Fifty years ago, Dr. Jane Katz was a pioneering member of the U.S. synchronized swimming performance team in the 1964 Olympics, helping to promote the aquatic competition involving nose clips, coordinated moves, and big smiles that eventually became an official Olympic sport in Los Angeles in 1984.
Now Dr. Katz is using her years of experience in the water to rehabilitate veterans.
Katz, who teaches at John Jay College in New York City, developed her own swimming rehabilitation program after she suffered injuries in a 1979 car accident, eventually publishing many books and videos that teach her methods to others. For years, she also has been teaching swimming to NYC policemen and firefighters through her college’s Department of Physical Education and Athletics. And most recently, she decided to expand her WET (water exercise technique) classes to specifically appeal to veterans.
“I have found that many of the vets, regardless of age, have joint pain and as a result they stopped working out…Water is always great for healing,” she told Swimming World. Which is why in WETs for Vets, Dr. Katz engages veterans in exercises designed to help their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
“I don’t think the public has enough of an appreciation for what these vets go through when they return to civilian life,” she said. “It’s a very difficult adjustment, mostly from a psychological standpoint as many suffer from various degrees of post traumatic stress. The WETs for Vets program helps them in several ways. The workouts help relieve stress, and there’s a real camaraderie among the students because they share a common bond that those of us who have not been in combat cannot really understand. ”
Marine Corps veteran Marc MacNaughton told Swimming World that Dr. Katz’s class has been invaluable to him. “As I and others can attest getting in the pool makes coming home from war easier for our military service members, veterans, and their families…The unique program that Dr. Katz has designed has given us increased confidence, family and social connections, and to some, learning how to live with a new physical adaption. It has improved mental health for some of our veterans, and a few have shared with me even recovery from addiction. ”
FINA, the international governing body for swimming and aquatic events, recently presented Dr. Katz with a certificate of merit, which the deserving recipient can add to her many other rewards.
MORE: Can This Recreational Activity Heal Vets and Help Them Find Jobs?
Tag: swimming
This College Student’s Clean Energy Idea Is Making Waves, and Not Just on Campus
We know that bike riding and jump roping can generate enough energy to power our gadgets. But what about other forms of clean, kinetic energy that are currently being wasted? Yinger ‘Eagle’ Jin, a sophomore at Wake Forest University, saw the potential for power in an unlikely place: the campus swimming pool. As an avid swimmer armed with an undergraduate research grant, Jin wondered if there might be enough waves in the campus pool to generate a small amount of electricity.
According to the university, Jin created an “oscillating water column” to test how much electricity would be produced by the waves during one day at the pool. Here’s how it works: The moving water acts as a piston, forcing air out of the column as a wave rises. and drawing fresh air in as it falls. This movement turns a turbine connected to the top of the column, which ultimately converts the wave energy to electricity.
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Jin estimated that swimmers generated 10-kilowatt-hours of electricity — enough to keep the lights on at Wake Forest’s Reynolds Gym pool for a full day. “We are talking a very small scale, but recreational swimmers produce a decent amount of waves,” Jin told the university news center. “The concept is similar to the idea that at a regular gym you have exercise bikes that are powered by someone spinning the pedals.”
Now, with the help of Jin’s mathematics professor Sarah Mason, who has been assisting him with the project, they plan to take his method to a much larger water source: the Atlantic Ocean. “There is certainly room for continuation in Eagle’s project; in particular one publishable goal is to calculate how much energy could be produced through wave energy off the coast of North Carolina,” Mason says. If their predictions are correct, the amount of easily accessible energy will be a whole lot more than just a drop in the pool.
MORE: This Clean Energy Program Is Investing in Much More Than Just the Environment
Many Olympic Athletes Can’t Afford Their Dreams, So One Woman Stepped Up to Help
Only a few lucky Olympic athletes receive corporate sponsorships. Many elite contenders have barely enough money to feed and house themselves, let alone pay for their training and competitions.
That’s why Emily White, a musician manager for Whitesmith Entertainment, is using her talent development skills to help competitive athletes. White founded Dreamfuel, a crowd-funding platform, to select athletes and launch their fundraising campaigns. After college, athletes are often caught in a dilemma: train full time to work toward their dreams, or work full time to support themselves. White, a former Division I swimmer, realized that most determined athletes would rather struggle than give up. “I was talking to another music exec who had a friend who was an Olympic weightlifter, who was living in her coach’s basement,” White told Fast Company. “I realized this is a thing.”
But Dreamfuel doesn’t just raise money and give it to the athletes; it also helps them market themselves and build a higher profile social media presence to attract potential sponsors in the long run. This is where White’s expertise comes in. She said that musicians, unlike athletes, know they need to get their fans engaged. White said Dreamfuel wants athletes to know how to develop their brands for long-term success. “We put together all the plans, all the benefit tiers, teach them how to create and sell merch, how to market themselves online,” White said. “Basically, all the things I do for bands, I’m flipping to the sports universe.”