Ramping Up

RE: Ramping Up

Former Member — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 10:13:25 GMT

A general rule of thumb is to increase your workload by increments of 10% (week to week or even better month to month). This allows your cardiovascular system adequate time to adapt to the added work. Personally speaking, it took me two years to progress from 6,000 yards/wk to 24,000. Early on, I did not swim every day. Of course, individual results may vary (I may be significantly older than you are).

RE: Ramping Up

Former Member — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 08:36:26 GMT

Originally posted by some_girl My new team is on hiatus till Spetember now, so I'll be back at 3000-5000 till then, with one full week off. Given the workout possibilities below, what kind of progression would you suggest if I want to eventually do 12,000-14,000 yds., Mon to Thurs? (I'll ask my coach in Sept., but I like lots of opinions.) Mon: 1500-2500 yds. Tues: 1500-2500 yds. Weds: 3000-3500 m. Thurs: 5000-5500 yds. Sat: 3000-3500 m. Sun: 4000-5000 m. The statement above isn't clear to me. It seems to me that if you are doing 3-5K over 4 days, that's about 1000/day. And you want to get to 12-14K, meaning you roughly have to triple your daily workout. That's a huge leap. Are you proposing the above set of workout yardage above as a way to get to your goal? If you are used to 1000/day now, you will simply die by Thursday with the progression above. In my opinion you simply will not (safely) jump to triple the yardage in 3 or 4 weeks. My recommendation: Put a stake in the ground -- such as 1200 yards per day. Do that for a few days, then add 100 yards per day every other day. (And maybe not even that rapidly. Maybe every 3rd day.) Maybe by September you can get up to 2000 per day. That's not bad at all! Keep after it, and by Thanksgiving the full workouts will be routine.

RE: Ramping Up

Former Member — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 08:06:40 GMT

And which Olympics are you getting ready to swim in???

RE: Ramping Up

fatboy — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 05:58:21 GMT

Bumping up that much yardage in a short time is probably not your best move. If you don't want to leave workout early, what about skipping some repeats - like skip #4 and #8 of a 10x100 set? If you are locked in to doing the full workout maybe M,W,Sat for a few weeks. Yardage will not go up too much and you get a day off between workouts. When you are ready, add Tuesday back in the mix.

RE: Ramping Up

some_girl — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 05:26:11 GMT

The statement above isn't clear to me. I don't know why I'm having so much trouble being clear today. Let me try again. I swim with two groups. One is Mon & Tues workouts, the other is all the others listed. Since January, I have been doing only the Mon & Tues workouts, which comes to 3000-5000 (1500 to 2500 each day, depending on whether we are working on technique or just swimming). At the beginning of July, I started with the other team and added the Weds and Thurs ones. By the end of July, I was too tired because I added them too fast. I want to eventually get back to the M, T, W, Th schedule. I am wondering if there is some way to do different combinations of the workouts listed to work myself back to that point (begin T, Th; then add Sat; then add Mon; then drop Sat and add Wed, or something). If at all possible, I'd like to avoid getting out partway through any workout, because it embarrasses me and because once I am in, I never want to get out-- the water makes me happy. I also don't want to swim by myself, because New York pools are really cowded and it is just too exasperating. Does that make sense?

RE: Ramping Up

some_girl — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 04:14:37 GMT

I can't do it by day. Or rather, I don't want to. If I'm going to show up for a practice, I want to complete the whole thing. So if you were to think about the way I am, what would you do? And geochuck, no Olympics. I just like swimming. And I mean, 12,000 to 14,000 yds. per week over the Mon-Thurs workouts. Not each day.

RE: Ramping Up

ande — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 04:11:50 GMT

think in terms of weeks and months rather than days when you're starting 1,500 to 2,000 a day is fine then in a week or 2 build up by 500 or 1,000 2,000 to 3,000 then 3,000 to 4,000 then 4,000 & up when you reach the amount of daily yardage you desire focus on increasing the intensity with the same yardage and work on swimming faster and holding faster paces