Pool / Dry Land: What's your weekly schedule?

Do you stretch after your dance class? Not usually since we do some stretching in 2 of the 3 classes I take. I probably should try it after class to see if it helps at all. I just assumed my muscles were so taxed that the exhaustion was the cause of cramping when I swam 24 hours later.

I had a terrible problem w/ leg cramps starting out. I added stretches after my swim and increased my stretching after my lifts, and started keeping a water bottle at the end of the lane, and that helped tremendously. But now they're back, tho they don't come on as quickly, so I'm thinking of trying to increase the magnesium and potassium in my diet. I hate having my swim interrupted by a cramp. I agree, cramps are the worst, especially when I am finally in that part of the workout when I feel like I could go forever! I usually don't have too much of a problem with them and I bring Gatorade or Accelerade (works better for me than water) and I try to stretch, it's just those days when I've worked myself to exhaution the night before and my body can't handle it. I should probably not swim on those nights, it's just the only time I could fit in another workout in the pool. Do you stretch after your dance class?

Pool, 90 minutes is most I can do without the elbows starting to scream, Monday through Thursday, Friday off--the pool closes 30 minutes after I get off work (and doesn't open soon enough in the morning for me to swim, shower, dress/do hair/make up, and get to work on time). After my swim on Tuesday and Thursday I join a serious water aerobics class and do 45 minutes. This group works on strength and balance with, yes, dare I say it, NOODLES! Saturday & Sunday I walk, jog or ride a bike for 60 to 90 minutes, depending on what I feel like doing that day, if I'm home or out of town, and the weather. Lainey

Well, back when I was competing as a young'un, I was competitive in backstroke, crawl, and breaststroke, with backstroke being my strongest. I never did learn how to be fast in fly. Today I can't even manage it. Can't get my pull and kick to sync up. Wish I had someone to show me how it's done. Anyway, since I'm just starting back after a nearly 30 year "hiatus", it remains to be seen what I actually end up competing in, if anything. But my back and crawl still feel pretty good, and the breaststroke not bad. So I'm hoping I can perform well in short races for those 3. So doing a whole-body workout alternating w/ swims, that doesn't cause you problems? Sounds like you're never giving your muscles a day off. Ha ha. I only said my workouts were similar, the key difference being frequency. I work full time, have two young daughters, and just started back to grad school. I manage Mon, Wed swim and Tue, Thu weights (at home). Sundays I ride my bike 10 miles (1 way) to work. So I don't really do enough to tear down my body. Sounds like you are more interested in sprints (possibly in competition) in which case I would definitely keep the weights. 3 days a week is perfect in my non-professional opinion. Keep alternating if you think doing a whole body workout is too much--you know your limits better than anyone else. You mentioned having no coach. I would at least try and find somebody to swim with. I just started swimming with a friend from work who it turns out was a collegiate level breaststroker. Having a workout partner for motivation and the brief observations on my stroke are invaluable. Best of luck no matter what strategy you employ and welcome back to swimming :)

I try to get 2 dryland sessions a week in. I swim about 6 times a week. Most of my practices are 90 minutes(5000 yards per practice). But, I will do a 2 hour practice with my former age group club once a week. One practice will be an easy day where I will just do about 3000 yards.

Who ARE you people with all this time?! Take a look through my blog and you'll see how I squeeze in the time. Over the summer, I got up some mornings before 4am to get running over with before the heat of the day. I was rotating my swimming between morning and evenings, whichever fit best that day. I'm currently on vacation (another 8 days or so) and my working out so far has been 1 swim in the past week. Of course I've been getting in tons of walking, on average 5 miles a day. Hopefully as I move to explore a warmer area I'll get in a run or 2.

Not usually since we do some stretching in 2 of the 3 classes I take. I probably should try it after class to see if it helps at all. I just assumed my muscles were so taxed that the exhaustion was the cause of cramping when I swam 24 hours later. When I first got back in the gym, I started having terrible leg cramps at night. The kind that make you holler and sometimes it was physically difficult to even move my foot with my hands in order to stretch the muscle out and get relief. When I read up on it I discovered that the best thing you can do to prevent cramping is to stretch thoroughly right after a workout, ride, etc. So I did, and voila, no more night cramps. When I started back swimming, for some reason I didn't think about it in the same way I think of lifting, and got horrible cramps in the pool. So as I said, I added more stretching (and made sure I wasn't getting dehydrated during my swim). I'd be willing to bet that 10 minutes of good stretching after your dance class will go a long way to ease any muscle cramping the following day. Of course, I haven't eliminated my cramping altogether. I think I'm tensing my leg/foot muscles unnecessarily when I swim, especially coming off the wall, so I'm trying to be conscious of that and keep them relaxed. There's been some research indicating that low levels of potassium and magnesium might be a cause of cramping -- but I think it's still a "definite maybe" -- so I'm going to try getting more of those minerals in my diet also.

Typically I swim five to six times a week (1 hr. to 1.5 hrs.). I lift twice a week and try to do core work and stretch daily. Two of my swim sessions end up being some low intensity recovery or stroke work swims. I am lucky to get this all in with my childrens activities. Therefore, most of this is done while the rest of the family is still sleeping. BTW, Lezak's weight conditioning program hits your entire body in a short period of time. Good Luck!!

Just curious, what was your exercise routine before November? Running 30-40 miles/week since mid-Aug, no swimming whatsoever. During summer I was run/biking for tri season, but during that time I never did more than one swim a week and it was never more than 1500 yards. So my legs are in pretty good shape, but my upper body is weak.

m - W - sun pool time tue - thur - fri gym & cardio time Sat house chores.