So, what's a swim workout like? I drag myself out of bed at 7 a.m. these days and make a cup of tea with milk. Turns out milk is a good pre-workout hydration beverage because the fat and protein in it slow down it's progress toward the exit. The milk+tea has more time to infuse into your system.
I munch on a piece of toast with peanut butter on it while I do a series of stretches to enhance ankle flexibility (one of the keys for good kick propulsion) and also to stretch out my back and shoulders. I toss on my swim suit, pull an old pair of shorts on and head to the pool. It's five minutes from my house.
Nowadays when we get to the pool we go straight to the deck area instead of spending time in the enclosed locker rooms. We wait for the 7-8 a.m. swimmers to exit the pool and then jump into our lanes and start the warm up.
How do we know which lane works best for us? A uniform standard in competitive swimming is the interval a swimmer can repeat for a set of ten 100 yard freestyle swims. Elite college swimmers can repeat the hundred yard distance and still get five seconds rest on a 1:05 interval; and will be able to repeat this for a long time. We're mostly no longer competing anywhere near that level so in our workouts the intervals might be 1:20 for the faster lanes, 1:25 for the tough lanes, 1:30 for the intermediate lanes (my group) and then 1:40 or 1:50 for the slower lanes.
If you are new to a program you can just tell the coach your one hundred yard repeat times and the coach will direct you to a suitable lane. There is a natural inclination to even out the number of people per lane but it's not unusual to see 4 intermediate swimmers in lane three but only one or two swimmers in the slower lanes. Sometimes it's the reverse. People want to swim with people in their speed and endurance bracket so there's constant self-selection going on, over time. If pushed for space I'll always try to move up to a faster lane (and plan on taking a nap later) instead of a slower lane. It's good to be pushed out of one's comfort zone sometimes.
But if the pool is crowded in the lanes you normally swim it can work fine to swim in the slower lane. The slower swimmers will set the intervals but if you are a faster swimmer you can still go fast in shorter and medium distance sets, it just means you'll have a longer recovery time for each segment of the set. If your lane is doing 50 yard swims on a minute but you usually do them on 50 seconds you can ramp up your sprinting effort and wait at the wall a bit longer for the next send off. The other people in your lane can do their usual swim and hit the same interval.
Right at 8 o'clock we jump in and start on a warm up set. You start slow and work the muscle kinks out. You build speed through the warm up set and maybe finish with some faster sprints. Our warm up today was fairly simple: 300 yard swim, 100 yard kick, 300 yard pull set, 200 yard kick. Most people who swim together often will have a routine figured out. Some people just charge through the w/u set while other people warm up progressively. If you swim with each other a lot you know when to get to the wall and move all the way over to the right to let a swimmer who wants to warm up faster flip turn on the wall. Then you follow along.
At the end of warm up the coach will have a set written on a white board and he'll explain the set to each group of lanes. A set will consist of either a homogeneous distance and the repeat time interval (say, 5 X 200 Yards on a 2:45 interval) or a mixed set with a repeating pattern. These are the "main sets" and everyone in each lane will swim them on an interval that is agreed to by everyone in their lane.
The fastest person in the lane goes first (and keeps the clock) while the slowest person goes last. Usually the swimmers in each lane are close enough in capabilities that even on long distance sets no one will get "lapped." All group workouts use "circle swimming." That means we go "up on the right" side of the lane and back on the right. Your right side is always closest to the lane line. We're basically swimming in a counter-clockwise circle.
You leave five seconds apart and keep at least a full body length between you and the person in front of you. That's especially important on the walls because people move from the side of the lane towards the middle of the lane in order to execute their flip turns. If everyone is well matched and swims an effective "circle" then you can have as many as five or six people in a lane in a 25 yard pool, swimming continuously. The circle swim is the epitome of swim collaboration. If everyone does it well it's a comfortable experience.
Occasionally some one will really be feeling their oats and even though they might usually be "middle of the lane" in speed they might ride up closer to the person in front of them. If you get too close it's the person in front's right to insist that you move up and take their place for the rest of that set.
This is considered a gentle but necessary rebuke so that a swim workout doesn't devolve into a "drafting event" where by slower swimmers get close enough to "draft" off faster swimmers. Also, close swimming makes flip turns a bit less safe and comfortable. Someone right on your toes can be intimidating (or infuriating).
Some sets are constructed to have descending time goals. You might do a set of 10 x 100's on a set interval but you will be encouraged to drop two, three or more seconds from your elapsed swim time on each repeat. You'll go faster on each 100 but you'll get a bit more rest. It's a trade off but swimming faster is harder than the added rest time is beneficial.
