Usually after a meet I am wiped out. I am looking for suggestions on how to prevent the post meet zombie effect.
Former Member
What I normally do
- not stay hydrated at the meet
- not warm up and cool down before and after events
- leave immediately after the meet
- do not eat for at least an hour after the meet
- eat an unhealthy meal washed down with alcohol when I do finally eat
- do not workout for at least a day
At my last meet
- drank 96oz of water during the 4 hour meet
- warmed up before events and a short (~100yds) cool down after
- everything else the same
I felt much better than normal after that meet.
My next meet is an other short local meet. I expect to be there 3 to 4 hours and I will try the following.
- stay well hydrated with water during the meet
- warm up and down after events (hopefully the outdoor pool is open for warm up/down)
- cool down ~500yds if the outdoor pool is open
- Endurox immediately after my last event
- pack something to eat (peanut butter sandwich maybe) to tide me over until I can get some real food
- eat a healthly meal washed down with water
- hit the gym a little later for 1-2k yoga swim + hot tub
- workout Sunday
After zones, my post meet will resemble Daaaave's and I should have no trouble achieving the pain level Patrick so enjoys.
CreamPuff, Did you feel differently about post meet before you started training mega yardage? Maybe all I need to do is start training 80k/week.
Well, not sure what would happen if you trained 80K a week. I would bet your body would put a stop to it pretty quick. :afraid:
I currently swim 4x a week with the kids and 1x a week with masters (5 swimming sessions a week) averaging 30,000 yds a week. I did average more last summer when I trained for the 25K, but I no longer do that.
This 30-32K is about what I averaged when I swam masters. So to answer your question, I did have the same post meet results when swimming masters or with the kids. The only time I felt AWFUL post meets was the first couple of years when I started up swimming after a 12 year break - and I was a physical fitness mess. :D
I'm liking your current plan.
What I normally do
- not stay hydrated at the meet
- not warm up and cool down before and after events
- leave immediately after the meet
- do not eat for at least an hour after the meet
- eat an unhealthy meal washed down with alcohol when I do finally eat
- do not workout for at least a day
At my last meet
- drank 96oz of water during the 4 hour meet
- warmed up before events and a short (~100yds) cool down after
- everything else the same
I felt much better than normal after that meet.
My next meet is an other short local meet. I expect to be there 3 to 4 hours and I will try the following.
- stay well hydrated with water during the meet
- warm up and down after events (hopefully the outdoor pool is open for warm up/down)
- cool down ~500yds if the outdoor pool is open
- Endurox immediately after my last event
- pack something to eat (peanut butter sandwich maybe) to tide me over until I can get some real food
- eat a healthly meal washed down with water
- hit the gym a little later for 1-2k yoga swim + hot tub
- workout Sunday
After zones, my post meet will resemble Daaaave's and I should have no trouble achieving the pain level Patrick so enjoys.
CreamPuff, Did you feel differently about post meet before you started training mega yardage? Maybe all I need to do is start training 80k/week.
She-Puffy and I might be twins on this. This is exactly the same as me. I usually have a great workout the next day and then start to feel a bit rough but forge through. I actually really look forward to a hard workout the day after a meet figuring there might be some taper left.
I would love to be the female version of Geek. I will work on it further. :)
But the reason I say it is misleading is that "yardage" alone is a poor metric of training volume anyway. They physical, mental and emotional toll of a meet is (or should be) greater than practices of the same length.
This prompted me to review my yardage swam from my last meet @ Auburn. I averaged 3250 yards a day which is about 46% less than what I swim @ practice.
Another interesting point that's worth sharing is that in my practices with USS, I can be swimming entire sets with girls who in meets swim :51 in the 100 fr; 1:51 in the 200 fr; :55 in the 100 fly; 5:00 in the 500 FR; etc. You can be sure that the boys are much faster than that and they may be in my lane as well. So. . . for me, going to the Auburn meet and most masters meets is a nice break as I was in heats with people my speed - :58s and slower in the last heat of 100 fly and so on. So for me, I'd have to say the emotional toll in practices prepare me for fun meets. This also applied when I would race the boys in masters practices - often racing the big boys was/ is much more difficult than racing *most* of the gals in a masters meet.
And this reminds me - I'm off to my one on one speed session today coached by an ex-UGA standout and USS coach of the year. He *kills* me. I'd say this weekly practice is more challenging than a meet b/c I want to please him (hard to do - don't think I ever have) and I'm racing the clock which is much more brutal than any competitor. Well. . . upon second thought, racing the girls who hit :51 in the 100 frees are worse to deal with!
CreamPuff, I really thought you were swimming two a days with the kids.
if you are getting very tired by the end of the meet, to the point that you think it is affecting your times in your last event(s) -- then in preparing for your main meet(s) of the season you need to do one of two things: reduce the number of events you enter, or change your training to improve your ability to recover from multiple all-out swims.
My first event and my last event are the same, so I should be able to comment on my conditioning after the meet fairly accurately.
