As somebody who has been a swimmer my whole live I would say in the off season you are better off going to the pool at swimming tired. On those days you cant swim fast I would suggest doing more aerobic work but still swimming. In season I would say you should maybe reduce to 3 workouts if you are still feeling beat up

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I'm no fish but my advice

Don't do the hard workout if you cannot hold your times and intervals you will just swim with and ingrain poor form -- if you really can't hold your intervals ( there is a difference between struggling and cannot)

I would do the swim though but as a recovery workout

If you can't hold the speed intervals, switch over and do long smooth sets. 500 and above. Work on endurance. But still swim.

Some days you will go in tired and find your mojo, some days you won't. Only time to stop swimming is when injured.

I don't think it's at all true that if you're fatigued during or even before a swim workout, that it means you're going to reinforce bad form. You can tell when your form is breaking up, but you can always dial back the effort and speed and not get sloppy.

I made my biggest gains while training my swim like i did as a runner, which is adding on a lot of volume at slower paces which beat my arms down to the point they felt dead nearly the whole week until I acclimated to it. It's no different than running or cycling in the fitness aspect of it. I think this ability to power through the fatigue until you acclimate to this is crucial for any endurance sport.

In all my years of swimming, not once has Coach let us use the excuse "I'm too tired or fatigued" as a reason to get out of practice. Some days you're just a little slower than you expect. That shouldn't get your out of doing the work. Just change your send-off to match the reality of the day.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Use it as an opportunity to do tons of drills and work on form.

This. Except coach never let us change send offs. Had to Try to hit them, failure was ok, not trying was worse. We were tired for 2-3 months straight leading into championships before starting taper.

Nice thing about masters is that we have masters prerogative to override coaches orders as we see fit. But we know that isn't necessarily going to make us faster.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Exactly what Jason said. I didn't ever get to use the excuse & I never got to change intervals. Never made me a worse swimmer. You don't quit training when you get tired or we'd never finish races. You only "reinforce bad form" if you allow yourself to swim with it....so don't.

That said, I'm not swimming tonight because I am literally too tired to function. This is not a result of training, however, but of stupidity in time management & trying to do too many things - not just training - in one short time period. So I know that when I get in the pool tomorrow or Friday...it will feel like I haven't swam in a month.

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AW

When I was a kid I just rammed my head against that brick wall. What I mean is if I was tired I still gave the workout everything I had. I would make sure to get to the next workout just as beat as I arrived to the current workout -- if not more. It was like I really didn't understand the workout/recover/improve cycle at all. Looking back, I think I was stupid to do that.

These days if I feel fatigued, I still keep the volume (at least in minutes), but I just go waaaaay slower. This has really worked well. I still get some aerobic work. I still get some endurance work. My stroke also stays dialed in because I'm not pushing myself to the edge to complete the workout (not even close). However, I also still get to recover. The next week almost always brings improvement.

Edit: A good strategy to take a workout easier -- especially when you workout with a team -- is to pull more using paddles. Paddles almost always make you faster. This way you can go about as fast as everyone else, but still be kind of loafing in order to recover.

We're old now. What works as a 17-20 year old doesn't necessarily work once we get to a 'ahem' certain age.

It was also the coaching style back then. Dig yourself into a really deep hole, then get a superbounce back on taper.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Thanks everyone for the responses and pretty much was in line with what I was thinking.

SH - I used your paddle advice and it worked out really well. In general I use paddles as a tool for better form rather than strength, so I was able to get a solid workout in even though I was pretty beat. Today I feel rested and didn't have to skip a workout. Good stuff and thanks again.
Edit: A good strategy to take a workout easier -- especially when you workout with a team -- is to pull more using paddles. Paddles almost always make you faster. This way you can go about as fast as everyone else, but still be kind of loafing in order to recover.[/quote]