Top 25% doesn't sound all that great given how many are totally incapable of running a mile in any time. I once looked up my swimming pace for a typical workout (15min x 5km). That's well within the top 0.1%. Navy SEALs dont swim that well. But given that probably less than 1% of the general population swim any laps regularly, it isnt saying much.

Fyi, if you want to feel good about your swimming, lookup the youtube vids of the navy seals swimming standards. I know 12yo kids who could pass them. Their pace wouldnt even qualify for the 'fast' lane at my local lap pool (50m/minute).

SEAL operators aren't selected for pure speed - they want the guy who is capable of swimming 20 miles after being awake for 48 hours, if that were to be necessary. There's a (high) baseline level of fitness, but more than that it's about insane willpower, esprit de corps, and ability to handle stressful situations.

Ive had this discuss with drill a instructor. He asked, barring hypothermia, how far a competative swimmer could go before drowning. My estimate is something like 100km. Swimming slowly, say 0.5m/second, is easier than walking for such people. They would be dead of dehydration before they drown.

Most of those who I know, who are in SF units can do a mile in under 6 minutes.

Your statement about 12 yo kids is an understatement - while I'm plodding along doing 50m every 45 sec (admittedly over a distance), the 12 year olds from my local club are leaving me standing. They're probably aiming towards 50m in around 30 sec.

I'm sure the special forces guys are much bigger and heavier than that and as another commenter said, speed will not be their top priority.

50m in under 30, and 100m under 60, are a sort of baselines for when swimming gets serious.

In the SEALs defense, such speeds are horribly inefficient for even the best swimmers. Water gets very thick, with each second below those times requiring a redoubling of efforts. Seals care mote about distance and survival than speed.

Wow! That seems like a pretty slow swimming pace to anyone who has swam in a competitive settings. It is shocking that that pace is top 0.1% of swimmers.

But your observation seems accurate, not many people swim.

45s/lap for 5km, the swimming version of a half marathon, isnt slow.

If you have ever swam in a competitive setting (a swimming race), then you are aware that 45s/lap IS, in fact, a very slow pace.

7 year old me would destroy 30 year old me in the pool.

15 min x 5km

I'm a reasonable swimmer but this really confused me. I assume you meant 15 min x 5 because 15 x 5 KM would be insane.

1km in 15minutes, five times in a row. My freestyle cruising pace is 45s/lap. In reality, my routine is slower than that due to drills, kicking, and other strokes. But on occassion i do 5 or 10 km of freestyle just to time myself.

That's absurd, I had surgery and couldn't do anything for 3 weeks, once finally cleared my second run I ran a 6:30 mile.

How is it that as a society we've devalued physical health so strongly.

There is a myth that physical ability is a trade-off against mental ability. You see this in the slogan "sleep is for the weak" and in the stereotype of the nerd as sedentary. It is a myth--the brain is a part of the body and by nurturing the body you support the brain.

Taken to extremes, though, there is a trade-off. Keeping generally fit is probably within the reach of most nerd-types and helpful for their mental state. However, actually being physically competitive at a high/elite level requires investing a lot of time in training, diet plans, etc. Similarly, being an elite programmer (or anything else) requires investing a huge amount of time in the craft. I imagine that people who manage to achieve both peak physical fitness and peak mental ability are rare outliers.

The stereotype of nerd as sedentary applies to me, to an extent. I think this is because, genetically, I have a number of physical problems, and also come from a poor background. For most of my youth, I was unable to achieve at a competitive level due to these problems - I have never won a single race, medal or trophy (as where I am from, they are only given out for sporting achievements). However, when I got a computer, my life changed. Suddenly I could create and achieve using nothing other than a keyboard and an internet connection. So in my case, the sedentary nature of my existence probably drove me toward computers, rather than the inverse.

"I imagine that people who manage to achieve both peak physical fitness and peak mental ability are rare outliers."

