50+ workout

Bless you Jean-I was starting to think I was the only person in USMS not making 100's on the minute ! Tonight, the old guy lane did, in 1 and 1/2 hours, the following: 4x200 IM, swim, kick,drill,swim- 12x25 hard kick on :30- 8x75 free, 3 on 1:15, one on 2:30,repeat-8x25 hard kick on :30- 8x100 free, 3 on 1:30, one on 2:00,repeat-300 easy cool down = 3000 yds. Oh, I forgot, the 75's were swim, drill, swim by 25's. Cheers !

Bert, sounds like your old guys lane does quite well. The best interval I can manage for 100s is 2 minutes, and kick sets are just hang in there for me.:)

59+ Hi there from Oregon again. We do sometimes a 50's workout in about 50 min. 10 50's drill/swim on the min. 10 50's on the :50 decend 1 thru 3 10 50's with fins kick/swim on :55 10 50's pull on the :50 R side breath L side back 10 50's on 1min decend 1-6 last 4 on :45 100 loosen It's alittle over 2500 depending what u do in warm up but it gets the juices flowing for awhile.

The day I turned 50 I did as a main set: 50X50@:50. Not that hard (if you do freestyle), and fairly tedious. But it's not too often you can get that kind of symmetry in your life.

Enjoyed reading the workouts being done by some"older" folks. I had to be away from swimming for awhile(skin cancer) . I have lost most of my stamina and would like to be able to swim a half mile again freestyle. Any suggestions for a slow progression to maintain that goal. I am 74 years of age. Gil

Hi Gil, I remember you from previous posts - sorry to hear about the skin cancer problem. When I was getting back into swimming I started by swimming easy, and at first I could only go maybe four lengths of the pool (short course pool) - I mean I thought that the end of that pool would never come! So, just start off doing a couple of lengths, and try to gradually increase your distance. If you do this regularly, you should notice an increase in your stamina. Also, swim regularly, but don't overdo it - overdoing it can be worse than not doing enough, especially for us older folks. Good luck with it - let us know how it comes out. ;)

:confused: enjoy hearing about workouts. Would appreciate knowing if the pools are yards or meters. Keep up the good posts.

Jim, I swim in a 25 meter pool. Jean, Nice to hear from you and appreciate your suggestion. However, can you be a bit more specific. In your opinion should I increase the distance at each swim? I have in mind a half length each time. Also I plan to swim two to three days per week and walk the others. Would appreciate any comments from you . Gil

The walking sounds like it would be a good addition to swimming -it should help to increase your stamina. So far as the swimming is conerned - Dr. Sheehan, who wrote in Runners' World had a favorite expression which was, "Listen to your body". If you start by swimming one length of the pool, you will find that one length will soon become easy and won't be a challenge any more. Then you would make swimming two your goal. Just increase your yardage (or meterage) little by little. If your body starts finding it too hard, then ease off a bit. I think the fact that you are swimming three times a week is good. After a while you might want to increase that to four times a week, but only you will know if and when you should do this. People get into trouble when they don't listen to their body and push on no matter what their body is telling them. This said, there are times when you need to tell your body to take a hike (or a swim), like when your body wants to camp out on the couch and scarf down donuts and beer all the time. :)

Here is a workout I did today that has timed intervals (well, not fo the kicking set - I just survive kicking). 500 easy kick 8 X 50 - 15 sec. rest 6 X (100 IM on 2:15 + 100 free on 2:00) 8 X 50 stroke (not freestyle) on 1:15 (for me this was breaststroke) 300 easy Total yardage (short course pool) was 2800 yards.