The new Master's coach philosophy is to do lower yardage and more IM. Lots of kicks (strengthen the core), lots of drills, and lots of toys (snorkel, skull finger paddles, regular paddles, zoomers, regular fins, *** stoke fins, finis tempo trainer, light weight kick board...) (disclaimer...I have not bought any of this stuff, just have the normal toys). I am in my 60's, have swum forever, many years in masters, raised age-group kids through college swimming, and am very confused.
I am used to 10 x 100 or 5 x 200's or couple 500's, IM once in a while, option to swim IM or free, kicks as a set in a workout, you know what I'm talkin' bout.
Now I am exhausted doing 90 minutes of kicks and sprints and only going 2000 yards. Flipping at the end of every set, using weight balls in the water, doing 6 x 100 *** stroke kick no hands, doing tandem training, example: swimming arm in arm with the other 60 year old doing fly kicks then holding his legs while I kick and he strokes, then vise versa. Now it is not always exhausting, but it seems always to be frustrating.
Working hard is not the problem, but working hard doing fly kicks in 50 meter pools is frustrating. And my distance flog is suffering. Not just 4 x 50 fly kicks, but 10 x 50 fly kicks.
It has been 4 months with new coach. Others say that they workouts are making them stronger for races and allowing them to be tougher. I worry about hurting my back, my shoulders, and not getting in my yardage.
Fitness swimming should be challenging and fun; I am a wimp? Should I give it more time? I like my team!
I think you should have said 'unfortunately' instead of fortunately.
Masters swimmers want to be in a club where they will see regular and big improvements in their swimming. They want to be part of a successful squad. I'll take a guess and say that your club doesn't have 5 world champions, 22 national champions, 7 world record holders all training together in the pool, just as I've had.
Masters swimmers not only like being teased and ridiculed by the coach, but they also like getting together at the Christmas dinner to ridicule the coach.
Dianne, if you don't have a coach who respects you as well as entertains everyone during a tough workout, you are missing out on something very special.
I'm fortunate that the coaches do respect each of us and show that in many ways--and we can laugh with them... even tease back, so it's all cool. I've been to workouts where the coach ignores the slower people or (in another case) throw digs at us that suggested we weren't being taken seriously as swimmers. I can tell when there's respect and I'm grateful to have it now. I've been able to accomplish things and improve because there's both a willingness to raise the bar and challenge us, while recognizing effort. These guys work with all of us regardless of speed and will modify workouts to fit the pace/experience of both the faster and slower swimmers. I'm not crazy about IM stuff, but during training for a long open water swim, the coach included some of that in my schedule, and I trusted him enough, because I know where he's coming from, to say to myself, "Well, let's try it!" Butterfly is my worst stroke, but I would celebrate being able to do it for 25 without stopping... not beautifully, but after a fashion. My first workout with him, and coming from a running background, was a kind of culture shock b/c I was used to having longer rest periods between hard efforts in track workouts, and after 5 seconds, I'd be told "go" and think "where?" :) But now I can do fine with his workouts--largely because he didn't give up on me, just explained what he was doing and why.
I think you should have said 'unfortunately' instead of fortunately.
Masters swimmers want to be in a club where they will see regular and big improvements in their swimming. They want to be part of a successful squad. I'll take a guess and say that your club doesn't have 5 world champions, 22 national champions, 7 world record holders all training together in the pool, just as I've had.
Masters swimmers not only like being teased and ridiculed by the coach, but they also like getting together at the Christmas dinner to ridicule the coach.
Dianne, if you don't have a coach who respects you as well as entertains everyone during a tough workout, you are missing out on something very special.
I'm fortunate that the coaches do respect each of us and show that in many ways--and we can laugh with them... even tease back, so it's all cool. I've been to workouts where the coach ignores the slower people or (in another case) throw digs at us that suggested we weren't being taken seriously as swimmers. I can tell when there's respect and I'm grateful to have it now. I've been able to accomplish things and improve because there's both a willingness to raise the bar and challenge us, while recognizing effort. These guys work with all of us regardless of speed and will modify workouts to fit the pace/experience of both the faster and slower swimmers. I'm not crazy about IM stuff, but during training for a long open water swim, the coach included some of that in my schedule, and I trusted him enough, because I know where he's coming from, to say to myself, "Well, let's try it!" Butterfly is my worst stroke, but I would celebrate being able to do it for 25 without stopping... not beautifully, but after a fashion. My first workout with him, and coming from a running background, was a kind of culture shock b/c I was used to having longer rest periods between hard efforts in track workouts, and after 5 seconds, I'd be told "go" and think "where?" :) But now I can do fine with his workouts--largely because he didn't give up on me, just explained what he was doing and why.
