To all you Vasa erg owners out there - how's your swimming (or lack of) coming along during COVID time?
For me, despite doing basically no hard interval work on my erg, and only doing it for about 2ish hrs/wk which feels like maintenance volume to me, I lost almost nothing by doing literally zero water swimming from March to July. I'm not stud swimer though, so easier for me to maintain (but I typically finish in the top 20%, on the swim, and in local races, sometimes even top 15%).
Amazingly to me, now that I'm in the pool 1x/wk (local pools finally opened enough to not be instabooked) I've been swimming in water slightly faster than I was pre-COVID, although I suspect that's more a function of for low-weekly volume vs higher pre-COVID pool volume (same as comparing paces if you ran only 10 miles in a week compared to 40 miles in a week). I did a set of paddle-assisted hard 50s on 30sec rest a few days ago at 1:11-12 pace, which actually shocked me, as I'm typically only good for only one of those all-out with paddles, and I did like 6 in a row in the middle of a full workout.
Thus far, for me, going back to the pool felt as if I'd never left it at all. No awkwardness, no weak arm pulls, and surprisingly, absolutely no losing any 'feel for the water' whatever that vague term actually means despite people throwing it around a lot.
I've actually completely canceled my YMCA membership (which I kept only for the pool for the last 10 years) and am proceeding in the future with 1x/swim in pool and vasa work for the rest, since it's worked so well for me during the COVID lockdown.
For me, despite doing basically no hard interval work on my erg, and only doing it for about 2ish hrs/wk which feels like maintenance volume to me, I lost almost nothing by doing literally zero water swimming from March to July. I'm not stud swimer though, so easier for me to maintain (but I typically finish in the top 20%, on the swim, and in local races, sometimes even top 15%).
Amazingly to me, now that I'm in the pool 1x/wk (local pools finally opened enough to not be instabooked) I've been swimming in water slightly faster than I was pre-COVID, although I suspect that's more a function of for low-weekly volume vs higher pre-COVID pool volume (same as comparing paces if you ran only 10 miles in a week compared to 40 miles in a week). I did a set of paddle-assisted hard 50s on 30sec rest a few days ago at 1:11-12 pace, which actually shocked me, as I'm typically only good for only one of those all-out with paddles, and I did like 6 in a row in the middle of a full workout.
Thus far, for me, going back to the pool felt as if I'd never left it at all. No awkwardness, no weak arm pulls, and surprisingly, absolutely no losing any 'feel for the water' whatever that vague term actually means despite people throwing it around a lot.
I've actually completely canceled my YMCA membership (which I kept only for the pool for the last 10 years) and am proceeding in the future with 1x/swim in pool and vasa work for the rest, since it's worked so well for me during the COVID lockdown.