i have been a competitive swimmer for most of my life, untill i began college and other things took top priority. now i am returning to swimming for fitness and am finding myslef extremely frustrated at how out of shape i am. what is an effective workout method to get myself back to the 5000 yard workouts i used to breeze through. additionally what sort of goals are realistic for key landmarks such as 1 week, 1 month, 2 months? im sure many others have gone through this - perhaps some wouldnt mind sharing their experiences.
zmadd -
I started with the same question ("get myself back to the 5000 yard workouts i used to breeze through"). What I came to realize is that I did not want to dedicate that much time to swimming again. I decided to attain a level of fitness (~1hr/day) that I can sustain without impacting other facets of my life (1500-3000 yrds/swim).
This means I may not ever get back to college swimming times. But I think I am also learning elements to swimming competetive training never allowed me to experience.
I hope you find a balance suitable for your life. Moreso, I hope you continue find pleasure/relaxation/fitness in swimming!
Part of your question seemed to ask what type of training to do. Pretty much the same deal as competitive swimming, excpet on a smaller/less intense scale. Start with lots of easy intravel and/or distance stuff (stretch before and after practice). Then work into VO2 max anerobic, etc. I spend a lot of my time focusing on stroke at each level of training.
HTH,
Chris
zmadd -
I started with the same question ("get myself back to the 5000 yard workouts i used to breeze through"). What I came to realize is that I did not want to dedicate that much time to swimming again. I decided to attain a level of fitness (~1hr/day) that I can sustain without impacting other facets of my life (1500-3000 yrds/swim).
This means I may not ever get back to college swimming times. But I think I am also learning elements to swimming competetive training never allowed me to experience.
I hope you find a balance suitable for your life. Moreso, I hope you continue find pleasure/relaxation/fitness in swimming!
Part of your question seemed to ask what type of training to do. Pretty much the same deal as competitive swimming, excpet on a smaller/less intense scale. Start with lots of easy intravel and/or distance stuff (stretch before and after practice). Then work into VO2 max anerobic, etc. I spend a lot of my time focusing on stroke at each level of training.
HTH,
Chris
