When swimimg I'd assume most people have "off days" and "on days". During the on days you may feel smooth, relaxed, strong, and that your stroke is technically sound. The off days you may feel sluggish, tight, tired, weak, slow, and your stroke feels sloppy. My question is, can someone standing on deck see the differences in your stroke from one day to the next or is it all in the swimmers head?
Former Member
Let me offer a radical suggestion: if you are having a really off day, get yourself out of the pool in the middle of practice and try again tomorrow. Seriously, unless you are in training for a big meet or something else with a date certain, what is the point of pressing through a really bad day, and killing the joy of being in the water? I'm not suggesting that you skip every other practice because you don't feel like it. But, if your goal is to enjoy masters swimming long term, maintaining your zest for swimming maybe more important than suffering through a terrible work-out or two.
Also, your body maybe telling you something. I had a few months when I had an unusually high number of really off days. Turns out I was boderline anemic.
Matt
I believe they can see the difference.
Your arms drag, the technique is bad, times slow and you are getting lapped. :)
But it is always good to have swum that day because the good day is right around the corner to kick butt.
When things are not clicking for me I will spend more time kicking or sometimes just switch strokes. I will often times do 50's consisting of a 25 free and a 25 ***. Mixes things up a bit and keeps me in the water.
I agree, if you're feeling especially tired and your stroke is falling apart you should alter the workout or get out. Although like you mention you shouldn't be doing this on a regular basis.
The problem I have is that I don't know if my stoke is truely deteriorating because I am tired or if it just feels that way and would look the same to someone on deck as it did yesterday when I felt better.
For me, there are two kinds of "off days". There are days when my stroke feels short and choppy, and I'm just plain fighting the water too much. Then there are days where I'm off to the point where shoulders start to hurt, etc.
In the first case, I'll usually try to stay in as long as I can stand it, but change the goal of the workout. Instead of looking to swim great... the goal becomes to just focus on technique, and stretch things out, etc. Times don't matter as much. It becomes a victory just to last.
On the days where things start to hurt, I just get out, ice, and go home.
Sometimes it takes slogging through an off day or two in order to get to an "on day".
-Rick
Dan,
It can be a good thing to focus attention on your stroke mechanics when you are tired. When I am training for a 200 fly, I will intentionally swim sets that will have me swimming fly later in the set. It is only partially about conditioning. I am more concerned with re-teaching my body how to swim long, easy, body-dolphin focused butterfly with fatigued, lactic acid loaded muscles and managing oxygen debt. Please note that these sets are structured to get my body a little tired, but then stay there as I'm swimming technically correct fly. They are NOT designed to be extreme, head-banger sets on an unsustainable interval that will rapidly deteriorate my stroke and result in my suffering through "butter-struggle" for most of the set.
So, how do you know you are swimming with good mechanics when you are tired and in the midst of a challenging set? I have two suggestions. First, ask the coach on deck to watch you when you know a set will challenge you, and to give you immediate feedback about any stroke deterioration they see. Second, you need to be enough of a student of your own stroke to know what "right" and "wrong" feel like. Developing a feel for the water is key, and you need to do that in the slower, technique focused sets. As a student of TI (DISCLAIMER--I mention TI only as one example of a school of thought that I personally use and like; there are lots of other methods out there radically different from TI that other people use with excellent results; my point for this discussion would be the same whether you use TI or something else--END DISCLAIMER) I focus in on what we call "sensory perceptions." Examples are: am I looking straight down at the black line on the bottom of the pool, do I feel my hips rotate as I stroke, where does my hand enter the water and am I grabbing air or water at that point, do I start the catch in my stroke deep enough? I'm thinking about one or two of these focal points as I swim. Sometimes swimmers get through aerobically challenging workouts by turning our brains off and grinding it out. This is a prescription for practicing deteriorating stroke mechanics. You can correct this by staying mentally engaged during challenging sets.
Again, know yourself; ask your coach to give you feedback.
Matt
