Workout Frequency Question

it is my understanding that if you want to build muscle you need to workout every other day (at least 48 hours between work outs) to give your muscles a chance to rebuild themselves. On the other hand, if you want to build endurance you should NOT let more than 48 hours elaspe between workouts or the training effect is negated. Maybe some other members with knowledge about this can shed some more light on the subject.

I really think your going to get a couple hundred different answers to this question. There are a lot of variables that go into your question that need to be answered. 1. What is a relatively new fitness swimmer? Are you brand new to swimming? or have you trained in swimming before. 2. Are you just swimming continuously for the whole workout or are you interval training? 3. What other types of exercise are you doing during the week? 4. Are you looking to go faster or just be able to swim farther? 5. How would your rate your technique on scale of 1-10? Understanding you background a little more might help some the experts out there in giving you some good advice for your training needs. Good luck with your training..... Dennis

only a half an hour?! I think that if you want to build endurance you have to commit more time than that. A half an hour could be one long set if you swim slowly, so that won't help you that much. I think to increase endurance, you have swim a little long than that, so I'm more for the 1 hour a day for 3 days a week. You'll get more accomplished if you swim longer workouts. I think the fitness class at NYU practices for an an hour and a half every other day(?)...something along those lines. But I still think that 3 days a week is a little to short. If you could try to increase it to like 4 days a week, because I agree with laineybug, you shouldn't let 48 hours pass without swimming. If you did 4 days a week, you would be swimming every other day with on consecutive workout a week. But high school teams do it, they practice on weekdays and rest on weekends...it seemed to work pretty well for me, but they were 2 and half hour practices with an hour and a half morning practice on mondays and wednesdays...but it's for competitive swimming.

after reading your last post...you want to focus on your techinique (which is very wise to avoid injury). when I first started (the first 2 years as an adult) I swam about 3 to 4 days a week for about 45minutes to an hour. i was slow, but i got to focus on my technique. garbage yardage just causes injuries in the long run. again, you will probably get a zillion different answers to your question so do what feels good to you. thats what is most important.

Thanks for the replies. I've been swimming for about a year--no competitive swimming in my background at all, although I have always been athletic and in shape. Perhaps I should mention I am 58 years old. My technique is decent--maybe a 6 or 7 on a 10 scale--and I am really trying to work on my weak points. I generally swim intervals of varying lengths to work on aspects of technique with short rest periods in between. I find that I get distracted during longer, continuous swimming and my technique breaks down from fatigue on longer swims. My goal is not so much to go a lot faster or further, but rather to improve my technique and make each workout more enjoyable and less of a struggle to improve. Ironically, one of the things I like about swimming is that there is that potential to improve through better technique. To me this makes the sport interesting. With distance running, for example, which I did for many years, technique hardly matters--its all about the training hours. At my age I am not looking to break any swimming records. I'm mostly interested in finding a workout frequency that strikes a balance between too long a gap (where the "training effect" starts to be lost) and too short (where it becomes a "job"). Perhaps this is too individual a matter to answer in a general way. Thanks again.

Do you know who Armand Hammer was? Rose Kennedy? They swam daily into their 90's. I really dont think a person can swim "too much". What ever swim time you find will work for you!