I saw this in a post: I will swim 200 laps in a 25 meter pool. All free style. Non stop. This is done in 3 phases , !st 64 laps is moderate speed 2nd 64 laps is distance the balance is for endurance.
My first reaction was WHY ? If you swim like this you will never know how good a swimmer you could be !
Reasons why.
1.- Your range of motion becomes less as your muscles fatigue and tighten up. This leads to the long, smooth stroke that your first few lengths have, deteriorating into a short, choppy survival stroke.
2.- You can only train one energy system, Aerobic, the anaerobic & lactic systems are untouched.
3.- You cannot improve your technique unless you use drills in a progressive manner.
4.- Why not put in some drills to check your technique. For example 10 strokes of head-up free every few lengths to check you hand entry ?
5.- By only doing Freestyle you are setting yourself up for injured shoulders, with all kinds of impingement problems.
6.-Where are the Kick sets and fly kick sets to improve core body strength and awareness ?
7.-What about the joys' of fly, back and
*** ?
I put together this poll to see how people out there are training.
Former Member
Have followed this thread with interest but I think one needs to back up first and ask the question: Why am I working out in the first place? None of us is going to win the Olympics and for many people it is cardiac fitness and general well being. Also for many of us there are unfortunately time pressures on our workouts.
I think too many of the workouts I see posted forget about these facts. Perhaps I am showing my bias I am an middle aged MD and I put cardiac health ahead of times. So IMHO a half hour of ones workout time should be devoted to aerobic working outs at say 70% max heart rate. This can be continous swim of sets of 200s or 500s without too much rest.
The workouts I see posted that do not take this approack IMHO are shortchanging the cardiac workout which should be the #1 priority for most of us.
interesting thread.... a lot of interesting assumptions abound....
another perspective (with your kind indulgence)... i am incli....oops... let me first say that virtually of my swimming is long, slow distance... now, where was i? oh... i am inclined to agree with the middle aged MD (tecumseh)... for me, swimming is not my primary athletic endeavor. running is. i run a minimum of four times a week... a minimum of 40 minutes per run... i run at 75 to 85 per cent of my Maximum Heart Rate. I push myself hard when i run... the swimming is more like an active vacation for me... at this time, i don't intend to compete with swimming, but i do intend to keep swimming until i can't.... swimming is sooooo relaxing and i still feel as though i have had a workout after one to two miles of free...
will i qual for olympics.. nope... do i care... nope... will i stay healthy? maybe... will i enjoy life? yup!
sometimes, i wonder if we all don't get just a tad bit tooooooo tied up in the activity and end up missing the joy of the activity....
i probably fell off topic, huh?
Having read a lot of scientific literature on working out I must say there are some statements not supported by fact,
"Your body really only gets better when you vary things"
This is just wrong and defies common sense...you mean if I take someone who is totally out of shape and have him swim a mile a day at a steady rate he will show no improvement in conditioning?
To have this statement followed by one stating how swimmers are the smarter group of athletes I found mildly amusing.....my money is on the chess team.
:2cents: In all exercise/athletic endeavors, you have to vary your training. If you did the same thing every day, you would improve as your body adapted and became more efficient. Then, you'd plateau. Your body grows as a reaction to new stresses.
All things in moderation...to include extremes.
I agree with much of what people have said about interval training and how you need it to improve times/performance. But as far as cardiac fitness in terms of long term aerobic activity, preventing declines and not dying of heart attacks or congestive heart disease etc.....this is very unclear. For long term cardiac training perhaps it is best to put your heart in zone say 75% of maximum cardiac output and keep it there for a certain time interval and increases above this do not actually help.
I think it is important to remember that interval training and noninterval training are not mutually exclusive one can easily do both in one workout.
The chess team...it's funny in the state I live in there are all these rules to prevent abuses by the boys basketball and football programs and all these rules apply to the chess team and quiz bowl teams as well.
There's always someone who likes to tell people to stop doing something...eating butter, watching TV, wearing mini skirts, calling them on the phone every 20 minutes...Did you just look for a thread where people are doing something you disapprove of, to come on and tell them to stop? Why does it matter why people do interval training? I like to improve my swimming skills because it increases my ease and enriches my experience in working my body within the water. Using my muscles and lungs in this way is a great feeling. And, as for intelligence, the brain does respond to change. Repetition, while it increases myelination and therefore ability to trust oneself in an activity, also causes the brain to use less "intelligence" than it would if it had to respond to new stimuli. New receptor sites are constantly appearing in the brain, waiting for new information to then be "myelinated." In that sense the brain is a muscle that must be worked with new information in order to stay strong and intelligent. Speaking of chess, it is assumed that this is in part why chess is associated with exceptionally brilliant minds -- because the possibilities of the game are (as far as we know) endless, and therefore require one to draw on all of one's analytical resources to succeed in each game. Why shouldn't we apply that to swimming?
Jim I agree with you. :bow:
That's why I prefer Triathlons because I can get more variety in my workouts, plus I feel in better overall shape than when I just ran.
Will I ever make it to the top of the podium, maybe when I'm 90 and the only one in my age group. Like you do care...no. I out to have fun, fellowship, and physical activity.
Sometime in the last year there was a wave of articles in the popular press based on some study that seemed to show that brief periods of more strenuous exercise produced better health benefits than longer periods of continuous less strenuous exercise. I don't know the details. It would be great if someone put together an article on the pros and cons of various approaches to swim training from a health perspective and put it up on the USMS web site... That's a big order though, it seems it is very difficult to nail down information like that.
