Hi all,
I'm the Slow Swimmer in Residence at my swim practices, and this often means that I'm maybe halfway done with a set when people are moving on to the next one. Usually, I have the slow lane to myself, which widens my options somewhat (if I don't, I do whatever the others are doing, even if it means moving on to the next set before I'm done with the previous one).
Since I almost NEVER finish my sets the same time as the others (unless I get to the practice earlier... that allows me to come out even with the others at least on the first set), would I benefit more from (a), (b) or (c)?:
(a) jump to the sets that others are doing even if not finished with all the repeats (ex.: 10x100; others have moved on to 250s. I have done 5-6 100s... following this option, I'd stop doing the 100s and move ahead to the 250s).
(b) finish the set I'm doing, then start on whatever set others are doing, even if they're, let's say, two or more sets ahead of me.
(c) finish the set I'm doing, then move on to the next one in the order the coach listed, only skipping ahead if the time allotted for the workout is drawing to a close and I need the warmdown.
Underlying all this, I guess what I am asking is whether it's better to do fewer repetitions but more of the sets that everyone's doing or all the repetitions but finish fewer sets.
Some might say I should retire to the open lap swim, but I'm not ready to do that. ;)
Thanks for your help!
Parents
Former Member
I have no idea if this applies to FindingMyInnerFish but in our club I have observed that some of the swimmers swim every set at almost exactly the same speed, no matter whether it is a sprint set or a distance set. Some of them are in the slower lanes, and just don't seem to have learned multiple "gears", some of them are in the faster lanes and end up doing a long almost continuous swim because the intervals are really too short for them.
Sometimes in the open swims I see people swimming continuous laps on say 1min/50m, and I wonder if they wouldn't be much better off swimming intervals of say N x 50 on 1min, coming in on 55sec? That way they would be practicing swimming faster while still covering the same distance. Not that I don't enjoy the occassional LSD swim, but some of these people always swim at the same slow continuous pace.
I have no idea if this applies to FindingMyInnerFish but in our club I have observed that some of the swimmers swim every set at almost exactly the same speed, no matter whether it is a sprint set or a distance set. Some of them are in the slower lanes, and just don't seem to have learned multiple "gears", some of them are in the faster lanes and end up doing a long almost continuous swim because the intervals are really too short for them.
Sometimes in the open swims I see people swimming continuous laps on say 1min/50m, and I wonder if they wouldn't be much better off swimming intervals of say N x 50 on 1min, coming in on 55sec? That way they would be practicing swimming faster while still covering the same distance. Not that I don't enjoy the occassional LSD swim, but some of these people always swim at the same slow continuous pace.
