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?
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."
This is reassuring/reaffirming.
Yes, it is hard to know without having my full schedule written out...but then again what’s plenty doable for one person could totally break another. Since I coach the masters team, I use the youth team coaches as my unofficial swim advisors. They’ll call me out on not sprinting enough and generally keep me in line. So yes, the coach “team” is working together. I personally do not have enough experience to know from the past how this works for me. In college, our coach said, “here’s the weight room, I highly suggest you use it” without further instruction.
The thoughts from the strength coach is he would like to thoroughly asses what I am eating and when. The thoughts from one youth coach is that he doesn’t like to see more than a 6 second per hundred slow for a week or two without mixing things up and it just might be more than I can handle. The thoughts from the other youth coach, who saw me swim today, is that my stroke rate is down but I’m not riding too low in the water and my underwaters look good. She’s feeling that this fatigue might lift and she’d be more concerned if she thought I looked “sinky” when I swam.
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."
This is reassuring/reaffirming.
Yes, it is hard to know without having my full schedule written out...but then again what’s plenty doable for one person could totally break another. Since I coach the masters team, I use the youth team coaches as my unofficial swim advisors. They’ll call me out on not sprinting enough and generally keep me in line. So yes, the coach “team” is working together. I personally do not have enough experience to know from the past how this works for me. In college, our coach said, “here’s the weight room, I highly suggest you use it” without further instruction.
The thoughts from the strength coach is he would like to thoroughly asses what I am eating and when. The thoughts from one youth coach is that he doesn’t like to see more than a 6 second per hundred slow for a week or two without mixing things up and it just might be more than I can handle. The thoughts from the other youth coach, who saw me swim today, is that my stroke rate is down but I’m not riding too low in the water and my underwaters look good. She’s feeling that this fatigue might lift and she’d be more concerned if she thought I looked “sinky” when I swam.
