I am new to tri-training and I have a question regarding warm-up and cool down in swimming.
I swim intervals three times a week with a fellow (49 years old) who has been competing for many years. He stresses warm-up including easy swimming, drill and kick and a thorough cool down. Warm-up is usually around 800m and cool down 300 - 400m of easy swimming or drilling down. Total workout is 3000 - 3500 m.
Another fellow who swims at the same time (but not with us) ALWAYS starts his swim with a 400 build and goes very hard after the first 100 - 150 m. He then does a main set of intervals totalling between 800 and 1000 m and his warm down is always 50m. He says 400 build as warm up and 50 m cool down is more than adequate.
I may be new to training but this seems to be inadequate for warm-up (if going hard after 100 - 150m could be called warm-up) and warm down. This seems to contradict all principles of training and athletic performance that I have read about.
Comments?
Thanks
Assuming you are training hard (80%+ efforts), then 400 build as warm up and 50 m cool down is NOT adequate.
Fellow #1 has a much better warm-up/down plan.
I do think the amount of warm-up someone needs is individual. It is possible his warm-up is too short for you, but maybe right for him. Or he simply gets bored with a long warm-up and is willing to sacrifice part of the intervals. Do what feels good to you, and you can play around with others advise, because you never know what will work at first, but at the end, pick what feels right.
What about the stretching part before and after the pool session?
I would recommend to have around 10 minutes of stretching before and 5 minutes of stretching after the swim.
Coming to the warm-up in the pool; if you will do the sprint sets, never swim more than 200 meters of warm-up. Otherwise you will get tired before the sprint sets. I recommend the thread in 'Coaching' part of this forum 'How can I increase my stroke rate'. A great coach gave me a lot of useful info over there. I hope you enjoy it.:agree:
Warmup is individual; you must listen to your body, but the longer warmup will provide better performance main sets. And I would NEVER, EVER stretch before swimming; that can have very detrimental results. Muscles need to be warmed up first, then stretching, before swimming. Many injuries have been reported from athletes who stretch cold muscles.
I see there is a little difference of opinion here, but a 400 warmup, light stretching, couple of sprints, main set would be my ideal. Also, just for a FYI based on ME, it takes me about 800 yds before I start "feeling" right. I have heard that the better shape a person is in, the longer the warmup should be.
I plan on using my first mile of my 18 mile swim as my warmup and will mix and match it up until my body is "ready" to go.
You have to do what works for you.
Our HS coach has us age groupers do a 500 IM warm-up w/ fins every time I swim.
I kinda like it, 100 freestyle pencil drill, 100 back, 100 *** w/dolphin kick 100 kicks ,
4 x 25 fly resting 15 sec between. It lets me do a little of everything be starting transition sets or main sets. Using the fins, lets me go a little faster while working out my leg muscles.
If I have done 2000-2400 yds (hard workout) I do about a 200 cool down.
Other wise I may do 100 WD, it really depends, but I always do both.
Warm -up to get muscles going, cool down to help bring the heart rate down at an slow easy pace.
Thanks everyone for some good information.
Islandsox, I too would never stretch before doing some easy swimming. Fellow 1 from my orignial post always has us do some stretching after the easy swimming part of our warm-up and after our cool down.
Concho Pearl, interesting warm-up. I can see how this could be incorporated into our warm-up.
I need some clarification on some other points.
Okoban suggested to never swim more than 200 m when doing sprint sets. This seems quite short a wu, even, or should I say especially, when doing sprint sets. My understanding is that wu is to elevate the core temperature of muscles to get them ready for the stress of interval training. Would 200 m even elevate the core temperature enough, especially for sprints? I do not quite understand how 200m wu would tire someone out.
This leads me to my next point. I appreciate that wu is individual, but there must be a minimum amount of time to properly prepare muscles for training (I have read some information suggesting 10 minutes). There must also be things one should not do. In my original post, I mentioned that Fellow 2 is going hard within 150m of getting in the water. This seems to completely contradict the principles of human athletic performance that wu is based on.
Has anyone seen any information on a correlation between age and warm-up/cool-down?
Comments.
Thanks.
