocolate or dark chocolate?
SPEAKER_03:Dark chocolate for vegan purposes.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Kickboard or no kickboard.
SPEAKER_03:No kickboard.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Mountains or beach?
SPEAKER_03:Beach, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:Football or baseball?
SPEAKER_03:Neither.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:If I had to pick, I would say baseball.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Baseball. iPhone or Android?
SPEAKER_03:Android.
SPEAKER_01:Coffee or tea?
SPEAKER_03:I hate coffee and tea's good in the winter, so tea.
SPEAKER_01:Are you a morning person or a night owl?
SPEAKER_03:I do not like having to wake up early to swim. So I would say I'm a night owl.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Does Jeff Cummings have any tattoos?
SPEAKER_03:No tattoos. No, that will never happen. I'll tell you just a quick story. I when I was in college, everybody on the University of Texas team, not everybody, but it was a thing. You wanted to get a longhorn tattoo on your body. And my sophomore year, my roommate got one, and a couple other swimmers I were good friends with, they got their tattoos. And they said, and I was driving them there to get their tattoos. And they said, Oh, you got to go in and get a tattoo. And I I went in and saw how it was done, and I said, No way. No way. I will wear all kinds of burnt orange clothes. I will show my burnt orange UT Pride however I can, but no tattoos. I will never wear tattoos. I see people with tattoos, and I don't know, part of me thinks they're cool, but yeah, you're well, no, it'll never happen.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I hear you. I hear you. Marie's got some for you.
SPEAKER_02:I got seven. I love that. The little mini speech on tattoos. I feel the same way. Favorite your favorite color, Jeff.
SPEAKER_03:Blue.
SPEAKER_02:Favorite pizza topping. Pepperoni. Favorite vegetable.
SPEAKER_03:Broccoli, as I already said.
SPEAKER_02:We knew that was coming. Yes. Favorite swim complex that you've swum in in the US.
SPEAKER_03:Ooh. Well, I'd have to say, oh, this is tough. I've swum at the Indianapolis pool a lot for college and whatnot. I would say probably the King County Aquatic Center outside of Seattle had a couple of really good meets there.
SPEAKER_02:Nice. What kind of music do you like?
SPEAKER_03:I like anything film-related. So film scores, movie songs. I just love putting on John Williams music. Just, I mean, talk about getting away from things. I put on his music and I'm out of this universe into his music.
SPEAKER_02:Do you have to watch the films that go with the music?
SPEAKER_03:No, I'll listen to the music and I know which scene it's for. It takes me back to that scene or just the emotion that it's supposed to create.
SPEAKER_02:Nice. What's your shoe size? 13. Can you cook?
SPEAKER_03:I can. I love cooking. I actually, another quick story. Because I was raised by a single mother when I was 12, my older brother was 10 years older, moved out of the house, and I had late swim practices. And sometimes my mother would have food already ready for me when I came home. And sometimes I'd be like, Mom, I'll just make grilled cheese or something. So I learned how to make food for myself when I was a teenager because I'd come home so late, she'd be tired or whatever. Especially when I learned to drive, I would drive home from swim practice, it'd be late, like 8:30 or sometimes nine. And I'd be hungry, and my mom would probably be like, I didn't make anything. Can you make something? And it would be, you know, I'd try to whip up some things. I wouldn't just pour soup out of a can into a bowl. So she and my grandmother both helped me learn how to cook, and I still do it to this day. Love doing it.
SPEAKER_02:Nice. Okay, here's the last one. What word comes to mind most when you dive in the water?
SPEAKER_03:Oh. Ah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that was a great one.
SPEAKER_02:That is a great one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Jeff, this has been so wonderful. I've gotten so much out of it. I know you know my husband, who's a huge fan of yours and swims in your age group and just thinks you are a god. I've asked every question he wanted to know. So I think everybody is going to be thrilled to hear what makes you a champion. And it's pretty obvious. So thank you. Thank you for your time today.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And being a champion is not just working hard. I think it's having fun too and doing what you love. And I love swimming. I can't do any other sports, so this is it, but I love doing it every day. And if I didn't love doing it, I wouldn't do it.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Thanks. Awesome. Thank you, Jeff.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you both. Stay tuned for the takeaways. Want to succeed like a champion? Five-time Olympic coach Bob Bowman, coach of Olympic legend Michael Phelps, says Kelly's book, Take Your Mark Lead, is a powerful addition to your personal improvement library, and learners from all walks of life will gain key insights and enjoy this inspiring book. Take your Mark Lead debuted as an Amazon number one bestseller in five categories and is available online. And now the takeaways.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, Maria, what a fantastic interview. As I said, I got so much out of that. And I think, you know, this is the second time that, you know, we've interviewed Jeff, and this was a very different interview, different subjects, different questions. What was your first takeaway?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, there was so much value in any everything you had to say. And he's just got a beautiful voice and he's so easy to listen to. I could have gone on talking to him. But one of the things that, and I said it in the interview that really resonated with me is, you know, what do you think about when it's getting uncomfortable? You know, and and for all of us, it's the lactic acid building up. Well, at least that's the case for me. I mean, when I feel that burn, whether I'm cycling or or doing something else, I haven't, as I haven't gotten into really the ability to build up lactic acid in my swimming yet. I'm just trying to learn to swim still. But but you know, so what do you think about? And he said two things. When he said, I I imagine myself racing, because when you're actually gonna race, and he wants, you know, he's competitive, he wants to do one else race. So he I imagine myself racing, and I think this is what I'm gonna have to do to get better, and also while I race. But the second thing, which I've used as well, but I'm gonna use it more consistently, is he said, I imagine what my rivals are doing. You know, so if you're competitive, if you're getting out there and competing, your rivals are out there, they're training hard. If you, you know, if it gets uncomfortable, I'm gonna remind myself, oh yeah, you know, the person out there who has a chance of beating me in this event that I'm gonna do is also out there training really hard. So I better, you know, just train as hard or harder than he or she is. So that, you know, that really spoke to me. What about you, Kelly? What's your first takeaway?
