After reading alot of threads, it seems my volume and frequency is way lower than everyone elses. My freestyle workouts are typically no more than 1500 to 1700 yards. If it is a repeat workout, then it is less (i.e. 10x100, 5x200, 2x500....etc) I swim three times a week.
My fly, *** and back workouts are no more than 1000 yds (still learning those strokes).
I am biased towards the sprints like 100 free and maybe someday if I'm lucky the 200 IM. Is this volume OK for a 42 year old, or should I be trying to build in more yardage?
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I find this thread very interesting and would like to add my :2cents: on a few points:
1. It is very difficult to compare running to swimming since swimming is so much more skill oriented. Still, the basic 4-1 ratio applies i.e. 4 meters of running is comparable to 1 meter of swimming (freestyle). It really is interesting to compare times at different levels and see that this indeed holds up. So if one is coming from a running background and wants to compare volume, this is a reasonable measuring stick.
2. Volume: I didn't see the word intensity in this thread. I feel that swimmers do alot of garbage laps that up their total distance. Total distance does not always accurately sum up the w/o. I am more sprint oriented so I do alot of short distance repeats at over 85% intensity. One of my favorites is 10x50m. that I do with my 23 year old son. We alternate 50m. sprints (he swims, I rest until he returns and vice versa) for 10 sets. Now this is "only" 500m. but it is a real .... buster. My sessions are only about 1500m.-2000m. but I swim on the average 5 times per week. Since I am doing intensive sessions, I prefer more sessions with less volume per session. I also feel that it is counter productive to train sloppy, fatigued strokes. About a 30% of the session is w/u and c/d and another 20% - 30% skill drills. The rest is intensive swimming.
3. Skill training - I concentrate on working only one skill at any session. For example, right now I am working on my underwater fly off the wall. My goal is a fast, fluid movement for the legal limit (15m.) off the wall (I figure that way I'll have less to swim :D ).
I find this thread very interesting and would like to add my :2cents: on a few points:
1. It is very difficult to compare running to swimming since swimming is so much more skill oriented. Still, the basic 4-1 ratio applies i.e. 4 meters of running is comparable to 1 meter of swimming (freestyle). It really is interesting to compare times at different levels and see that this indeed holds up. So if one is coming from a running background and wants to compare volume, this is a reasonable measuring stick.
2. Volume: I didn't see the word intensity in this thread. I feel that swimmers do alot of garbage laps that up their total distance. Total distance does not always accurately sum up the w/o. I am more sprint oriented so I do alot of short distance repeats at over 85% intensity. One of my favorites is 10x50m. that I do with my 23 year old son. We alternate 50m. sprints (he swims, I rest until he returns and vice versa) for 10 sets. Now this is "only" 500m. but it is a real .... buster. My sessions are only about 1500m.-2000m. but I swim on the average 5 times per week. Since I am doing intensive sessions, I prefer more sessions with less volume per session. I also feel that it is counter productive to train sloppy, fatigued strokes. About a 30% of the session is w/u and c/d and another 20% - 30% skill drills. The rest is intensive swimming.
3. Skill training - I concentrate on working only one skill at any session. For example, right now I am working on my underwater fly off the wall. My goal is a fast, fluid movement for the legal limit (15m.) off the wall (I figure that way I'll have less to swim :D ).
