Disclaimer: While GMX7 is a SwimSwam partner, this product review was written independently by Eney Jones, multi-time Masters National Champion.
Where do you start to begin again? All over social media it is written that Shakespeare wrote King Lear during the plague and Sir Isaac Newton invented calculus and the theory of gravity in quarantine.
I’m not sure about you but this last year I’ve become reacquainted with my kitchen, baking and eating. I have also been busy trying to find the unmute button on a zoom call. But luckily, I haven’t had to work on removing a cat filter during a business meeting.
According to Thomas Levenson, professor of science writing at M.I.T., “The year before the plague, 1664, was also when Newton first began to think deeply about mathematics, and to discover in himself the exceptional talent for abstract reasoning that would flourish when he reached his farmhouse. He tackled key problems that would lead toward calculus in the autumn and winter, while going some distance toward inventing a new approach to geometry, all months before he left Cambridge.
Whatever may have enabled Newton to produce epic works of genius during, before, and after his enforced isolation, the retreat to the country itself couldn’t have been the decisive difference. Newton himself said as much. When asked how he worked out gravity, he replied, “By thinking on it continually.”
Doing the work was what mattered, and Newton did it as a student in Cambridge before the plague, he persisted he kept going after. The real lesson is to remember whatever aspect of your life that fired your passion before, during and after this mess—and keep stoking it now.”
The same is true with swimming. We must continue to do the work. Some of us haven’t been able to swim. Some of us can only book a lane for a half an hour. Some of us just miss our squad, our strength, and our support. How do we find our way back to not only where we were, but ahead where we left off? Let me introduce you to the X1-PRO.
The X1-PRO was invented in 2018 by David Palmer McCagg, former World Record holder in the 100 meter freestyle (the name of the company is GMX7). With the help of engineers it is ADJUSTABLE RESISTANCE. It doesn’t hold you in place like baskets we used in the 80’s or surgical tubing that used to snap and decay in the chlorine. The hardest thing about it for me was adjusting my flip turns the opposite way at each end.
At first I thought the price point was too high (retail approximately $1000) but when I looked at the price I spent reserving a lane ($14 a time and I swam 150 times in the last year down from my normal of 260 swims it equated to $3640) The GMX7 was a third of the cost of my lane fees.
The Pros
- You gain strength, the GMX7 gives you maximum power in a minimum amount of time.
- If you are a coach a lane can be devoted to GMX7ing because of the adjustable resistance and adjustable belt it can be used by swimmers of all strength and sizes.
- Power awareness- for swimmers who have trouble finding their “feel for the water” this tool helps you find power by creating awareness of where you should pull by creating awareness of where you are slipping.
- For a traveling swimmer or triathlete, it is small and mobile and can fit in a backpack and be connected to any pool with lane eye hooks.
The Cons
- For your limited swim slot people will be asking you what it is and if they can try it.
- It can make you feel better and stronger than you are. It is a confidence builder. It is used by Olympic Coaches Gregg Troy, Mark Schubert and Bob Bowman. You just now need to look up who their swimmers are.
- You will never feel the need to do a two hour workout again.
Be easy on yourself as you find you way back into the pool, back into your fitness and back into who you are. You might not have learned a new language, mastered a musical instrument, written a screenplay, or discovered the theory of anything, but you can emerge from this pandemic in a better swimming place than where you went in. Let the X1-PRO help you, not only get through this time, but prepare you for what lies ahead. Only you can do the work. Keep stoking the fire.
For more information: https://gmx7training.com/.
About Eney Jones
Eney Jones has achieved remarkably diverse success as a leading pool, open water and Ironman triathlon swimmer.
- Masters National Champion 100-200-400-500-1500-1650 5k freestyle 2009
- Open Water 5k Champion Perth Australia, May 2008.
- National Masters Champion 200-400-1500 freestyle Champion, Portland Oregon, August, 2008.
- Overall Champion Aumakua 2.4k Maui Hawaii, September 2008
- Waikiki Rough Water Swim 3rd place 2006, second place Overall 2009, 3rd place 2012
- European Record Holder and Masters Swimming Champion, 2005. Records included 200, 400, 800, 1500 m freestyle
- Over twenty time finalist in U.S. Swimming Nationals, including Olympic Trials 1980
- Gold medal NCAA 800 yd freestyle relay 1979, silver Medalist 200 yd freestyle 1979. United States National Team 1979-1980.
- Professional Triathlete 1983-1991. First woman out of the water in every Hawaiian Ironman participated (6).