I'm 4 weeks into my first consistent conditioning program. I have three total body routines a strength coach developed for me to work on my overall mobility and posture with a few swimming specific things thrown in the mix. I'm in the 35-40 Age group, so "mobility" doesn't seem like it would be a huge priority but having kids really messed with my hips and posture. I'm doing these three days a week on Monday, Wednesday & Friday.
I did a 10K swim and 5K swim this summer and had several weeks where I was over 30,000 yards per week, so I've cut back my swimming to 4 days instead of 6. In addition, my average daily yardage is way down, partially by design, partially because I'm sore and tired. When I started the new routine, I started at 12,000y a week and I'm up to 14,000y a week, with plans to keep my average closer to 16,000 yards per week.
I've already noticed big improvements in my ability to get into and hold a streamline position. My breaststroke also feels like it's coming back together. I feel like I'm getting much better distance on my underwaters, not just because of the streamline but because the push-off is better, and my SDKs have improved, too. However, my times are sucking eggs, relatively speaking.
On sets that I would have been able to hold a solid 1:21-1:22 100 pace in the middle of a 30,000 yard week, I'm barely holding together 1:27-1:28 (for example, 20x100 on 1:35 has become 15x100 on 1:40). My 25 yard sprint times are about 2 seconds slow across all strokes. I understand that there's some adjustment that happens when starting anything new. I'm curious where the tipping point comes to decide if it's helping, hurting, or neutral with regards to my swimming.
Does this sound like a normal slow down from lifting that will lighten up as the season progresses and when I cut back the strength volume before my next big meet? Or more like the kind of slow down that screams too much too soon?
Very interesting post m2t2. Like waves101, I'm about two years into a regular dryland routine, in my late 50s. My early experiences were very similar to you both, the drylands knocked the snot out of me and I was considerably slower in the pool. I only saw the benefits (time wise) when I tapered and rested with no drylands. But the benefits were very worthwhile: much more resilience in multi-day meets, increased strength and endurance in longer swims even though my swim yardage is relatively modest by the standards of the distance crowd. I haven't been working on sprinting for a while so I'm not really sure how much it might be helpful there, but next year I'll be doing some pool racing and I'm hoping that it will at least arrest the decline, if not help me go faster. I wholly endorse waves101's "I firmly believe you will realize the benefits in the longer term. If you feel to beat up, there is no shame in taking a recovery day." I have experimented some with frequency, cycling and intensity of drylands - I seem to do best if I go through a recovery phase every few weeks as otherwise the drylands keep me consistently beat up. You might want to experiment some with cycling/recovery (4-6 week mesocycle?) even if you are not tapering for a meet.
Very interesting post m2t2. Like waves101, I'm about two years into a regular dryland routine, in my late 50s. My early experiences were very similar to you both, the drylands knocked the snot out of me and I was considerably slower in the pool. I only saw the benefits (time wise) when I tapered and rested with no drylands. But the benefits were very worthwhile: much more resilience in multi-day meets, increased strength and endurance in longer swims even though my swim yardage is relatively modest by the standards of the distance crowd. I haven't been working on sprinting for a while so I'm not really sure how much it might be helpful there, but next year I'll be doing some pool racing and I'm hoping that it will at least arrest the decline, if not help me go faster. I wholly endorse waves101's "I firmly believe you will realize the benefits in the longer term. If you feel to beat up, there is no shame in taking a recovery day." I have experimented some with frequency, cycling and intensity of drylands - I seem to do best if I go through a recovery phase every few weeks as otherwise the drylands keep me consistently beat up. You might want to experiment some with cycling/recovery (4-6 week mesocycle?) even if you are not tapering for a meet.