I know quite a few people here in SF that do both. I used to be a state-competitive athlete in Pennsylvania, but I can't even keep up in SF with the times that a lot of my fellow nerds here throw down in Strava (still have a few though, running up the hill on Misson St, one lap around Bernal Heights Park, and running through Almaden Quicksilver Trail San Jose!).

High school athletics is a good way to get into a good college, when you already have academics on par with the majority of applicants (otherwise, it's a crapshoot to get into Ivy League schools with <10% acceptance rate and >90% of the applicants have near-perfect SAT scores).

> Taken to extremes, though, there is a trade-off That's some circular reasoning.

YMMV, but maybe consider making fewer excuses for your "inability" to perform physically and stop diffusing blame in every direction except the right one (i.e., at you).

Actually, I don't care what you do or think personally, but (assuming you are commenting in good faith...) your demoralizing and plain wrong statements about a putative inverse relationship between mental and physical fitness, and your funny rationalization of your failures, are exactly the kinds of bad cultural tropes that are malforming the bodies and minds of what should have been the healthiest and most performant bunch of homo sapiens to crawl the planet.

Where is the circular reasoning? There are a fixed number of hours in the day, and I presume that becoming elite at either a mental level or a physical level, for most people, requires focus for the majority of your waking hours. My assumption may be wrong, but I don't see any circular reasoning. Note that I say that I think most people can achieve a good general level of fitness.

As far as my own issues go, I think you're speaking from the perspective of someone who has no medical issues and assuming that everyone else is similarly healthy. I have rheumatoid arthritis and hypermobile ehlers-danlos syndrome (amongst other problems). I try to keep fit, have special shoes and joint supports, do everything my physiotherapist tells me to do, and I exercise fairly intensely for at least an hour a day. But ultimately, I have physical limits that despite continual medical intervention, have proven resistant to treatment besides painkillers. In the last month alone, I've been to hospital 6 times. There's a good chance I won't be able to walk more than a few hundred metres by the time I'm 30, and currently if I try to push myself too hard, I typically end up injuring myself and needing to go to hospital.

A computer, for me, and other people like me, can be one of the most transformative purchases of our lives. On a computer, nobody knows you're disabled and you can do almost everything that an able-bodied person can. Arthritis can be a problem, but heated gloves help a lot with that.

Mens sana in corpore sano.

You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body.

Ask for a stout heart that has no fear of death,

and deems length of days the least of Nature's gifts

that can endure any kind of toil,

that knows neither wrath nor desire and thinks

the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than

the loves and banquets and downy cushions of Sardanapalus.

What I commend to you, you can give to yourself;

For assuredly, the only road to a life of peace is virtue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_sana_in_corpore_sano

I think this myth emerges from the high-school jock vs nerd archetypes. The HSJ spends his time training, chasing chicks and neglecting his studies, while the more studious get on with their school work. Of course in reality you have smart people that are all-star footballers and stupid people who study, but I guess the less nuanced picture still dominates people conscience. I guess particularly because the school years are most formative.

To add to that, lifting heavy weights causes the central nervous system to fire off huge amount of electrical signals to muscle groups. While this does cause fatigue which can leave you feeling "hazy", I would not be surprised if it improved cognitive endurance for other tasks. And I have to comment on the irony of sleep being the most important factor in muscle recovery, along with a good diet.

> It is a myth--the brain is a part of the body and by nurturing the body you support the brain.

Is there any evidence backing this up? I hear it proclaimed a lot, but there are plenty of examples of brilliant people who are not physically strong, such as Stephen Hawking.

I've seen quite a lot of evidence in support for this. I won't do your googling for you, but it's out there if your interested.

> There is a myth that physical ability is a trade-off against mental ability.

It's not a myth that time you spend, e.g., in the gym is time that's not available for, e.g., programming practice, and vice-versa. Ability beyond raw potential takes time to devop and maintain, and time is a limited resource. TANSTAAFL.

When I spend an hour running every day, my productivity when I'm not running is boosted enough to make the lost time more than worth it.

I prefer to view it in reverse (and word it differently) - the body is an organ of the mind.

But I would agree - the mind and body are powerfully complimentary.