Paul's swimming blog

Look forward to reading.

21 Nov 2007 SCY OMO 300 swim, 100 kick w/u 6x100 Free on the 2:00, goal to hold 1:10, :06,:05,:05,:06,:06,:04 50 EZ, 50 Kick 8x25 Fly on the :30 - goal to hold :17 (I wanted to do it with fins but my left calf cramped up big time on the first one) 50 EZ, 50 kick 100 w/d Trying to do a session during lap swimming is an exercise in frustration. Paul

23 Nov 2007 SCY with team 300 w/u 6x75 Free on 1:15 - goal was to hold :55 and I was slightly under that every rep. 6x50 (Fly/Back/Br)x2 on 1:00 200 Kick - I have GOT to work my kick more. 200 Pull 6x50 Free/Stroke on 1:00 3x50 Back on 1:00 - descend :41,:38,:35 3x50 Free on 1:00 - descend :48,:34,:29 6x25 Stroke - Back 6x25 Free - descend to AFAP :21,:18,:16,:15,:14,:13 100 w/d Free is starting to feel really strong, I'm able to hold my times on reps better than I could before and I'm not as tired.

Today was a down day both mentally (no drive to be in the pool) and physically (right shoulder was hurting). I think I over did it a bit this week as I raked about 12 lawn bags of leaves on Thursday. Plus I do not think that I am quite up to swimming 4x week. 24 Nov 2007 SCM with team 500 w/u - I realized that my shoulder was not cooperating. 4x200 Free Descend on 3:00 - completed the first one. Then sat out the 2nd 100 of the 2nd and completed the third. Got out on the 4th and did some additional shoulder stretches to see if I could get the shoulder to play along. On a scale of 1 to 10, it was feeling about a 6. 100 Kick 150 pull 4x100 IM descend - 1st one OK. But on the 2nd Fly length my shoulder went to about a 3. So at this point I got out and iced it. 1400 in total Not a very satisfying workout from both a mental and physical perspective but I'm going to rest it and come back on Monday and see how it feels. Paul

OK, back in the pool finally. 29 Nov 2007 Shoulder started at about a 6.5-7 on a scale to 10. SCM with team 500 w/u (shoulder 6) 75x6 IM on 1:30 (shoulder 7) 50x4 Stroke on 1:00 (Back) (shoulder 8) 25x2 Free easy on :30 25x2 sprint kick on :30 25x2 Free Sprint on :30 (shoulder 8) 100 Pull, 100 Kick 50x12 1-3 Fly on 1:05 - right arm went to about a 4 so last 2 were 1 armed fly. 4-6 Back on 1:00 7-9 *** on 1:10 - sat out one due to laughing/sucking water. 10-12 Free on 1:00 25x10 Free on :30 25x8 Stroke on :30 - *** so it worked out to be about 3-4 seconds rest between reps. Only did 6 reps, sat out the first 2. 25x6 Free on :30 - Worked on 1 breathing each 25x4 Stroke on :30 - IM order 25x2 Free AFAP - did both in about 13.5 or so. 100 free EZ (i.e. steerage ) 2850m Got home, iced shoulder 3 cycles 15 min per cycle. PLus my wonderful wife went above the call of duty and gave my shoulder a very nice massage. Paul

Are you doing your rotator cuff exercises, eh? Speedwork and fly are hard on shoulders (in my experience), so give yourself some recovery workouts too. Your team sure does a lot of sprinting for a masters team. Thanks for posting.

Thanks for sharing Paul. It is nice to see workouts from someone more my speed, so I can compare your workouts to mine. Please keep up as you can. I've also had problems with my right shoulder, but I've never had anything done or had it looked at. I've taken off weights for about 3 weeks, and will probably stay off them until late Dec/Jan due to some upcoming travel. I hate doing fly to begin with, so I'll take any excuse to not do it, or sub in some *** instead.

Fort: witht he RC stuff, not as often as I need to. I will be starting a dedicated weight training program next year and that will be a part of it. Yeah, the weekdays there are 2 workouts posted, one distance, one sprint. Take a wild guess which one I choose??? :bolt: Weekends are the bummer cause it's only distance but that's the only workout(s) that I KNOW I can make so we'll see what happens. aztimm: Thanks. I'm doing this because when I was competing in powerlifting 10 years ago, I found it helpful to do this and to also read the logs of others. Been in the pool little over 2 months now. I've been doing solely pool work, I haven't lifted anthing heavier than a Coke can in almost a year so I need to get weight work back in my diet. And to get a lot more core work in. Swimming is great and I've lost another 5-7 pounds since I started and adding weights will only help that process. Paul

Paul - What age group are you in? Do you see yourself more a long axis (free/back) or short axis (***/fly) swimmer? Just interested as it will help me gauge my workouts against your own. I have to swim OMO all the time due to schedules and no close team, so I can relate to your comment about "lap swim" frustrations. Thanks for posting!

Paul - What age group are you in? Do you see yourself more a long axis (free/back) or short axis (***/fly) swimmer? Just interested as it will help me gauge my workouts against your own. I have to swim OMO all the time due to schedules and no close team, so I can relate to your comment about "lap swim" frustrations. Thanks for posting! Happy to help. Well, using your terms I'm a mix. I'm a Free/Fly guy. Currently 41 with about 2 months in the pool. 6'3" 260. In a previous life, I was about 3/4 of a rung below the elite swimmers in the early 80s but never took it seriously enough to make that last step. Always relied more on strength than technique so this reinvention of a swimming 'career' has been both enlightening and VERY frustrating as I have been trying to break down all the bad habits of trying to 'power' thru the water and instead focus on gliding thru. Finally seemed to click on Free but the other strokes are still lagging. My AIM info is in my profile and I'm more than happy to chat with you. And swimming during lap swim?? ugh. Paul