I've been very consistant with my training since last August, trying to make a big push for Spring Nationals in Indy. I've been swimming 4-5 nights a week 3-3500 yards a practice. Also been doing Crossfit workouts in the AM 3-4 days a week with one of those days working on Olympic lifts. With the Crossfit I have seen a marked improvement in my leg strength especially in the pushoffs from the wall. Lately I've been dealing with a little pain in my shoulders...nothing accute and not any pain through range of motion..more like a dull achy feeling. I've taken care of it with Advil and deep tissue massage every 2-3 weeks so its managed and not getting worse. I decided 2 weeks ago to stop doing straight up swim workouts 5 nites a week and instead alternate between regular swim workouts and just dedicated kick workouts. When i do the kick workouts I still do a solid warmup and the workout is 2-2500 yards of kick sets. i move into the slower lanes of my Masters Group to accomplish this. I seems to be helping with the pain and my kick is already improving big time. Has anyone else tried to do this type of training split???
I think you're putting in a lot of yardage on those shoulders if you are just training for 50s and 100s; putting in the 3500-yard workout every other day and alternating with days focused on kick sounds like a better idea. You might give the routine a couple of weeks and see if that doesn't give your shoulder joints enough recovery. I went through something similar not long ago and went back to the old hard day-easy day routine. Not wanting to lose too much fitness I increased the percentage of yards in kick and drill on my EZ days rather than reduce the total yardage by that much (I was working on long and middle-distance though), but it was enough a break on the shoulders to get them feeling semi-normal again. The whole hard day-easy day concept really works for me. Just be careful you don't exchange your shoulder problems for knee and hip issues!
Also, I would definitely scale back on the lifting in the weeks leading up to your goal event.
I think you're putting in a lot of yardage on those shoulders if you are just training for 50s and 100s; putting in the 3500-yard workout every other day and alternating with days focused on kick sounds like a better idea. You might give the routine a couple of weeks and see if that doesn't give your shoulder joints enough recovery. I went through something similar not long ago and went back to the old hard day-easy day routine. Not wanting to lose too much fitness I increased the percentage of yards in kick and drill on my EZ days rather than reduce the total yardage by that much (I was working on long and middle-distance though), but it was enough a break on the shoulders to get them feeling semi-normal again. The whole hard day-easy day concept really works for me. Just be careful you don't exchange your shoulder problems for knee and hip issues!
Also, I would definitely scale back on the lifting in the weeks leading up to your goal event.
