I am a 34 yr old male who has been looking to start swimming laps again for fitness over the last few months. My schedule has been hectic, so I'm not able to make it to the pool often, but when I do I'm able to swim a mile with little rest. Since that feels easy for me, I'm ready to ramp things up and make the time to swim a few times a week. My goal is to build up my fitness and stamina so that I can take surf lessons and start surfing, and in general I want to challenge myself and get an adrenaline rush during my swim workouts. I made a couple workouts with breath control and sprint sets that I can do, but I have no idea how much yardage I should be doing now or how much I should build up to. I've read plenty of articles about fitness swimming and looked at plenty of workouts on the internet, but I can't get a good read on how many yards I should swim.
1. How many yards per workout should I aim for right now and also in the next few weeks? Is 1750 enough, or should I be swimming say 2000, 2250 or even 2500 yards per workout right now?
2. In the long run, how many yards per workout should I target? Most of the workouts I've seen for fitness swimmers are at least 3000 yards.
slavavov, it's great that you are seeking to take your swimming to a new level and to challenge yourself! Looks like you're interested in both developing stamina for surfing and in improving your swimming in the pool. Regardless of your specific goals, it is important to make sure that you are avoiding injuries and making your stroke - and your workouts - as efficient and beneficial as possible.
I would strongly suggest starting out with an analysis of your stroke technique. If you do a video-based analysis, you'll also get the opportunity to see yourself swim and get a sense of what your stroke looks like. The coach performing the stroke analysis will be able to identify areas of weakness in your stroke that could potentially lead to injuries or that are creating inefficiencies. Regardless of whether you want to surf or to swim, staying injury-free is important to maintain swimming fitness in the long run.
As far as yardage goes, swimming is a unique sport. Simply putting in a specific amount of yardage is not a guarantee for improvement or increased strength. The content of your workouts is important and needs to create the perfect balance between technique work and fullstroke sets. How much yardage is right for you is also dependent on a variety of factors, including your goals, your overall level of fitness, your swimming ability and the content of the workouts.
You also mentioned that you don't have much free time for swimming, which is why making your workouts as efficient as possible becomes even more important. Working with a coach who can assess your stroke and your yardage needs will give you some ideas on how to balance the time you have in the pool. And if you can't get to the pool, the Vasa Ergometer/Trainer is an excellent dryland machine that is very swimming-specific and will allow you to continue to build the strength and stamina you are looking for, even in the gym. If you can't get hold of a Vasa or don't have one at your pool, you can find exercises that target muscles used in swimming (such as lat pulldowns, rowing machines, etc).
Finally, even if you're just looking to do swimming for fitness and for surfing, you should give a Masters meet a try - it'll help provide some additional motivation for your workouts and give you benchmark times by which to measure your progress.
Hope this is helpful. Good luck in taking your swimming to the next level!
slavavov, it's great that you are seeking to take your swimming to a new level and to challenge yourself! Looks like you're interested in both developing stamina for surfing and in improving your swimming in the pool. Regardless of your specific goals, it is important to make sure that you are avoiding injuries and making your stroke - and your workouts - as efficient and beneficial as possible.
I would strongly suggest starting out with an analysis of your stroke technique. If you do a video-based analysis, you'll also get the opportunity to see yourself swim and get a sense of what your stroke looks like. The coach performing the stroke analysis will be able to identify areas of weakness in your stroke that could potentially lead to injuries or that are creating inefficiencies. Regardless of whether you want to surf or to swim, staying injury-free is important to maintain swimming fitness in the long run.
As far as yardage goes, swimming is a unique sport. Simply putting in a specific amount of yardage is not a guarantee for improvement or increased strength. The content of your workouts is important and needs to create the perfect balance between technique work and fullstroke sets. How much yardage is right for you is also dependent on a variety of factors, including your goals, your overall level of fitness, your swimming ability and the content of the workouts.
You also mentioned that you don't have much free time for swimming, which is why making your workouts as efficient as possible becomes even more important. Working with a coach who can assess your stroke and your yardage needs will give you some ideas on how to balance the time you have in the pool. And if you can't get to the pool, the Vasa Ergometer/Trainer is an excellent dryland machine that is very swimming-specific and will allow you to continue to build the strength and stamina you are looking for, even in the gym. If you can't get hold of a Vasa or don't have one at your pool, you can find exercises that target muscles used in swimming (such as lat pulldowns, rowing machines, etc).
Finally, even if you're just looking to do swimming for fitness and for surfing, you should give a Masters meet a try - it'll help provide some additional motivation for your workouts and give you benchmark times by which to measure your progress.
Hope this is helpful. Good luck in taking your swimming to the next level!
