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?
And I've seen the advice on this board from time to time that if you want to swim faster, swim more often. But maybe that's not true? Maybe some of us would suffer psychological burnout if we swam too often, not to mention that our old muscles might not fully recover?
My feeling is more is better up to a point. I think you need days to recover. My opinion is five days a week is plenty. I'm sure there are those who swim seven days a week, but I'll bet even they use a couple days per week as recovery days and only swim easily. My best advice is to listen to your body and your mind. If you feel too tired or just mentally aren't into it that day, don't swim. Swimming should never be drudgery.
And I've seen the advice on this board from time to time that if you want to swim faster, swim more often. But maybe that's not true? Maybe some of us would suffer psychological burnout if we swam too often, not to mention that our old muscles might not fully recover?
My feeling is more is better up to a point. I think you need days to recover. My opinion is five days a week is plenty. I'm sure there are those who swim seven days a week, but I'll bet even they use a couple days per week as recovery days and only swim easily. My best advice is to listen to your body and your mind. If you feel too tired or just mentally aren't into it that day, don't swim. Swimming should never be drudgery.
