Hi all,
I've been faithfully going to practice 6x week for the past last year without missing but for the occasional work event/meeting keeping me away. I'd say about two weeks ago, after having a few months of making some good improvement in my times, I just started to feel bad in the water in general. I didn't feel like I was progressing at all. I felt like getting through practice was all I could do. I'm not ill or anything.
Now for the past week except for Monday, I've ignored all three of my alarm clocks and have not come to practice despite a fully packed bag ready to go.
I guess I'm just a bit burned out. I feel guilty for missing and know that every day that I'm out of the water I will have a even more painful return swim, but that’s just not been enough to get me out of bed.
Any suggestions for beating burn out?
Rachael,
The suggestions of knelson (cut back # per week) and philoswimmer (take a break) are great. Although I don't always follow this advice, here are some ideas I try to incorporate into my training:
Mix up swimming workouts with other dryland stuff: At various times I will run, do yoga, do core/Pilates, do stretch cords, do free weights, etc. I like the variety and it helps doing some of these other activities relatively consistently for times when you can't / don't want to get to the pool and for overall fitness.
Try periodization in this fashion: over a month period swim 4x, 5x, 6x, 3x per week where you steadily increase your intensity the first 3 weeks and then have an easier week of swimming.
Try mixing up the events you're training for: for example, I'm taking the next two seasons to focus exclusively on sprint events, even though I'm much better at mid-distance and distance events.
Rachael,
The suggestions of knelson (cut back # per week) and philoswimmer (take a break) are great. Although I don't always follow this advice, here are some ideas I try to incorporate into my training:
Mix up swimming workouts with other dryland stuff: At various times I will run, do yoga, do core/Pilates, do stretch cords, do free weights, etc. I like the variety and it helps doing some of these other activities relatively consistently for times when you can't / don't want to get to the pool and for overall fitness.
Try periodization in this fashion: over a month period swim 4x, 5x, 6x, 3x per week where you steadily increase your intensity the first 3 weeks and then have an easier week of swimming.
Try mixing up the events you're training for: for example, I'm taking the next two seasons to focus exclusively on sprint events, even though I'm much better at mid-distance and distance events.
