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?
Parents
Former Member
And I've seen the advice on this board from time to time that if you want to swim faster, swim more often.
Sorry this is long and only semi related to the original post.
Honestly, coming from a college program that wasn't light on quantity, I can't believe how much yardage some of the people on this forum do at an older age. I've long questioned the need for major yardage if you're a short event swimmer, and I tested this theory about 3 years ago and again now. My best in college in yards for the 50 was 21.7 and 47.1 in the 100. I trained 6000 yards a week for an entire winter when I was about 28 (2 x 3000), and I was still 50 lbs heavier than my college "race weight" and I went 22.6 for the 50y and 49.1 in the 100y (in an aquablade jammer, never believed in nor tried one of the new speed suits). Fast forward to this year. 2-3 times a week on my lunch i swim about 2400m on average. First meet I was at 23.4 in 50y and 26.9 in the 50m (standard speedo jammer), only this time i was even heavier at about 80lbs more than college race weight. I only swam the 100y once this year and it was kindof plagued by a horrible reaction and improper pacing so the 52.2 time isn't something I can really judge progress on.
The only problem I see with this type of workout, is that there's not much of a base to taper from. I don't think I'll see the same kind of taper effect when there's so little to taper off, but time will tell. I've made a few changes to my stroke since my last race and i'm seeing decent results in practice sprints so maybe that'll pay off.
To get back on topic, the only reason i elaborated here was to further my opinion that you don't have to get mentally drained on 5-6 day a week practices to still have the speed. Maybe that's different if you're into distance, but I think you can train distance pretty well also with pace work instead of mindless yards. Doing so can certainly keep the interest in the sport and save the dreaded burnout.
One thing I'll add for the OP along those lines, if you swim alone, try swimming with a team or partner. If you swim with a team or partner, try swimming alone. Change it up. I trained exclusively with teams until this year. I now swim alone, in my own lane, doing my own workout, and it has contributed greatly to not getting burned out. I always felt people were just in my way when i had to swim with a team. :cool:
And I've seen the advice on this board from time to time that if you want to swim faster, swim more often.
Sorry this is long and only semi related to the original post.
Honestly, coming from a college program that wasn't light on quantity, I can't believe how much yardage some of the people on this forum do at an older age. I've long questioned the need for major yardage if you're a short event swimmer, and I tested this theory about 3 years ago and again now. My best in college in yards for the 50 was 21.7 and 47.1 in the 100. I trained 6000 yards a week for an entire winter when I was about 28 (2 x 3000), and I was still 50 lbs heavier than my college "race weight" and I went 22.6 for the 50y and 49.1 in the 100y (in an aquablade jammer, never believed in nor tried one of the new speed suits). Fast forward to this year. 2-3 times a week on my lunch i swim about 2400m on average. First meet I was at 23.4 in 50y and 26.9 in the 50m (standard speedo jammer), only this time i was even heavier at about 80lbs more than college race weight. I only swam the 100y once this year and it was kindof plagued by a horrible reaction and improper pacing so the 52.2 time isn't something I can really judge progress on.
The only problem I see with this type of workout, is that there's not much of a base to taper from. I don't think I'll see the same kind of taper effect when there's so little to taper off, but time will tell. I've made a few changes to my stroke since my last race and i'm seeing decent results in practice sprints so maybe that'll pay off.
To get back on topic, the only reason i elaborated here was to further my opinion that you don't have to get mentally drained on 5-6 day a week practices to still have the speed. Maybe that's different if you're into distance, but I think you can train distance pretty well also with pace work instead of mindless yards. Doing so can certainly keep the interest in the sport and save the dreaded burnout.
One thing I'll add for the OP along those lines, if you swim alone, try swimming with a team or partner. If you swim with a team or partner, try swimming alone. Change it up. I trained exclusively with teams until this year. I now swim alone, in my own lane, doing my own workout, and it has contributed greatly to not getting burned out. I always felt people were just in my way when i had to swim with a team. :cool:
