This piece is brought to you by A3 Performance BA Blogging – Bad Ass Blogging by Bad Ass Brand Ambassadors. This piece was written by athlete and ambassador Andrey Maese, Spanish Lifesaving World Champion. 

My name is Andrey Maese and I am an A3 Performance Brand Ambassador. I am 19-years old from Madrid, Spain – I live and train here. This is my tenth year as a swimmer.

I perform, at the moment, for a Spanish club called CD Sek in the swimming discipline and for Alcarreño in the lifesaving discipline. In 2016 I became the World Champion, twice, in 50 m Manikin Carry and 100 m Medley. I also got the second position in 100 m Manikin Tow with Fins. In addition to the 2016 World Championships, I have also participated in the 2014 World Championships, 2014 and 2017 Orange cup, and 2015 European Championship.

Lifesaving is not a common nor well-known sport in the United States. In this article, I will try to bring you closer to the sport of lifesaving and how the discipline is related to competitive swimming.

The most important thing to take into account is that in all of the lifesaving races, the main component is swimming. However, we add instruments such as fins, tow, or a manikin.

In the races I am an expert at, swimming is even more important than in other races because, in both of them, more than 60% of the races consist of swimming. These races are:

• 50 m Manikin Carry – the main objective is to swim 25 metres, dive to get the manikin, which usually weighs between 70/80 kg, and come back to the top to carry it the other 25m to the finish line (wall).
• 100 m Medley – the main objective is to swim 50 metres, make a tack, dive 17.5 m taking the manikin from underwater, and carry it 32.5 metres to finish line (wall).

Being a bit more apart from swimming, the third race, 100 m Manikin Tow with Fins, involves using a special tow and fins. Athletes swim 50 metres to the wall where there is a manikin which we have to tie up to the tow and then swim back 50 metres to the starting line.

At the moment, European and World competitions are celebrated every two years. This 2018 is time for the World Championship and its turn for Australia.

For the upcoming event, my training routine focuses on training every morning, approximately for an hour and a half, focusing on the lifesaving races, therefore, incorporating in swimming the elements of the races. In the evening sessions, I try to spend about an hour at the gym before going into the pool for a training focused only on swimming for about another hour and a half. To end with, I do my stretching exercises so that my body recovers from all day training.

In my upcoming posts, I will explain the other three races that comprise lifesaving competition and the beach modality of lifesaving – the king sport in Australia.

This piece is brought to you by A3 Performance BA Blogging – Bad Ass Blogging by Bad Ass Brand Ambassadors. This piece was written by athlete and ambassador Andrey Maese, Spanish Lifesaving World Champion.