What does your recovery day swim look like?
I ask because I do take the odd easy day and want to include a swim on this day. If you do the same how do you structure that session?
I did one today… Still swimming at a normal pace, but not a lot of threshold or sprint stuff. My recovery day is a distance day. Today we did 4x500 as the main set with my masters team, with 30 seconds rest, and increasing pace on each one. It was a good distance workout, but I definitely didn’t feel as dead as when I do more threshold stuff or sprint.
So I always use it as a chance to work on my swim endurance, long stretchy stroke and pace, which should be improving over time.
I’m not a hard-core triathlete, just a MOP so take my input as you will.
I’ll do an occasional easy/active recovery day of swim every now and then. On those days I’ll do a short warm up and then just some 100 sets at a slower pace than normal. Drop 10 seconds per 100 maybe and just breeze the sim for the fun of being in the water with no heavy intentions. Nothing remotely structured. I don’t consider this “garbage” yards; but some might. On these days I might go a little outside my introvert bubble too by actually talking to someone in a side lane. Not talking smack, just chatting about whatever. I want to leave feeling like i was glad to not have taken the day “off” but want to know I honored a recovery day. That’s really it for me at least.
All the time. Same basic structure as any other day, just slower. I’ll typically use those days to work on technique or developing good habits. Eg a bad habit of mine is that I break streamline on the breakout, so I’ll work on that for an entire practice. Or getting better extension out front, or distance per stroke focus, whether free, fly, or other strokes. Or just farting around and trying something new that I saw / read about.
Point is, just because it’s a recovery day doesn’t mean it’s just mindless swimming. Use that time to work on something.
That’s what my thoughts were. But…
On test days my legs are bagged, from running and cycling, and I find the flip turns and walls leave my legs tired.
Maybe I should switch to open turns at the walls
No, just learn to do them using less energy. Open turns are just as hard, if nit harder.
Usually done on Mondays because I pack in the hours on weekends. Mixture of simple drills and sprints, mostly with a pull buoy to rest the legs with paddles thrown in occasionally to work the arms.
I do shorts intervals (up to 200mt) at easy pace (10"/100m slower than LT pace) and with somewhat extended recovery; in this way I can keep good form even if I feel tired. I also add some drills (single arm and catch ups) and do some sets with the pull buoy. a typical session would look like this:
400 w/u
10x50 drills
10x100 FS aero @20"
6x150 pull @25"
200 c/d
the rule is: NO sprints, NO threshold sets, NO paddles, NO fins, NO long intervals, NO hard medley sets; it must feel easy!
later in the day I do an easy spin on the trainer (45min z1 >100rpm)
After a hard day yesterday, our masters team had an easy recovery day today.
The workout was 10 x 400, starting with a 400 warm-up, and the subsequent 400’s being a mixture of stroke drills, kicking, pulling, walls, etc.
No send off intervals, but we paired up with others of similar speed/ability.
The stroke drills included stuff like catch-up, one-arm with kick board, underwater dog paddle, Tarzan, Serape kicking, superman, etc., mixed in with some straight swimming. All stuff to help refine and strengthen stroke mechanics.
A lot of us are doing some masters swim meets in February, so to work on our wall technique, our coach had us focus on going one meter deep and doing a minimum of four dolphin kicks at every turn, not breaking out until past the flags.
Several of us substituted some stuff based on individual preferences and/or needs: I’m swimming fly and IM in some upcoming meets, so I added an easy 8 x 25 fly set at the end of practice.
Mark