I ask the question because when I returned to the pool last month after a three week taper for scm zones, I was swimming faster in practice than I had in decades. Now I cannot hold the same pace that seemed almost effortless just a week ago. So do I tough it out as usual until it's time to taper again, or do I schedule recovery weeks throughout the season?
I don't take recovery weeks, I sometimes I skip practices or sets or swim recovery workouts when I:
did several pretty hard back to back practices, or
am feeling run down or
am about to get sick or
just don't feel like killing it or
didn't sleep well or enough the night before or
feel injured.
Sometimes when I feel tired, I just go to bed or fall asleep earlier.
Also you can't always trust how you feel. I've had practices where I was getting sick or sick or felt terrible, some I almost skipped but showed up anyway & swam much faster than I expected to.
Sometimes if I'm feeling bad in a practice, I'll change suits into something faster. like go from brief to jammer or jammer to legskin. Sometimes I just skip parts of sets.
The beauty of masters is we can modify.
I don't take recovery weeks, I sometimes I skip practices or sets or swim recovery workouts when I:
did several pretty hard back to back practices, or
am feeling run down or
am about to get sick or
just don't feel like killing it or
didn't sleep well or enough the night before or
feel injured.
Sometimes when I feel tired, I just go to bed or fall asleep earlier.
Also you can't always trust how you feel. I've had practices where I was getting sick or sick or felt terrible, some I almost skipped but showed up anyway & swam much faster than I expected to.
Sometimes if I'm feeling bad in a practice, I'll change suits into something faster. like go from brief to jammer or jammer to legskin. Sometimes I just skip parts of sets.
The beauty of masters is we can modify.
