Minimum days without swimming that will get you rusty?

Interesting topic! In my first two to three years of swimming, since 2009, it would take me multiple days to lose that slipping through the water feeling that I always had whenever I got back in the pool after missing as few as two days. However, having now swum four complete years this month, I get my feel back much more quickly after missing as many as 7 days. That is not to suggest that simply swimming at least four years is responsible for my ability to get the feel back quickly, but that the amount of experience, learning, and adaptation I have gained within that period of time is much more likely responsible. My old coach gave me a rule-of-thumb: for every day you miss, it takes two days to make up. Obviously, the rule can't strictly be true. For Eelbilly, with his 21 year hiatus, it would've taken him 42 years to get back up to par on his breaststroke. However, I find that for much shorter periods of time, within a year certainly, it holds up and works very well. But what if you swim twice on a day after missing one day? Maybe if diminishing returns are applied, then the double removes 75% of the debt? Who knows. Ever since I got pneumonia during my taper last July, I've been swimming much less. That's not because the pneumonia significantly impacted my training ability or anything, I just decided to lessen the workload for the remainder of the year 2012. Between missing more days than usual, my own debt got up to 10 on New Years' Eve. 10 means 20 days straight in the pool to remove. At my current rate, with one double in the last eight days, I can remove it all on Saturday the 19th, but not in time for my meet this weekend. I'll check back after this weekend with further observations.

Interesting topic! In my first two to three years of swimming, since 2009, it would take me multiple days to lose that slipping through the water feeling that I always had whenever I got back in the pool after missing as few as two days. However, having now swum four complete years this month, I get my feel back much more quickly after missing as many as 7 days. That is not to suggest that simply swimming at least four years is responsible for my ability to get the feel back quickly, but that the amount of experience, learning, and adaptation I have gained within that period of time is much more likely responsible. My old coach gave me a rule-of-thumb: for every day you miss, it takes two days to make up. Obviously, the rule can't strictly be true. For Eelbilly, with his 21 year hiatus, it would've taken him 42 years to get back up to par on his breaststroke. However, I find that for much shorter periods of time, within a year certainly, it holds up and works very well. But what if you swim twice on a day after missing one day? Maybe if diminishing returns are applied, then the double removes 75% of the debt? Who knows. Ever since I got pneumonia during my taper last July, I've been swimming much less. That's not because the pneumonia significantly impacted my training ability or anything, I just decided to lessen the workload for the remainder of the year 2012. Between missing more days than usual, my own debt got up to 10 on New Years' Eve. 10 means 20 days straight in the pool to remove. At my current rate, with one double in the last eight days, I can remove it all on Saturday the 19th, but not in time for my meet this weekend. I'll check back after this weekend with further observations.