SPEAKER_01:Well, on that one, I really think that can obviously apply to athletics, whatever spray you're in, you know somebody's training. But I even think that can apply to running a business. Oh, sure. Being, you know, being a good parent, anything that you're trying to do, you're looking at a role model or not just a role model, but also who are you competing against in business? How hard are they working? And, you know, something as simple as I know this is crazy, we just finally got our yard, our landscaping in shape, finally. And it's like one of the reasons that I wanted to do it is because we were kind of like the house in the neighborhood that our yard didn't look good. And I wanted to do it thinking about what my neighbors do. You know, oh, my neighbors do that. So I think you can do that, compare yourself on almost any level, certainly when you want to be competitive. What are your competitors doing? But I I really like that one. My first one was like that Jeff is just a hard, hard worker. I mean, I know we know that hard work is so important to achieve any goal of any kind, but this he takes it to the next level, which we've talked about, which is pushing, walking through that barrier of pain, crossing the pain threshold. Yes. And that is something that the top people have to do. And it's not even that to be the top person. I think it's to take your athletics to the next step. So if you're just getting into master swimming and you want to break into the lane that now you're in the lane that does hundreds on 150, but you want to be in the lane that does hundreds on 130, well, you're gonna have to be in pain. You know, you cannot swim 10, 100s on 150 over and over and never get into pain. So if you want to get, you have to hurt. And that is what Jeff is willing to hurt. I like that. I love that. He's willing to be in pain. He's willing to work hard. He does it almost every workout. And that is a commonality that I see in all champions.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm gonna do the same thing you did with my takeaway and apply that to life. You have to get uncomfortable to grow. And so that's true for business, that's true in relationships. And so we won't call it pain, but you got to get outside of what you can easily do, right? If I'm always doing what I can know I can do, I'm never gonna grow. I'm not gonna build my business. I'm not gonna, you know, so I have to be willing to do something that's new and different and uncomfortable. So I love that. Yeah, that's a great takeaway, Kelly.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, Maria, what's your last one?
SPEAKER_02:My second takeaway is really appropriate for me too, because my business is cycling and a lot of what I do for athletics is cycling. So I spent a lot of time thinking about bicycles and doing cycling. And his his sort of last thing that he wanted to say was he, because he his business is swimming and his and his pastime is swimming, that he tries to do some things that are just not swimming. So he tries to to take it and he's intentional about he goes to movies on Mondays. I love that. You know, just to try to completely detach from the swimming world. And I think that's I think that's really important. You know, whatever we're doing in life and sports is, you know, and even for me, I can say, well, I'm not cycling, I'm swimming. It's but I think it's important also to pick up a book and read. And that, you know, it's been, I was thinking about that this morning. It's been so long since I've read. I listen to books, I listen to a lot of stuff, but reading is different and I want to do more of it, and it's completely different from anything else I do. So I like that, you know, we talk about as the alternating theory of happiness. It's hard to be just totally focused 100% of the time on one thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's really, really good to have time away. Okay, my final and wrapping up is the one that blew me away is stretching. Yeah. You know, just like you don't hear that enough. You know, and some I don't do it enough. For those of you that are just listening, well, you we're only doing the audio on this, but Jeff is a big, strong, strapping man. I mean, he's not like somebody that you would think as a ballerina or, you know, a gymnast or somebody that's that's constantly moving, swinging. You know, he's a big, strong swimmer. And you think, I just wouldn't think of him stretching, but that must be one of his secret weapons because he said it's really important to stretch. It moves lactic acid. And I think we could all stretch more, but you just don't think of, you know, this great sprinter. You just don't hear that enough.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that really spoke to me too. I don't it just feels like one more thing. But if it's gonna make me a better athlete, I'm gonna start doing it. But a key thing. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to the Champions Mojo podcast. Did you enjoy the show? We'd be grateful if you would leave us a five star review on iTunes to help others find us. And we'd also love to hear from you. We're on all social media platforms, or you can reach us at championsmojo.com.
