Your Weekly Yardage for 50+ age

Glenn, how many yards do you swim per week?

That was brilliant, chowmi. While some minimum level of yardage is necessary, it isn't the only thing that matters! The minimum level that works for me is enough to practice my races once a week. Strength, endurance, flexibility, and even technique (using visualization) can all be developed outside of the pool.

First it depends on what your goals are. Some people have a goal of doing as much yardage as they can. That may be a worthy goal, but it has little to do with swimming fast.

I agree with Glenn. :agree: What events do you compete in? Are you a sprinter or a distance swimmer? How is your body holding up with that volume? Are you starting to get repetitive stress injuries? Answers to these questions would help us with giving advice.

Elaine, hi. I'm a former competitive runner. I never enjoyed competing. I don't compete as a swimmer. I had to edit my post--my total yards per week is 14,000 (I miscalculated!) No injuries, mainly b/c I do all strokes and lots of kick drills. I'm definitely not a sprinter. Like running, I'm more a distance athlete.

I agree with Knelson, do what you enjoy and swim as many yards as you want. No need to go through the "pain" of USRPT or HIT if you are not competing.

Elaine, hi. I'm a former competitive runner. I never enjoyed competing. I don't compete as a swimmer. I had to edit my post--my total yards per week is 14,000 (I miscalculated!) No injuries, mainly b/c I do all strokes and lots of kick drills. I'm definitely not a sprinter. Like running, I'm more a distance athlete. Ok, that makes a big difference! Now that I have read this post, I would refer you to the posts below by The Fortress and knelson. They both make excellent points. Meanwhile, I think it's great that you swim all strokes and mix it up a bit. Just be careful not to do too much yardage in breaststroke kick drills, and your hips and knees will thank you. :2cents: P.S. They disagree on whether or not to train "race pace," so you will have to decide where your priorities are. If you enjoy training at your top speed, I would recommend listening to The Fortress. You need to swim fast in training if you want to be a fast swimmer. If training as if you were going to compete is not any fun for you, knelson has the right idea. ;)

When I first posted I didn't notice it was a poll.I think the numbers are too far apart.There is a huge difference between 10,001 yd/wk and 30,000. I agree. I looked at that and decided not to vote. I swim 4-5 x week and am probably between 13,000-15,000 per week. However, about 50-70% of that is warm up and easy recovery swimming between fast or race pace efforts. As for FUN ala chowmi style, I like to use some equipment to liven things up. Sometimes, I'll throw on paddles, fins & a parachute for 25 yard sprints. Or I'll do some starts + SDK off the blocks with a parachute. I like the bungee cordz too. You can swim out until you hit the resistance and do X number of fast strokes or hold and kick for X seconds. The other day, I wrapped the bungee cordz up so there was very little cord and did some in water plyo streamline jumps/pushes off the wall. If you're OCD and need to count yards, try counting race pace yards instead of total yards. Junk yardage or mindless aerobic sets won't make you faster, but race pace work will.

Even though I still have 13.5 months to go before I reach 50 I decided to vote, and at 200 - 250 miles a year I comfortably rank within the 10,000 category. If I logged more I probably physically wouldn't hold up. Junk yardage or mindless aerobic sets won't make you faster, even make you slower inversely proportional to the distance of the event

Chowmi --- were you on coffee & red bull when you fired up that post??? Very good stuff.