Sometimes we'll be asked to use hand paddles and pull buoys. These tools focus you on doing your arm strokes correctly and put more emphasis on building upper body swim strength. By eliminating propulsion and balancing from your kick you have to swim with more thought for your upper body stroke and your body roll with the two "long strokes" (freestyle and backstroke). We don't often (ever) pull butterfly because it puts so much strain on shoulders and also because butterfly is a full body stroke that requires the kick component for its basic rhythm.
The main set is usually 2000 - 2200 yard of an hour long workout but sometimes coaches will throw in stroke drills meant to fine tune technique. I love these because often getting faster is more about improving technique than it is from increasing muscle strength.
The last five minutes of workout is generally spent warming down from the longer, main set. Each person is doing the warm down their own way but most swimmers who habitually swim together collaborate on this as well.
Finally, there is usually another group of swimmers scheduled directly after our workout which means the only considerate thing to do is to be out of the pool and heading for our towels and face masks by 8:59.
Towel off and head home. Then get your day started. It's a routine, but a fun one.
A good regimen of aerobic and anaerobic exercise, coupled with walking and weights, should yield fairly quick cardiovascular benefits. Mostly, a lower resting heart rate, lower blood pressure, better level of oxygen in your bloodstream and more brachiation of the smaller capillaries and other blood vessels (which equals more delivery options for blood flow). Not only will you keep heart disease, diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure at bay but you'll feel better in everything you do. And live longer. And enjoy those extra years more.
It's a nice hobby. But there's not much visual result to frame and show off to house guests. I guess you could always take your shirt off and show folks your six pack but I think that's still frowned on in polite society....
Eat all things in moderation. Exercise every day. Meditate often. Invest automatically. Never touch principal.
Be in love.
That's all the advice I ever give to my kid.
P.S. any activity that doesn't raise your heart rate while you are doing it is a "game" not a "sport." Chess is a game. Billiards is a game. Bowling is a game. Running, swimming, cross country skiing, cycling, and combinations thereof are sports. There is a fitness difference. You may enjoy games but you will benefit physically from sports.
9 comments:
I hear ya', Kirk. A few years ago, due to a detached retina (reattached successfully) I had to stay off the bicycle for almost a year. During this time I was barely even allowed to work out. Obviously I missed the physical fitness I was accustomed to, but didn't anticipate the overall decline in my physiological well-being. I turned into one grumpy, bored ass&*%#. I understood my decline in physical conditioning, but not the attitude. It was explained to me that my condition was partially to blame on an absence of regular post-ride endorphins. I don't pretend to know the science but it made sense, as I always remember the warm buzz feeling we experienced post ride while having lunch and recovery drink. After resuming my riding and regular work-outs the feelings, and buzz, returned, and along with them an improvement to my overall disposition.
My point is, I've always enjoyed staying in shape and love bicycling. Our group rides between 100 and 200 miles in a week, depending upon weather and obligations. And I probably speak for most when I say we do it just for the joy of riding. The fitness aspect is just a benefit we nurture so we can continue riding fast and farther. Nobody wants to be left behind! But the overall benefit of physiological well-being cannot be understated, particularly as we get older. So good for you, Kirk. Do your thing, appreciate and respect you're in the minority for men our age. I don't want to come across as judgmental, but do think if everyone realized the feeling of a post work-out buzz, benefits to all aspects of our body and mind, and how this transcends all aspects of our lives and interactions, far more would make the time to put in the effort. It's never too late to start.
Thanks Ronman. I think I do it because I love the feeling of being fast. Also, by exercising I'm not a slave to any diet to keep the clothes fitting okay. Get in the right amount of exercise and you also maintain your normal waist size. ( A decided bonus for those of us who don't want to subsist on kale, zucchini and Brussel sprouts ).
I guess it's not for everyone but I'll never understand why...
Just buy a used pool table and play really fast. And then bore us to tears writing about it.
Kirk, your fitness is amazing, and obviously pays good dividends. But the average person is not going to be so disciplined. I used to be an endurance athlete, and maintained it until my knees starting going out in my 50's. The bicycle has been my salvation. I also like swimming, but never developed the technique to where i flowed in that medium. Hope to return to 1 mile swims some day. That my technique sucked, just made for more aerobic benefit, ha ha.
I see a lot of obesity in our modern western world, and though it repells me, I've come to recognize that for many folk it is just very very hard to lose weight, genetically, by conditioning and opportunity (?) or whatever. I encourage friends in this category to "just do it". (Diet is more powerful than exercise towards weight reduction!) But exercise of any type has benefits, and doesn't need to be nearly so strenuous/disciplined as yours (-; My counsel to friends: "CONSISTENCY, NOT INTENSITY". My logic is that we need to find activities that are not miserable or tedious, otherwise we won't stick to it. And if we are consistent, we will progress, and the intensity may come in time.
