Highest yearly swim totals

This thread makes me want to just give it up, entirely. Probably average a little over 3,000 yards per workout, and 4-5 workouts per week on good weeks. That's like 400-500 miles. And I thought I had been doing well. ugh.

There was a 2015 Sorts Illustrated article about Michael Phelps. It's really long, but when it got to distance numbers, it said his 2002 to 2008 workouts were about 85,000M or more per week. That's 53 miles a week. More than a marathon a day. 2800 miles per year. www.si.com/.../michael-phelps-rehabilitation-rio-2016 (long article, but pretty good) It said that Phelps before 2012 was typically missing 2 days a week. Part of the deal he made with his coach to come back in 2016 was that he would make all the workouts, but they would only be 50- 60 km per week. After I read that article, I was coming on her with a bug up my butt about overtraining. In part, because I blew out a shoulder overtraining (or at least ramping up too quickly) when I turned 60 in 2013, but partly with this idea: If the guy who is best in the world (by far) could do it in 30 miles a week, why would ANYONE do 50 miles? I still think there are potential champs who drop out because the good programs won't deal with people who resist overtraining.

PS - my typical yearly totals are about the same as Phelp's weekly totals at his peak.

pwb you need one more blog entry on USMS. it's 2020 now, not 2019. :P

For most swimmers it seems they either swim great distances but have little speed, or the opposite. Then there’s the other

I had a coach in the early/mid 80s in high school who subscribed to the 'Animal Lane' mantra and the summer I was 16, we would do doubles MWF, triples on TTH and another single on Saturday. We'd be going ~12K LCM on our doubles days, maybe ~16K LCM on our triples and ~8K on our single. So, ~75K LCM a week. I swam out of my mind, but it was brutal. When we tried to do it the next summer, it just wore us down. These days, I aim for 15K SCM a week when I get up to steady state training and maybe get a few weeks in the upper teens, possible to 20K. I train for fitness and to race in the pool, along with open water (up to 5K in the summer) and this is more than enough. I have a number of friends who've done the monster OW swims like Catalina, English Channel, etc. and none of them train 14K a day. Hey, if that guy loves it and it brings him joy, more power to him ... but I can't see how that volume is desirable or needed from a conditioning standpoint.:bow::bow:

So, ~75K LCM a week. I swam out of my mind, but it was brutal. When we tried to do it the next summer, it just wore us down. Jeez PWB, were there kids who "coulda been a contender" but dropped out just from the harshness? Do you think the coach may have been a sadist? (both serious questions)

So true, Calvin. My club program was insane yardage probably to everyone's detriment in some ways, my college program was a mix of fast swims and the necessary grunt work for the distance crew (I was a 200 BR, 500/1000/1650 person depending on the year). I think that has informed how I write workouts for myself and when occasionally help out with the local middle school team. The short stuff and constant working on technique is just so important... Also- loved looking at your blog! Will definitely be stealing some workouts. I am in a weird spot where my current masters team is a pretty poor fit for me- no one else really near my base time (one guy but we are very different swimmers) and never ever do we do stroke or technique or race pace or really anything other than aerobic repeats. Swimming on my own is fine but I just really wish I could workout with a local club or college team- but that would just be weird as an old lady. Do your athletes mind you being there? If you didn't have the prior coaching connection with them, would you pursue swimming with a group like that?

Do your athletes mind you being there? If you didn't have the prior coaching connection with them, would you pursue swimming with a group like that? I trained with the college girls for about 18 months BEFORE I was a coach there (it’s sort of how the assistant coaching position fell into my lap). I coached there for five years and then retired (my wife’s word not mine). I kept away for a few years but just the past couple weeks wanted to mix up my training and the training venue so I reached back out to the head coach about dropping in from time to time. I definitely wanted to give a chance for most of the girls I had coached to graduate before I showed my face again. The seniors now I coached as freshmen. And the assistant coach who took my place was one of the girls I coached (and so I see some of “me the coach” in some of the sets she writes!). and the girls don’t seem to mind me. The younger ones who never knew me don’t pay me much of a mind at all. And the girls who I coached appreciate seeing me again (and trying to throw down against the “old” man).

Jeez PWB, were there kids who "coulda been a contender" but dropped out just from the harshness? Do you think the coach may have been a sadist? (both serious questions) As to the second point, Having been coached by people who I once swam with, and having coached myself, your coaching style/philosophy is often times a product of who you were coached by. If your coach was a high volume kind of person, and either you or others around you succeeded in that system, you might be inclined to also coach that way. Also coaches who do high volume who see (some of) their swimmers succeed may also feel their system is validated. I think that last point can be dangerous though because maybe it isn't the coach's philosophy that is working so much as finding the occasional swimmer who was destined to succeed in that system. Sorry if all that seemed rambling. Musing now over coaching and coaching styles. I came from a yardage based system but as a post grad worked in a refined "lower volume"/"quality over quantity" system and came to incorporate both into my coaching style. EX: Having the collegiate girls I coached (distance group) do 20x400 LCM over training trip. But we would also do main sets like this one: forums.usms.org/entry.php (forgive the shameless advertisement of my USMS blog)