This week has been somewhat hectic with work and travel. Normally, I swim 5-6 days a week for an 1-1/2 to 2 hours. This week, I have only been able to manage about 30 minutes to 45 minutes at a time. A few days, my body just hasn't been able to get up and go.
So, this I decided to use my limited time to swim with good form and let this week become a recovery week. Keeping my feel for the water, letting my body recover and just enjoy what little time I get in the water.
Do any of you do recovery days/weeks? Do you see anything wrong with doing a week like mine? Esp. since outside influences have changed my normal routine.
Any input/advice is most welcomed! Thanks in advance.
John
Parents
Former Member
It is probably only fair that I give you more information about my season as a way of determining whether my advice is good for you. Here is a glimpse into my season.
My focus each season is FR/BA/FL with only a few strokes of *** in the season. I, too, have occasional shoulder issues that I have to address.
I swim 50's, 100's, an occasional 200, and a 500 when someone challenges my family name. I changed my in-season training fairly dramatically this past fall. I pretty much stopped doing any swims in the E2/E3 range (aerobic work with hr > 140).
That may sound odd, but with Mike Schmidt's guidance (mentioned in previous post), we determined that in the prior cycles (fall 2004, spring 2005 and summer 2005), although I was doing well enough in my longer swims like the 200 free and 500, my sprints were getting slower.
I do mostly E1 swimming, peppered with sprint work. I also generally hold the view that, for me, since I am a sprinter of sorts, "too much taper" is fiction. Having said this, I should note that this past fall I swam poorly at US Open testing my "too much taper" hypothesis, which get's back to my earlier post where I said, "this guy might be a bonehead".
In the fall of 2005, I had some pretty fast in-season swims at a point in my season where I would have said I was training hard and should have been broken down. At a
meet in Maine in October 2005, I swam 21.19 in the 50 free and 46.37 in the 100 free. This suggested to me that I would do very well when I tapered.
Fast forward to the end of the season, Mr. Schmidt suggested that I taper and shave for a USS meet (Sectionals, 3/9 - 3/12). Then come up a bit and taper again for USS Nationals (3/28 - 4/1). And I wanted to swim NEM Champs which were days before Nationals (3/24 - 3/26).
I was showing signs of a lack of speed at Sectionals (100 free - 46.51, 50 free - 21.46), when compared with my October swims. I was a little better, perhaps, at NEM Champs (22.63 - 50 fly). And still a little bit faster at US Nationals (59.59 - 100 LCM Back).
Following Nationals, MS suggested that I attend one more meet, which was Colony Zones. As I mentioned, I was surprised by my swims there. 45.54 in the 100 free and 21.05 in the 50 free, which I think is my fastest time ever. Although I am still not sure what magic happened here, I can share the general workouts through the period between Nationals and Zones.
I was back in the water on Monday 4/3. 4/4, I was back to about 3200 yards. 4/8, I was up to 4000. Each workout in this week had me doing large portions of E1 swims, meaning getting my HR in the 130-140 range. Sets like 4x{300 free, then 200 back} or 12x150 were common in this week. The rest of these workous was warmup (1000 yards, which I need) and a few descend 50's or 25 sprints from a push (max - 4 such push 25's in a workout).
The next week started with yardage around 3500. Wednesday is when I got sick, so I was out until Saturday.
At that point, I decided to start the taper even though I had been out sick. I dropped yardage quickly. Saturday was 1800, Mon - 1800, Tues - 1600, Wed - 1400, Thur - 1400. Meet warmup on Fri. Saturday - meet warmup and competition.
Sorry to bore you with the details, but I thought this might help give some perspective.
It is probably only fair that I give you more information about my season as a way of determining whether my advice is good for you. Here is a glimpse into my season.
My focus each season is FR/BA/FL with only a few strokes of *** in the season. I, too, have occasional shoulder issues that I have to address.
I swim 50's, 100's, an occasional 200, and a 500 when someone challenges my family name. I changed my in-season training fairly dramatically this past fall. I pretty much stopped doing any swims in the E2/E3 range (aerobic work with hr > 140).
That may sound odd, but with Mike Schmidt's guidance (mentioned in previous post), we determined that in the prior cycles (fall 2004, spring 2005 and summer 2005), although I was doing well enough in my longer swims like the 200 free and 500, my sprints were getting slower.
I do mostly E1 swimming, peppered with sprint work. I also generally hold the view that, for me, since I am a sprinter of sorts, "too much taper" is fiction. Having said this, I should note that this past fall I swam poorly at US Open testing my "too much taper" hypothesis, which get's back to my earlier post where I said, "this guy might be a bonehead".
In the fall of 2005, I had some pretty fast in-season swims at a point in my season where I would have said I was training hard and should have been broken down. At a
meet in Maine in October 2005, I swam 21.19 in the 50 free and 46.37 in the 100 free. This suggested to me that I would do very well when I tapered.
Fast forward to the end of the season, Mr. Schmidt suggested that I taper and shave for a USS meet (Sectionals, 3/9 - 3/12). Then come up a bit and taper again for USS Nationals (3/28 - 4/1). And I wanted to swim NEM Champs which were days before Nationals (3/24 - 3/26).
I was showing signs of a lack of speed at Sectionals (100 free - 46.51, 50 free - 21.46), when compared with my October swims. I was a little better, perhaps, at NEM Champs (22.63 - 50 fly). And still a little bit faster at US Nationals (59.59 - 100 LCM Back).
Following Nationals, MS suggested that I attend one more meet, which was Colony Zones. As I mentioned, I was surprised by my swims there. 45.54 in the 100 free and 21.05 in the 50 free, which I think is my fastest time ever. Although I am still not sure what magic happened here, I can share the general workouts through the period between Nationals and Zones.
I was back in the water on Monday 4/3. 4/4, I was back to about 3200 yards. 4/8, I was up to 4000. Each workout in this week had me doing large portions of E1 swims, meaning getting my HR in the 130-140 range. Sets like 4x{300 free, then 200 back} or 12x150 were common in this week. The rest of these workous was warmup (1000 yards, which I need) and a few descend 50's or 25 sprints from a push (max - 4 such push 25's in a workout).
The next week started with yardage around 3500. Wednesday is when I got sick, so I was out until Saturday.
At that point, I decided to start the taper even though I had been out sick. I dropped yardage quickly. Saturday was 1800, Mon - 1800, Tues - 1600, Wed - 1400, Thur - 1400. Meet warmup on Fri. Saturday - meet warmup and competition.
Sorry to bore you with the details, but I thought this might help give some perspective.
