The Daily Pennsylvanian is a student-run nonprofit.

Please support us by disabling your ad blocker on our site.

The Penn swimming teams’ grueling practices and workouts in and out of the pool during their winter break trip to Florida left the men in great shape, but may have temporarily left the women a little worse for wear.

Last Wednesday, the two teams faced off against Brown in a dual meet at Florida Atlantic University. The men won 173-127, but the women lost 165.5-135.5.

And while the warm-weather getaway may sound relaxing, the trip to Florida could hardly be called a vacation. The team endured four hours of taxing workouts nearly every day.

Specifically, the team spent ten days training outdoors at the Institute of Human Performance in Boca Raton, FL., a facility that specializes in high-level athletes, including Olympians, professional football and baseball players and Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters.

“The workouts were great,” junior Brendan McHugh said. “They were really dynamic swimming workouts as opposed to typical strength work. The stuff we did really taught us to take pure strength and translate it to the pool.”

McHugh was one of the stars of the meet for the men’s team (1-4, 1-3 Ivy), winning three individual events. Additionally, he helped the Quakers to a third-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay, behind nationally-ranked Louisiana State University and Purdue.

“Brendan McHugh got to a new level,” coach Mike Schnur said. “In all the meets in America last week, I didn’t find anyone in America who did better than he did.”

But McHugh was just one of many men’s swimmers who stepped up their games against Brown (2-3, 0-3 Ivy).

“A lot of our guys got in better shape down there and swam very well in that meet,” Schnur said.

However, according to the coach, the difficult workouts affected the women’s team (3-2, 2-2 Ivy) “very negatively” in the short term.

“They were pretty beat up, pretty tired, so they struggled in the meet down there,” Schnur said. “I still think we’ll be tired this week, but hopefully in five weeks at Ivy Championships the workouts will pay off.”

This Saturday, the Quakers will face off against Yale and Dartmouth in New Haven, CT.

“[Yale] is one of our biggest rivals, and a lot of guys on our team don’t like them,” McHugh said.

And though not as detested, Dartmouth has perennially been the worst swimming team in the Ivy League — until a two-point victory over Brown this season, the men’s team had lost every Ivy Meet since 2006, and the women have consistently ranked at the bottom of the League barrel.

But the Big Green are much improved this year due in part to one of the Ivy League’s best freshman classes. Nejc Zupan, a member of the Slovenian National team, has immediately contributed on the men’s side, while several freshmen have carried the women’s team thus far. Both men’s and women’s teams beat Brown earlier this season.

According to Schnur, one of the biggest reasons for Dartmouth’s improvement is that its admissions office has been more kind in accepting strong swimmers.

In these two meets, both Schnur and McHugh believe that the X-factor will be how the teams adjust from the trip to Florida.

“A lot of people did not adjust well to being back in the Philadelphia weather,” Schnur said.

“There is an important adjustment to swimming indoors,” McHugh said. “It is all mental, because water is water, but it is a lot easier to swim when you’re in the sunshine.”

Still, Schnur and the swimming teams believe that the work put in during the trip down south will put the team in better shape for the Ivy Championships, which, as the coach says, “is what really matters.”