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?
Thanks for feedback......i had actually seen the prior thread about solo swimmers and did peruse it a little.
As an engineer, I'm pretty analytical, and have always enjoyed listening to the kids' coaches when they talked technique. Am pretty good friends with a retired one, as well. Have gotten input from one on shoulder pain, which led to a big change in freestyle. They have also told me what they worked on during private lessons afterwards.
Not that that would be any substitute for observation. That may have to wait until this Summer, though, just because of the difficulty in finding a pool I can use where one of them can observe me. I have thought about talking to one of them in particular who might be able to have some time that aligns with me. He has taken my best swimmer, and improved her worst stroke from "slower than B" to AA in trying to get her IM where it should be. So I certainly have quality coaches I can talk to.
What I do now is try to focus on the feedback my body gives me. I "look" for the way my muscles feel during the strokes. My free is pretty good (and I can tell my how chaffed my shoulders are from my whiskers!), but my *** and back are inconsistent. I focus on my legs in ***, I lose my pull, and vice versa. I focus on my pull in back, I lose my reach and vice versa (though that is coming together, as I have gone from 18-19 strokes per lap to 14-15). So that is also one of the things I hope workouts do, is let me focus on one thing at a time to make it habit.
I'm rambling. Thanks again for all.the feedback. The Garmin (pace clock substitute) should be here early next week, so I'll be starting to transition then.
Thanks for feedback......i had actually seen the prior thread about solo swimmers and did peruse it a little.
As an engineer, I'm pretty analytical, and have always enjoyed listening to the kids' coaches when they talked technique. Am pretty good friends with a retired one, as well. Have gotten input from one on shoulder pain, which led to a big change in freestyle. They have also told me what they worked on during private lessons afterwards.
Not that that would be any substitute for observation. That may have to wait until this Summer, though, just because of the difficulty in finding a pool I can use where one of them can observe me. I have thought about talking to one of them in particular who might be able to have some time that aligns with me. He has taken my best swimmer, and improved her worst stroke from "slower than B" to AA in trying to get her IM where it should be. So I certainly have quality coaches I can talk to.
What I do now is try to focus on the feedback my body gives me. I "look" for the way my muscles feel during the strokes. My free is pretty good (and I can tell my how chaffed my shoulders are from my whiskers!), but my *** and back are inconsistent. I focus on my legs in ***, I lose my pull, and vice versa. I focus on my pull in back, I lose my reach and vice versa (though that is coming together, as I have gone from 18-19 strokes per lap to 14-15). So that is also one of the things I hope workouts do, is let me focus on one thing at a time to make it habit.
I'm rambling. Thanks again for all.the feedback. The Garmin (pace clock substitute) should be here early next week, so I'll be starting to transition then.
