What's more important: striving for maximal health/fitness and a long life or setting WRs or national records or team records in swimming?
I think the latter is overrated. I'm all for improving one's stroke and striving for PBs. Who isn't? PBs produce euphoria and pride and keep you on the path to improvement. But I wonder if restorative, technique based workouts that might help you improve in swimming and/or achieve world or local fame really help make one extremely fit or improve one's health? I think someone referred to Gary Hall as doing "sprinter" type high intensity training and doing his aerobic/strength training outside the pool, which seems perfectly sound. He's getting it all in. I think you need to get it all in and work hard. You gotta break a sweat. A lot. Frequently.
So will TI-ing your life away and looking pretty make you as fit as you can be? Isn't there something to be said for hard training? Not necessarily because it will improve your 50 free (everyone seems to agree it won't), but just to improve health, mental outlook, physical well being and keep the bod hot and the spouse interested? Plus, if you're a distance swimmer you gotta have some endurance. Talent and technique only get you so far, at least IMHO.
I just thought we were supposed to exercise more, and more intensely for optimal health.
What's more important: striving for maximal health/fitness and a long life or setting WRs or national records or team records in swimming?
This is an interesting topic, and one I'm a bit conflicted on.
I want to be the best swimmer I can be, enjoy improving my times and aiming for national rankings. I've diligently read all Ande's tips. But I seem to do things that may be inconsistent with my swimming goals. I like to run a lot, which I don't think helps my swimming a lot. Plus, I'm an endurance runner and I worry that endurance kills speed as well as building leg fatigue. I do a lot of technique training and speed work when I'm in the pool, but secretly wish I could do more endurance training even though I know it wouldn't necessarily help my sprinting. Endurance training, running and weight lifting make me feel healthier. (I guess the weights help my sprints.) If I had loads of time, I'd probably exercise like crazy and suffer from overtraining. (My obsessiveness led to my past running injury.) So I guess health and fitness may trump records. But I'm hoping that my general fitness level and some sprinting will still help me beat my secret nemesis in the pool and crank out some decent ranked sprints. So far, it seems to have worked out OK, even though I know there are many things I can improve on in my swim training. I'm going to attempt to cut back on running and swim more this year (vessell and engine) -- once I get healthy and recover from sinus infections and the holidays.
What's more important: striving for maximal health/fitness and a long life or setting WRs or national records or team records in swimming?
This is an interesting topic, and one I'm a bit conflicted on.
I want to be the best swimmer I can be, enjoy improving my times and aiming for national rankings. I've diligently read all Ande's tips. But I seem to do things that may be inconsistent with my swimming goals. I like to run a lot, which I don't think helps my swimming a lot. Plus, I'm an endurance runner and I worry that endurance kills speed as well as building leg fatigue. I do a lot of technique training and speed work when I'm in the pool, but secretly wish I could do more endurance training even though I know it wouldn't necessarily help my sprinting. Endurance training, running and weight lifting make me feel healthier. (I guess the weights help my sprints.) If I had loads of time, I'd probably exercise like crazy and suffer from overtraining. (My obsessiveness led to my past running injury.) So I guess health and fitness may trump records. But I'm hoping that my general fitness level and some sprinting will still help me beat my secret nemesis in the pool and crank out some decent ranked sprints. So far, it seems to have worked out OK, even though I know there are many things I can improve on in my swim training. I'm going to attempt to cut back on running and swim more this year (vessell and engine) -- once I get healthy and recover from sinus infections and the holidays.
