Does anyone have any experience with doing workouts in OW that aren't oriented toward distance freestyle?
I've got the ocean out my front door, and the water is warm enough July and August which happen to be the months my club is shut down for the summer, and the pool is a 45min drive away and closed on weekends so it seems to make sense, but I'm not that into distance free every swim, but I'm a little lost with no set distances or pace clocks...
Also, does anyone else's neck seem to get stiff and sore from OW swimming? Is that from exagerated movements to ensure I get air instead of a wave when I breath? Or perhaps holding my head higher than normal in hopes of spotting the jellyfish? Or some other stroke flaw? Anything I can do out of the water to reduce the problem?
Lindsay - a swim pal of mine lives on a lake in the summer. Our coach sends him pool workouts and he does them in the lake. I asked him how he did it and he said he found a buoy that was 200 meters away and then finds a shore marker that is 100 meters away and tries to use those distances for the workout.
I was on vacation last week and did something like this. Except the known distance was 1/4 mile out. It worked pretty well.
Another thing you might do is get your stroke count for 25m of each stroke (fast and slow swimming) and then use those counts as a basis for doing sets. If it takes you x number of strokes to swim a 25m fly, do something like swim hard for x or 2x, rest or swim easy for y strokes free. Lather, rinse, repeat. If you have a waterproof watch, it'd be a good time to work on your stroke rate.
I did a lot of fly stuff in open water last week where I'd start out trying to sprint x fly strokes , the next day sprint x + 1, x + 2, etc.
Open water swimming is a good way to build strength, too. Especially swimming in the ocean.
Lindsay - a swim pal of mine lives on a lake in the summer. Our coach sends him pool workouts and he does them in the lake. I asked him how he did it and he said he found a buoy that was 200 meters away and then finds a shore marker that is 100 meters away and tries to use those distances for the workout.
I was on vacation last week and did something like this. Except the known distance was 1/4 mile out. It worked pretty well.
Another thing you might do is get your stroke count for 25m of each stroke (fast and slow swimming) and then use those counts as a basis for doing sets. If it takes you x number of strokes to swim a 25m fly, do something like swim hard for x or 2x, rest or swim easy for y strokes free. Lather, rinse, repeat. If you have a waterproof watch, it'd be a good time to work on your stroke rate.
I did a lot of fly stuff in open water last week where I'd start out trying to sprint x fly strokes , the next day sprint x + 1, x + 2, etc.
Open water swimming is a good way to build strength, too. Especially swimming in the ocean.
