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 that training sets should be adjusted to each swimmer. You certainly have weak points and stroke/competetition distances preferences that are not common to others, so it is pointless to work a lot on things that you don't really need or don't want to apply at all in competition.
In a Master's type of environment I don't think this is a completely terrible idea. Do I think it should it be set up by swimmer? Probably not. Could the workout be separated by lane? Absolutely. I coach HS and we do this all the time between our 3 lanes of swimmers.
Master's swimming is so different from age group swimming because everyone is there because they want to be whether they compete at swim meets, swim for fitness or are triathletes. While I lean towards the camp that learning all four strokes will improve your primary stroke not everyone is interested in learning butterfly or competition breastroke.
I have read through the entire thread and hope the OP feels they can talk to the coach and come to an understanding. I would hope a coach would be open to a dialogue from adults.
I think that training sets should be adjusted to each swimmer. You certainly have weak points and stroke/competetition distances preferences that are not common to others, so it is pointless to work a lot on things that you don't really need or don't want to apply at all in competition.
In a Master's type of environment I don't think this is a completely terrible idea. Do I think it should it be set up by swimmer? Probably not. Could the workout be separated by lane? Absolutely. I coach HS and we do this all the time between our 3 lanes of swimmers.
Master's swimming is so different from age group swimming because everyone is there because they want to be whether they compete at swim meets, swim for fitness or are triathletes. While I lean towards the camp that learning all four strokes will improve your primary stroke not everyone is interested in learning butterfly or competition breastroke.
I have read through the entire thread and hope the OP feels they can talk to the coach and come to an understanding. I would hope a coach would be open to a dialogue from adults.
