Guidance Please...Overwhelmed!

and it feels like you are swimming with your arms going in a Y down the pool. It is very difficult for some people to make this change. Oh yes Diana, don't be overwhelmed, just go to have a good time, literally and figuratively.

I get up M-F 4:30am to swim for 1.5 hours...generally getting in 3200-3800 yds depending on what I am working on. I have been snagging workouts here and there and adding or taking away as needed. I do have a small gym located in my garage, and have access to a gym. My dryland right now is a strength training M,W,F afternoons, but as far effective not quite sure. I am looking to compete, and actually did my first meet this past weekend which was ok, but I now have a baseline to work from. I am 32 and needing to lose 15 pounds which is slowly coming down. Here is a snapshot of my times thus far: 100 IM 1:17:05 100 Bk 1:17:01 200 Fr 2:35:88 100 Fr 1:09:86 The one thing I learned from this past weekend was, my starts great my breakout NOT GREAT, and oh my wall work...HELP! I was suffering from some shoulder irritation 2 weeks out to this past meet which yesterday seemed to have miraculously disappeared yesterday although I am going to continue with my kick sessions for awhile. SDK's are my foremost goal for the moment because that is where I seemed to have been loosing my speed well and the crappy turns..ugggh! I hope this gives a little bit of insight on where I am coming from. :) Diana, I think you are on the right track and it sounds like you even know what you need to be working on. Shoulder problems. Make sure your stroke technique is good as well as your lifting technique. If you are crossing over in your stroke, it will probably irritate your shoulder. If you are entering too close to your midline, that might also bother your shoulder. I recently moved my hand entry outward, and this has really helped my shoulders. If you take a kickboard and swim catchup, my index fingers would just hit/hold the kick board on the sides, and it feels like you are swimming with your arms going in a Y down the pool. It is very difficult for some people to make this change. Lifting, the key is keeping your elbows in close to the body. For shoulder press this means elbow pointing forward. Look for videos by Mark Rippetoe on YouTube. There are a lot of videos on youtube, especially shoulder press, of people with horrible form. Proper form will save your shoulders. As for turns and break outs, what can I tell you on a forum? Accelerate into the wall, tuck your head, tight ball, plant your feet firmly, you should be in a deep squat, push off the wall hard, flat back, tight streamline, hard kick and explode into the first stroke? If that was really helpful, then a book on competitive swimming would be a valuable purchase, but I expect you already knew all that. You probably need to find a way to either watch yourself (waterproof video camera is less than $200 these days) or find someone who can give you feedback. In summary, stick with what you are doing :)

Diana, You can probably get better advice if you can tell us where you are now. How much pool time can you reasonably do, do you have gym access for weights or is your only option for drylands body weight exercises. For example, I have 3 coached practices a week, and I can get in the water for solo practices of an hour the other two days a week and probably 2 hours a day on the weekends. I have gym access and a full weight setup at home and have about 45 minutes to an hour I can devote to working out in the evening, but there is no pool space at that time, so it needs to be restricted to drylands. General recommendations: When you are in the water, only pick one or two things to try to change during the entire workout. I have a few million things I need to work on, but I focus on maybe a dozen that will help me the most, and rotate through them. I think frequency in the water is more important than volume. So 5 2-3k practices would be more beneficial than 3 5k practices. This might not be good advice if you are distance or OW, but then you need to ask someone else :) It might be worth joining a team even if you train with them infrequently to get some feedback on your stroke when you can go, and to have a team to compete with if you compete. General conditioning takes a while to build back up. I would steal workouts from the workouts forum that are about the level you are interested in, and follow those until you feel like you are "in shape". At that point, you can start working on creating your own workouts, or taking the workouts from the workouts forums and changing sets to meet your specific goals. have found lots of great information, but am having a hard time organizing and prioritizing what is relevant to me right now. Don't worry about that, the feeling doesn't go away. I would venture a guess that most of us feel like we have lots to work on and don't know what is most important, and no one can effectively answer the question for you anyway. Pick something from your list that you know is important and work on it. If it isn't the most ideal choice, oh well. It needed to be improved anyway, and maybe tomorrow you will pick the ideal choice.

I get up M-F 4:30am to swim for 1.5 hours...generally getting in 3200-3800 yds depending on what I am working on. I have been snagging workouts here and there and adding or taking away as needed. I do have a small gym located in my garage, and have access to a gym. My dryland right now is a strength training M,W,F afternoons, but as far effective not quite sure. I am looking to compete, and actually did my first meet this past weekend which was ok, but I now have a baseline to work from. I am 32 and needing to lose 15 pounds which is slowly coming down. Here is a snapshot of my times thus far: 100 IM 1:17:05 100 Bk 1:17:01 200 Fr 2:35:88 100 Fr 1:09:86 The one thing I learned from this past weekend was, my starts great my breakout NOT GREAT, and oh my wall work...HELP! I was suffering from some shoulder irritation 2 weeks out to this past meet which yesterday seemed to have miraculously disappeared yesterday although I am going to continue with my kick sessions for awhile. SDK's are my foremost goal for the moment because that is where I seemed to have been loosing my speed well and the crappy turns..ugggh! I hope this gives a little bit of insight on where I am coming from. :)

Oh yes Diana, don't be overwhelmed, just go to have a good time, literally and figuratively. Great advice. I'm in a similar position to the OP -- getting back in after nearly 2 decades away -- and I have found my fretting about workouts to be among my biggest problem. Once I remind myself that I *like* doing this and relax a little bit, my attitude and my workouts improve.

You are almost in the exact boat I was in last year. I'm 38 though. I swam in college and took 15 years "off". Been back about 15 months now. Check out my blog for some workouts and background. jeffpalm-swimming.blogspot.com/ I used to got MWF swim 0600-0730, Tu-Th Gym (Weights & Cardio). I now have really cut the weights, as I'm a big guy and the strength isn't gonna help me in the water, and gone to more "core" and "cardio". I feel worlds better in the pool too. I won't sugar coat it, the first 6-12 months is rough. Don't put big expectations on yourself. Make small goals first and go from there....its a Marathon, not a sprint. You're in the "Dixie Zone" like me too, so hopefully we get to meet sometime!

NIce times to start. BUT enjoy the swims & not make yourself nuts on the journey!:):applaud::banana:

Lump and Orca thanks for the advice!! Sorry I haven't been on much with the holidays and travel so just catching...I will definitely check out your blog for some workouts!!! THANKS:)