BRAVO Kirk
Hi Rich, I am not nearly as fit as many of my fellow swimmers and I possess median talent for swimming. I would need to spend several hours more per day to achieve a high level of fitness. I'm not posting this as a call for people to go out and overachieve but as a push for people to admit that exercise would be good for them and to maybe get them to consider being just a bit more disciplined in this small part of their daily lives. I'm not sure people are really reticent to take action but often, poorly informed, take up their time and energy with less productive options. An obsession with nuances of diet and the devotion to making mundane food more palatable instead of considering a greater percentage of time spent exercising would be my example. There is a balance to be achieved between exercise and diet; they are not oppositional pursuits but an important pair.
To focus solely on one and not give energy to the other is as counterproductive as having no plan at all. Any good work I do in the pool is easily undone by that extra alcoholic cocktail or that glistening jelly donut. Any benefit I might derive from eschewing meat and white flour and eating a pound of raw kale will be undone by sitting on my ass for eight hours a day typing.
Everyone's exercise tolerance is different. If I were not interested in hard exercise I would choose something different but still beneficial. An hour's walk each day at a brisk but not strenuous pace should be something anyone can do. It's free and it also gives your eyes time to re-focus on infinity instead of our not-good-for-your vision propensity to spend out days looking at things positioned within the constraints of 2 feet to about 20 feet. The walk might also create a deeper sense of space and location in the walker which could lead to more situational awareness and an appreciation for their surroundings.
Swimming is not the sole option for good, sustaining exercise. It's my metaphor for all exercise. Walk, run, bike, walk, play soccer, walk, etc. If you want to progressively make walking more physically valuable work in some good uphill stretches.
Science teaches us that brief and undisciplined bouts of exercise serve only to increase our appetites while daily exercise that burns appreciable calories resets the appetite controlling hormones and allows for gradual and sustainable weight loss and the attendant health benefits.
You needn't perfect your racing dive but folks need to stop trying to convince themselves that one or two walks a week around the flat landscape of a mall will have much impact at all.
Sure. Less meat and fewer donuts. But there's an attendant need for exercise as well. To concentrate on one over the other is just as short-sighted.
But I presumed while writing the above blog that everyone here reads, got a good education and has a good family doctor. You should already know that over eating and eating the wrong foods are injurious to your long term health. But doctors and magazine articles seem less inspired to tell you to get off your butt and move. A lot.
Appropriate life metaphor here in a swimming wrapper is Diana Nyad's finally making the swim from Cuba to Key West. She said something along the lines afterwards of how the swim was no longer about what she wanted to do, at which she failed 4 times before, but was about who she wanted to be.
Luckily I never lost the child like appreciation for the feeling of whizzing along on my bike. Nor lost the appreciation for getting into the zone and flow of riding at an elevated heart rate for 2 or 3 hours. Decades and decades later, I still ride. Genetics are trying to screw me despite my best efforts. An unexplained and unprovoked major health crisis kept me off the bike, then barely permitted a tentative halting return, with all that process taking 2 full seasons.
This season, despite entering a new decade, I rode enough to match a record season-total miles that I hadn't ridden since giving up racing and its attendant training decades ago.
I agree. Make it part of your every day life in whatever capacity you can. I do. It's who I want to be.
I belong to a golf club with a heated indoor pool of weird length (according to one of the employees, the original owners couldn't decide whether to make it 25 meters, or 25 yards, and so split the difference -- seriously. It's like 25 yards and "a bit." The pool closed with Covid. Fortunately, I have a home pool that was good through October 20, but I've been missing my swims since then. As soon as I get the vaccine, I'm back in in the club pool, which is teetering on the brink of reopening. My goal as an unaccomplished swimmer is to get back to a thousand yards (and a bit) five times a week at age 77. Weights are good, in moderation. I think you will find in a few more years, as I did, that you have to be aware of a line between exercise and injury. I fell off a truck, on July 24, and broke my right arm rather badly, and just passed the five-month anniversary of the injury, and still don't have full range of motion; I'm told that it could take a year to get it back. Swimming, though, was still possible within six weeks after surgery. In any case, as you get older, the injury problem looms larger, not only because you injure more easily, but because recovery takes longer. During the eight weeks between injury (two weeks from break to surgery, six to get back in the pool after surgery) and getting back in the pool, I lost *a lot* of muscle tone in my right arm. So, that's a consideration; but it mostly is a matter of thought. You need to take care, and consider what you're doing, but not so much care that you don't do it.
I really appreciate your articles on swimming and masters training. I myself am a poor swimmer, but the mentality of training and not getting slower as we age applies to all endurance sports. Mine are cross-country skiing, hiking, kayaking and mountain biking. I'll share your article with family and friends. All the best for 2021!
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