Vital exercise: “Did a total body renovation”

– I am completely convinced that I would never have come back as quickly, and felt as well as I do today, if it had not been for sports, he continues.

Swimming is in many ways a perfect form of exercise for the elderly. The training is gentle on the body, and not particularly complicated.

But swimming can also be much more than a meditative exercise hour a week.

It can also mean tough training sessions several times a week with the aim of championships.

For Bitte Axling and Ulf Gabrielsson is the latter an important part of the allure.

– Actually, I’m not much for training. What I like best is competing, says 77-year-old Bitte Axling with a smile.

– Yes, the competitions become the goal that makes training fun, says 75-year-old Ulf Gabrielsson.

He continues with a laugh:

– Because you have to be honest and admit, just lying and training back and forth in the pool is not always so fun.

Even about life is a constant process of change, it is not entirely unusual that after various detours we return to where we once started. Ulf Gabrielsson and Bitte Axling are good examples.

In their early teens, they practiced swimming together. Now just over 60 years later, they meet again at different competition venues.

– I was 15 when I quit, which was not particularly early at the time. Most swimmers quit somewhere around that age then, says Bitte Axling.

Ulf Gabrielsson was a year older when he stopped practicing swimming. After a few years of absence, he returned to the pool, but then to play water polo, which he did until he was 27 years old.

– The fact that we stopped swimming so early may be one of the explanations why many from our generation eventually returned and started competing again. Had we continued until we were 25–30, it is not certain that the longing to return would have been as strong, says Bitte Axling.

It’s early morning. The darkness outside Eriksdalsbadet still has the capital in its grip, but on track ten in the pool’s 25-meter pool, Ulf Gabrielsson has soon completed the morning’s training session.

Three times a week he trains with Neptun’s masters group. It will be around three and a half kilometers on each occasion.

It was when Ulf Gabrielsson retired at the age of 61 that he began to think about what he would do for the rest of his life. Then he thought of a conversation he had a few years earlier with his old training buddy Bitte Axling.

– We met by chance at an airport, and even then Bitte was back training and competing in swimming, recalls Ulf Gabrielsson.

So Ulf Gabrielsson decided because it was time for him too to revive his youthful interest.

– In two years I underwent a total body renovation. It wasn’t that I had lived a very unhealthy life before, but like many others I had worked a lot and eaten good dinners, he says.

Ulf Gabrielsson’s return to the pool – and all the training it entailed – took on an important role when he suffered a heart attack at the age of 69. His then strong physique and his positive attitude to training made the way back easier.

This is also why, time and again during our conversation, he comes back to the fact that it is never too late to start training.

– It is something that I really want to underline, and which I hope many will take to heart. I myself was surprised at how far I could get after holding out for almost 40 years, says Ulf Gabrielsson.

– You can kick start the body no matter what age you are, and when you train the body you also get the head going.

Bitte Axling practices swimming two to three times per week, but she does not train regularly with any group.

In addition to swimming, both Axling and Gabrielsson do strength training, and they are also active in other sports.

– I have had problems with my back, and therefore strength training is incredibly important to me, says Bitte Axling.

– When you are older, you should train strength to strengthen the muscles, adds Ulf Gabrielsson.

We talk for a long time about the importance of exercise for the body’s well-being, but also about how important the social relationships created through sports are for general well-being.

– When we travel to competitions or are at training camps, you meet swimmers from different places in Sweden, but also from other countries. That in itself is very fun and rewarding, says Bitte Axling.

But we also come back to the importance of having a concrete goal to aim for.

Masters competitions in swimmingwhere the participants are divided into age groups of five years, has increased in popularity and with it also the quality.

Already in 1997, Bitte Axling won his first international championship as a masters swimmer. Since then, there have been a large number of World Cups and European Championships.

– In the first ten years, there wasn’t really that much training before the championships. At that time, we trained about once a week. Back then, it was rather the experience itself of going on the road with a group of swimmers and visiting cities that you hadn’t been to before that attracted you, she says.

Nowadays, the picture is somewhat different.

The fight for the medals has intensified in every age category, and although it is always possible to compete against yourself with the goal of lowering your personal best, it is nice to step up to the podium.

Both Bitte Axling and Ulf Gabrielsson have experienced that.

– I haven’t won as much as Bitte, but I have won the EC twice, and won silver and bronze, says Ulf Gabrielsson.

Bitte Axling swims only 50-meter distances, and is at her best in freestyle even though she swims all four strokes.

– When I was young, I only did freestyle and a little backstroke. That means that I now think it’s a little extra fun with butterfly and breaststroke, says Bitte.

Ulf Gabrielsson invests in longer distances in free swimming.

– The coolest memory I have is when I swam the 1,500 meter freestyle during the SM in Södertälje and set four Nordic records in the same race (200, 400, 800 and 1,500), he says.

Recently, he has been training for a new challenge. The goal is that this year he will swim 200 meters butterfly – which is one of the most difficult distances – at the SM.

– I tried to do it a number of years ago, but then I broke after 100. This time, however, I have trained and trained and hope that I will make it.

Many who stand up in masters competitions have, like Axling and Gabrielsson, practiced swimming as youngsters, but there are also those who started the sport later in life.

– Now we come back to the fact that it is never too late, neither to start training nor to compete, says Ulf Gabrielsson and smiles.

We are sitting in Eriksdalsbadet’s cafeteria when Ulf Gabrielsson pulls out the season planning to show the selection of competitions during the spring and summer.

He continues by going through the division order during a SM.

– The most important point of all is found on Saturday evening. That’s when the comrades’ dinner is organised, he says and smiles.

Next week is the time. On March 17–19, the Masters Championship will be decided in Stenungsund.