After having what I considered to be a fairly decent meet last weekend, I am having a string of terrible workouts. I am used to having a bad day here and there, but this is ridiculous.
Has anyone else experienced this? I am still in my first year of competing so I am still learning what to expect and what is "normal" for me.
Former Member
I haven't been to a meet for a while, but my usual tradition for 2-day taper meets was to try to carpool to the meet ; I schedule a vacation day from work Monday .
I try to do a long warmdown after my last event Sunday. Monday was a recovery swim. Usually I do come back from the meets motivated to train harder with resolve to be faster for the next meet.
My events are generally 200 y/m & longer. Not to disrespect my peers who will swim a few 50's and one or two 100's, but the longer events create a different type of fatigue that can run deep.
I am more aware how dehydration/low electrolytes can kill your performance especially if you're outdoors in the sun on a hot day. If you get out of balance, it will take a while for your body chemistry to get back to normal. It's possible this is prolonging a post-meet slump.
ultimate protein is a palatable drink. never used it after swimming though.
used it as a 3pm pick me up.
we are having pollen counts of 3200 upward so that could account for lack of energy and motivation here.
I feel better the week after if I use protein recovery drinks each day after the meet. I use "muscle milk" at home but this week-end in Florida I used Gatorade's new recovery stuff and it seems to work fine for me.
I only do this after meets. I know you should use it after regular workouts but I don't. Maybe that's why I get such a nice result from it.
Good luck! I think you'll be fine soon! :angel:
I feel better the week after if I use protein recovery drinks each day after the meet.
One of my teammates turned me onto the protein recovery drinks after I kept complaining of being tired and having "lead legs". I can't believe how much difference in my recovery time having a protein drink right after practice makes. But... you need to play around with them a bit, I think. The first brand I tried didn't make much difference at all, so I went into GNC and came away with one of their protein brands. It made a huge difference in how I feel day-to-day hitting the pool. However, it's expensive, so after nationals, I'm going to see if some of the other brands give the same decreased recovery time or not.
