This is my second attempt at getting back into swimming after raising kids (20 years). Not that they left the house yet. But with more freedom I want to get back into swimming.
Last year I made an attempt and swam for a few weeks and then got distracted by work :( However, that hard part was setting a workout. The main problem was my lungs are not in shape as much as I would like. Where do I begin? Any suggestions.
On the previous attempt I was doing something like:
10X100 Free on 2 minute.
10x50 kick (mixed stroke) 10 second rest between
10x100 Free on 2 minute pulling
5X100 IM on 2 1/2 minute
5X100 breaststroke on 2 1/2 minute.
200 free cool down
This workout kicked my butt. How do I know if this is to much? I feel I am still lacking the longer distances, nor am I able to do them. Will this come in time?
Any advice would be great to have,
Thanks in advance.
I started back last January after similar abortive efforts. Your program looks awfully ambitious to me for just starting back in.
I started with sets of longer distances (200 - 500m) and swam them really easy with a little short kicking and pulling in between. I'd go maybe 1500 or so. Then I found a workout book and initially just halved every set and tacked on a little more warmup and cooldown, again going easy. That got me going 1,500 - 2250. Then I started Mo Chambers workouts from this site and built to where I could do 3000 to 3400 in about 70 minutes. But I still wasn't pushing too hard or trying to hold intervals.
As of a couple of weeks ago, I started with the local Masters group. We're doing a lot more kick sets and interval work than I did on my own, and I'm getting my butt kicked. But my conditioning is improving every day, and the drill work I did on my stroke while swimming alone has paid off. I am surprised how much I enjoy the camaraderie. Having others doing the same sets is motivational and fun.
I don't know if I would have stuck with it this far if I had tried to push harder initially. I also had some very minor shoulder issues that I was able to work through that might have turned into a real injury if I had been pushing harder. And I needed to get myself in decent swimming shape before I was ready to join a group. I know a lot of folks here recommend just jumping in with the group, and I see their point -- but I wasn't ready to do it. Maybe it's a guy thing.
I think this site helped hold my interest by giving me things to work on and think about as well as providing a challenging daily workout. Losing about 12 or 15 pounds helped motivate me, too; at least once a week someone would ask me what I'd been doing and whether I'd lost weight. And I decided to finally learn the elusive butterfly, which remains quite the challenge.
Print a workout from here or elsewhere to give you some guidelines, listen carefully to your body, take it easy intitially, and above all have fun.
I started back last January after similar abortive efforts. Your program looks awfully ambitious to me for just starting back in.
I started with sets of longer distances (200 - 500m) and swam them really easy with a little short kicking and pulling in between. I'd go maybe 1500 or so. Then I found a workout book and initially just halved every set and tacked on a little more warmup and cooldown, again going easy. That got me going 1,500 - 2250. Then I started Mo Chambers workouts from this site and built to where I could do 3000 to 3400 in about 70 minutes. But I still wasn't pushing too hard or trying to hold intervals.
As of a couple of weeks ago, I started with the local Masters group. We're doing a lot more kick sets and interval work than I did on my own, and I'm getting my butt kicked. But my conditioning is improving every day, and the drill work I did on my stroke while swimming alone has paid off. I am surprised how much I enjoy the camaraderie. Having others doing the same sets is motivational and fun.
I don't know if I would have stuck with it this far if I had tried to push harder initially. I also had some very minor shoulder issues that I was able to work through that might have turned into a real injury if I had been pushing harder. And I needed to get myself in decent swimming shape before I was ready to join a group. I know a lot of folks here recommend just jumping in with the group, and I see their point -- but I wasn't ready to do it. Maybe it's a guy thing.
I think this site helped hold my interest by giving me things to work on and think about as well as providing a challenging daily workout. Losing about 12 or 15 pounds helped motivate me, too; at least once a week someone would ask me what I'd been doing and whether I'd lost weight. And I decided to finally learn the elusive butterfly, which remains quite the challenge.
Print a workout from here or elsewhere to give you some guidelines, listen carefully to your body, take it easy intitially, and above all have fun.
