How do you correctly "listen to your body"? If you swim on a regular basis you seem to build up a certain level of fatigue. So if on a particular day you feel more tired than usual and/or you're having trouble maintaining the paces you can typically maintain how do you know whether you should push through it or if your body needs rest? I've read in swimming books that you can get to a point of "failing adaptation" but I don't think I'm at that point because I swim appx 5 days a week and 3500-4500 yards each day.
How to listen correctly remains to be debated. Today is my rest day. Normally I swim about 4x/week but have been in the water for 11 days straight. I had a competitive swim on Tuesday and another coming this Tuesday. Wednesday I felt terrible (sore muscles, no energy, etc) but my interval times were still on. I swam thru this stage to help my body recover. Yesterday I could feel some energy returning but still had sore shoulders. Today I will rest so I can focus on some good powerful workouts over the weekend in preping for the Tuesday swim. Monday will be a light workout so hopefully Tuesday will be peak performance (within the week). Then I'll repeat the whole process. If I didn't have the Tuesday competitions my process may differ slightly but I always try to take the rest when, I believe, it will make the greatest difference. And that always depends on whats forthcoming.
How to listen correctly remains to be debated. Today is my rest day. Normally I swim about 4x/week but have been in the water for 11 days straight. I had a competitive swim on Tuesday and another coming this Tuesday. Wednesday I felt terrible (sore muscles, no energy, etc) but my interval times were still on. I swam thru this stage to help my body recover. Yesterday I could feel some energy returning but still had sore shoulders. Today I will rest so I can focus on some good powerful workouts over the weekend in preping for the Tuesday swim. Monday will be a light workout so hopefully Tuesday will be peak performance (within the week). Then I'll repeat the whole process. If I didn't have the Tuesday competitions my process may differ slightly but I always try to take the rest when, I believe, it will make the greatest difference. And that always depends on whats forthcoming.
