Hi guys!
I need help, if you can please assist me. I used to swim competitively when i was younger up until i was 17, and back then i was improving a lot, very fast. I am extremely frustrated, as all i want to do is to become a faster Masters swimmer, and be the best that i can be. I'm still young so I want to take advantage of that, i came back to the pool about two years ago after being off for about 8. I'm doing cross training with Running intervals 2x/week for 45 mins, doing a weight routine designed for swimming 2X/week, and swimming with my team 5-6X/week. I've been doing this for about a year now, and my times have not changed at all, or have changed very little. I am investing a lot, I even have a nutritionist to help me with a good diet to support my workouts, and nothing. I was told that What's worse, I see people who seldom go to practice, or don't train all that much and they are quite fast. I feel like all the work that I am putting in is not paying off at all as it should be.
Any help, advise or anything would be hugely appreciated.
My $.02.
What events are you training for? Your team's practices might not be conducive to training for certain events. For example, the practices I swim are woefully inadequate for training for the 200 fly and 400 IM, so I have to train for those events on my own, while I can more or less train for the other events I swim during the team practices.
Quality over quantity. Like you, I made a ton of improvement swimming up until college, back when I was doing doubles and 12,000+ yards a day. Now, 2.5 years back in the water as a masters swimmer, I'm lucky to get in an hour and 3,500-4,000 yards a day, 3-5 times a week. I'm close to my old age group best times in backstroke and sprint fly, and that's because I'm focusing much more on quality and technique than garbage yardage. In addition, if you're training for the 200 back, for example, but all your team practices are free oriented, those are going to be much lower quality practices than a back focused practice. My team's Saturday practices are usually distance free practices. When I go, I usually down a lane and swim backstroke instead of free since I don't compete in free events--that way, I can get some benefit out of a practice that would otherwise be useless for me outside of general conditioning.
Technique, technique, technique! You could be putting in 12,000 yards a day, but if you've got cruddy technique, that's pure garbage yardage. A 3,000 yard practice with good technique is going to be better than a 5,000 yard practice with bad technique. For me, I don't have the endurance that I used to. Sure, I can go knock out a good 200 back, but I don't have the limitless endurance that I did when I was 17. I've had to focus on ironing out the flaws in my technique as I've gotten older in order to maintain the same (well, nearly the same) speed that I used to have. I used to be able to muscle through events as a teenager with pretty shoddy technique without any problems. Nowadays, not so much.
The biggest mental shift for me as a masters swimmer has been the focus on exemplary technique, targeted practices, and focus on high quality over high yardage.
My $.02.
What events are you training for? Your team's practices might not be conducive to training for certain events. For example, the practices I swim are woefully inadequate for training for the 200 fly and 400 IM, so I have to train for those events on my own, while I can more or less train for the other events I swim during the team practices.
Quality over quantity. Like you, I made a ton of improvement swimming up until college, back when I was doing doubles and 12,000+ yards a day. Now, 2.5 years back in the water as a masters swimmer, I'm lucky to get in an hour and 3,500-4,000 yards a day, 3-5 times a week. I'm close to my old age group best times in backstroke and sprint fly, and that's because I'm focusing much more on quality and technique than garbage yardage. In addition, if you're training for the 200 back, for example, but all your team practices are free oriented, those are going to be much lower quality practices than a back focused practice. My team's Saturday practices are usually distance free practices. When I go, I usually down a lane and swim backstroke instead of free since I don't compete in free events--that way, I can get some benefit out of a practice that would otherwise be useless for me outside of general conditioning.
Technique, technique, technique! You could be putting in 12,000 yards a day, but if you've got cruddy technique, that's pure garbage yardage. A 3,000 yard practice with good technique is going to be better than a 5,000 yard practice with bad technique. For me, I don't have the endurance that I used to. Sure, I can go knock out a good 200 back, but I don't have the limitless endurance that I did when I was 17. I've had to focus on ironing out the flaws in my technique as I've gotten older in order to maintain the same (well, nearly the same) speed that I used to have. I used to be able to muscle through events as a teenager with pretty shoddy technique without any problems. Nowadays, not so much.
The biggest mental shift for me as a masters swimmer has been the focus on exemplary technique, targeted practices, and focus on high quality over high yardage.
