During its visit to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., Northwestern men’s swimming team was more awestruck by the 6,300-foot altitude than by the prestige of practicing at the headquarters of USA Swimming.

“From the minute we stepped off the plane, we felt the altitude,” freshman Varun Shivakumar said. “We didn’t know what to expect, but we knew it would be the hardest training so far.”

The team’s 12-day trip focused on improving fitness through sheer volume. Practicing up to three times a day with no day off, the Wildcats had to acclimate to the higher altitude and intensity. After his team’s second-place finish as the host of at the TYR Invitational in late November, coach Jarod Schroeder said he hopes the trip will build momentum heading into the rest of the Big Ten season.

“High-altitude training helps to develop your aerobic base incredibly through producing more red blood cells and testing your limits,” Schroeder said.

The first-year coach trained at the Olympic Training Center for two years when he was a competitive swimmer and said part of the experience was learning from other world-class athletes representing a myriad of sports.

“The great part of a training center concept is that a swimmer might interact with the U.S. volleyball team or the world’s greatest wrestler,” Schroeder said. “Unfortunately, there were not too many other athletes around because of the holidays, but we made sure they got the experience in other ways.”

The swimmers were divided into two teams that competed against one another at the end of training. Schroeder also arranged for the team to work with sports scientists who gave video analysis of the swimmers’ individual strokes.

“Every day coach challenged us in a different way,” Shivakumar said. “One day we would be working on our aerobic base, the next we would be building up lactic acid in our muscles and all the while we would be learning new technique.”

Shivakumar is representative of a young NU squad that features seven freshmen. Schroeder said the training was especially challenging for them, but it was an important step to continue adjusting to collegiate competition.

“This training is meant to be the most intense all year and to get all of us ready for the rest of the Big Ten season,” junior Sean Mathews said. “The training will help us to focus on each individual event with intensity.”

The Cats have had trouble filling out third- and fourth-place finishes in the Big Ten this season, posting a conference record of 0-3. At the TYR Invitational, Mathews finished first in the individual rankings, with classmate Charlie Rimkus coming in a close second. Mathews was named Big Ten Swimmer of the Week for his performance. But NU fell to Michigan State by 164 points.

“This trip might aid us this weekend not just because of the training, but also because of the team’s bonding,” Schroeder said. “For two weeks the guys didn’t have to worry about schoolwork or girlfriends-it was all about swimming.”[email protected]