Magnuson ‘experiment’ leads to cruel summer

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Tinley Park native Christine Magnuson (left). AP file photo

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Updated: November 4, 2011 11:23AM

Listening to Christine Magnuson discuss her colossally bad summer got me to thinking about Tiger Woods’ troubles, and I told her so.

Awkward silence.

No, not those troubles. It’s just that I never could figure out why Woods, amid the greatest sustained run of success by any golfer in history, constantly would tinker with his swing.

It was apropos to Magnuson, Tinley Park’s own two-time world champion swimmer, because she exited 2010 as the No. 1-ranked woman in the world in the 100-meter butterfly. And promptly completely revamped her training regimen.

“You should never be satisfied with where you are,” Magnuson said.

That much is certain for Magnuson at the moment. Were the London Olympics next month instead of next summer, the 25-year-old would be on the sidelines.

She finished 12th at the FINA World Championships in July, then compounded that disappointment with an eighth at the National Championships just hours after returning from Shanghai.

After setting an American record of 57.08 seconds en route to winning a silver medal in the 2008 Olympics, and having the best time in the world in 2010 (57.32), Magnuson clocked a 58.59 at the worlds and a 59.39 at the nationals.

If you’ve sort of, but not really, been paying attention to the local girl made good, you might now be putting two and two together and coming up with six.

Yes, Magnuson did leave her college stomping grounds at the University of Tennessee a couple of years ago. Yes, FINA banned a super-fast kind of swimming suit not too far removed from the 2008 Olympics.

But Magnuson was the world champ well after moving to Arizona and well after the “fast” suits — faster even than what she and her competitors wore at the Olympics — were banned.

Besides, as the swimming calendar goes, with the Olympics not until 2012, it was a good year to have a bad year.

“Yeah, it was not a very good year as far as my summer things,” she said. “But the year before was great.

“It was time to experiment with some stuff.”

So she did. Training in Tucson while pursuing a master’s degree in Public Administration at the University of Arizona, Magnuson took the advice of another champion and tried a training approach known as CrossFit, a regimen that combines weight lifting and high-intensity cardio.

“Amanda Beard really loves it,” Magnuson said of the seven-time Olympic medalist. “I did that for about six months. It didn’t work for me from a swimming standpoint. My overall fitness, maybe, was better.”

It didn’t help that Magnuson was out of the pool for a month after sinus surgery in February, or that she was attending school full-time while training.

“There were a lot of elements at play there,” she conceded.

Magnuson plans now to switch back to a more traditional weight training approach for her “dry land” workouts, and is back to being a part-time student. Her failed experiment stung her worst at the worlds.

“My focus was on the worlds this year,” she said. “I really went to nationals just to make an appearance. Less than 24 hours before getting in the pool (at the nationals), I flew in from Shanghai, and that’s a 15-hour time difference.”

Speaking of time differences, no matter the training program, losing a second-and-a-half off your best time can’t bode well for the future.

At the suggestion, Magnuson’s cheery voice hardens a bit.

“I don’t think I’ll have an issue being a 57 again,” she said.

I don’t think it would be wise to bet against it.