How often should I swim/train?

I'm curious, if you were to do the mentioned set of 5X100 on 8:00 at the suggested pace of suffering by #3 and completed everything accordingly as you thought was planned having no clue what soon will be prescribed. While finishing the last one expecting to finally get relief at the wall you were suddenly ordered to make it a 150 instead with no rest. This extra 50 would be at maximum effort of whatever you have remaining, or else! I understand one should train as they race, and such an approach would be learning how to loose painfully, but biologically, would pushing yourself beyond reason such as this provide any positive training effect?

I understand one should train as they race, and such an approach would be learning how to loose painfully, but biologically, would pushing yourself beyond reason such as this provide any positive training effect? Learning how to suffer is a big part of my training, so yes.

Go here: forums.usms.org/blog.php Also you can easily get there from the forums. Look for the "Blogs" link in the blue top bar. Pick "Blog List" and you'll get a list of all the blogs. It's by posted date, so you may need to go down a page or two if they haven't updated recently. There are plenty of other people with good blogs, so check 'em out!

#1 most painful set known to mankind. At #4, I am loading my gun to end the misery.

Now, this is a good discussion. Which set is more painful? Excluding the fly nonsense, I'm not sure. Do both today and report back please. I read an article (by Treffene) a while back that apparently found that sprinters (those with a relatively higher percentage of fast twitch vs slow twitch) tended to have an anaerobic threshold that was 75% of critical velocity (think "top speed"), while for the distance folks it was 95% of critical velocity. Does this mean that distance swimmers can train "faster" (relative to their best times) than sprinters, but that sprinters are actually in a lot more pain?

I read an article (by Treffene) a while back that apparently found that sprinters (those with a relatively higher percentage of fast twitch vs slow twitch) tended to have an anaerobic threshold that was 75% of critical velocity (think "top speed"), while for the distance folks it was 95% of critical velocity. Does this mean that distance swimmers can train "faster" (relative to their best times) than sprinters, but that sprinters are actually in a lot more pain? Yes.That was mentioned in a recent article in the ASCA magazine.Since sprinters are doing more anaerobic work their muscles are hurting more.

You may be overtraining. I was just reading Rowdy's website and it mentions that he trains 8,000 yards a day 6 days a week. At the age of 52 that has to be taken as pretty close to the max that anyone could do, so perhaps you may not be overtraining.

I've been following this thread because I think it relates to me. I too wonder at the line between training enough/over training. Here is what I am doing this year (started in mid-Sept) and while I am finding it tiring, I'm going to wait till the end of November before I decide if it's too much. I joined a masters team for the first time last year (swam one year in college many many years ago (I'm 35 :afraid:)). I joined the masters team nearest to me, but they only practice three times a week. I added "swims" by swimming about 5 times a week at the local pool in "lane swim" time. (Some days fast guys would show up and we'd do 3 -4 km with sets like 8x200m on 3:00, but other days, not so much. Two of them I reserved for recovery/technique/thinking swimming slow/drills, kick, etc..) Doing the above for about a year, I decreased my 100m time by 5 seconds to 1:05. (which coincidentally, was my college time). This year, in an effort to continue to improve (my lifetime goal is to swim 100m in under a minute*), I've stepped up my practices by joining a second masters team which practices 5 times a week. SO I swim: Mon AM - 1.5 hours (team A) Mon PM - 1.5 hrs (team B) Tues - REST Wed - AM (team A) - 1.5 hrs Wed - PM (team B) - 1.5 hrs Thurs PM (team B) -2 hrs Friday PM (team B) - 2hrs Sat AM (team A) - 1.5 hrs Sun AM (team B) - 2 hrs Avg weekly meterage has been b/w 30-35km. Both teams have great coaches and fast& fun swimmers to challenge myself against. Sometimes I've gotten unlucky in the doubles where team a and b have very similar practices and then I really suffer in the second, but in general, it's been ok. (Mentally it can be REALLY tough though, to feel like you're kinda sucking at it) I do miss my two swims a week which were slow/technical/thinking swimming. I have considered adding them back in Thurs and Fri morning, but really, I also feel like I'm swimming enough and don't want to burn out. So anyway. I'm older than you, and that's what I'm doing. Ask me in a few months if I recommend it. :) I definitely recommend what I did last year, but I wanted to step it up a bit. * I'm a bit weird with my goals. My goal is not precisely to swim 100 meters sub a minute. It is to swim with technique that is good enough to swim 100 meters under a minute. I have picked one minute because that is what my gut tells me I could do if my technique was as good as I could possibly make it. But I could be wrong. :)

5 x 200 fly?!! Wowie. I did 4 x 100 on like 4:30 instead of 8:00...I gave myself basically 3 minutes of rest. I was only really able to do 4 of them on 1:13. But of course I wondered if I rested more, I could have sprinted faster. I was also in a lap lane so I felt bad not swimming for 6 minutes and just standing there. Haha.