Started swimming again this year in an effort to get in better shape. Haven't done it since college (I'm 43), and that was just for exercise. Did it as a kid, now my kids also swim. At any rate, I'm just doing laps right now. Usually 6 sets of 500, occasionally only 5 and occasionally 7 or 8. ~5 days a week when life doesn't get in the way (so about 15,000 yards per week). About 25% ***, 25% back, and 50% free. I have occasionally thrown some fly in there, but I just can't do it without it fatiguing me to the point where the remainder of the set is very suboptimal.
At any rate, I am wondering at what point I should start looking to transition to doing workouts, rather than just laps. There is no Masters program that will work for me, so I'd just be following the posted workouts from the forums. Should I just jump right in? Should I start from "week 1," or just hit it right in the middle? Also, should I just be looking mostly at the general workouts, of mixing it up with the IM workouts to get more strokes, or start with general and slowly work my way towards the IM stuff?
Anything y'all need to know to help guide me the right way?
When I came back to swimming 12 years ago, I did the same thing. I mainly swam laps - sets of 200's with easy 25's between. Then I decided to make the leap to workouts and used the workouts on this forum. Which workouts you use should depend on your goals. Are you trying to work your way back into meet swimming? Sprints? Distance? Open water?
I swim open water so I began using some of the open water workouts. However, I plateaued doing that so I started working in some sprint workouts and saw improvement.
My recommendation is to jump right in with workouts, but not necessarily all of them in order. If that is your preference, do so, but feel free to modify the workout based on your needs and how you feel. Sometimes, I take what is largely a free workout and turn it into more IM for the variety. I swim enough straight free training for open water. Other times, I'll decide I want to modify distance or rep. I skip around the forums and the dates based on my schedule. About once every two weeks, I even throw in one of the New/Expectant Mother Workouts. They are a nice change of pace and offer some great stroke work.
I wouldn't worry about trying to follow a single workout thread in order until your goals are defined and your now needing to shave time.
When I came back to swimming 12 years ago, I did the same thing. I mainly swam laps - sets of 200's with easy 25's between. Then I decided to make the leap to workouts and used the workouts on this forum. Which workouts you use should depend on your goals. Are you trying to work your way back into meet swimming? Sprints? Distance? Open water?
I swim open water so I began using some of the open water workouts. However, I plateaued doing that so I started working in some sprint workouts and saw improvement.
My recommendation is to jump right in with workouts, but not necessarily all of them in order. If that is your preference, do so, but feel free to modify the workout based on your needs and how you feel. Sometimes, I take what is largely a free workout and turn it into more IM for the variety. I swim enough straight free training for open water. Other times, I'll decide I want to modify distance or rep. I skip around the forums and the dates based on my schedule. About once every two weeks, I even throw in one of the New/Expectant Mother Workouts. They are a nice change of pace and offer some great stroke work.
I wouldn't worry about trying to follow a single workout thread in order until your goals are defined and your now needing to shave time.
