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a question, out of curiousity. Do you feel like you have to relearn how to swim each time you get in the water? I can’t imagine only swimming, say, twice a week. Maybe it is because I’m a fish, but if I go more than a day without swimming, I feel like I forget how to breathe, and it takes awhile for me to get back into that rhythm.
just wondering 
I’ve been swimming once a week since September and just this morning started back at morning practice to get back up to 3-4 times a week. My speed and feel for the water are pretty good considering, not the best they’ve ever been but very good considering I’ve been slacking off swimming and running a lot instead. I’m not the world’s best swimmer though, 4000ish yards for the one hour swim, 23.12 PR for Olympic distance swim leg. I think it’s the consecutive days that will hurt right now.
I think if you’ve never had the super grooved stroke you don’t miss it
when i first started doing tris it was a hard adjustment for me. i was so used to 10-12 workouts a week and thousands of yards. it took a while to get over that, but now swimming 3-4 times a week is fine. i am actually swimming faster in the long distance stuff than i did before. plus, i wanted to put more time into my bike and run and get more serious with triathlon, so swimming that much just wasnt feasible. once you start doing the super long rides/runs, you will find that swimming as much as you are makes it much harder - you dont want to overtrain yourself - it is such a fine line.
I swim a couple of times per year, forget the weekly stuff. It takes me about 20 minutes to get back into a breathing rhythm. I breath out of both sides on each 3rd stroke. Before each race I swim to the first bouy, unless its cold, and watch which way I’m curving that day and adjust my stroke accordingly.
I find if I go three times a week I can maintain and feel some continuity between workouts. I used to swim Monday and Wed only and I found getting in on Monday always felt way off. I’ve recently started spending a bit more time in the pool and it feels so much better!
I don’t have a swimming background, so this can only be a good thing…
I don’t have a swimming background, so this can only be a good thing…
definitely keep at it!
That’s been my experience also. I have gone a month or two without a swim workout, and when I go to the pool, it has felt very good, and my pace has resumed within a workout or two. Admittingly, I am very slow compared to others (but much faster than when I first started), It doesn’t make any sense outside of I’m pretty new to this, and haven’t trained consistently for many months and months (mostly just spring and summer).
When I do return to the pool, it feels very good, and I wonder why I’ve been gone for so long.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see what’s all the hub-bub about how much skill it takes to do triathlon. Running, cycling, and even swimming seem to be very simple movements as compared to the skills required in other sports (pitching, hitting, shooting basketballs, etc).
Swimming feels natural, but I admit there is something different about “swimming” and fitness. It does take a bit to get back to where you can “push it” (relative) at a decent effort for 45 minutes or so.
I guess that’s the one upside of being slow … you regain your former training paces quickly. =) or =(
I swim less than 10 times a year counting races. I find that to come out in front of the pack I don’t have to swim more than that so why bother. I wuold rather improve my bike and swim…
dt
I dropped back to two swims per week this year and much to my surprise I have been swimming the same times as I normally do. Maybe at some point I will start to drop off but it has been 9 months now, just getting back into 3 for the next few months with the bulk of our tri season approaching.
i only swim 2-3 times a week…If I drop down to once a week, that first 500 coming back feels a bit off, but as long as i get in the pool at least twice weekly I’m good.
I spent most of last year in sort of a maintenance mode, it wasn’t til Nov/Dec (and the swim challenges) when i ramped up the volume and started to notice some improvements.
I doubt I’ll ever get to swimming 4-5 times a week …for me, my time is better spent getting stronger on the bike and run during those extra hours
It’s like riding a bike, you never forget how.
no, it’s no problem at all to get back in the water and swim. it’s not too different than when you start out on a run, the body feels a little slow/stiff. then you warm up and that’s that.
until last week i’ve been out of the water for months. took about 10 minutes to get the feel back and that was it.
later on if you decide to back off the swim mileage to get in more biking or whatever, you’ll see that it’s not that big of a deal.
Do you feel like you have to relearn how to swim each time you get in the water?
Nope. I can pretty much not swim for months and get in the water and swim my normal pace. I admit that it takes a couple of swims to build a little endurance, but if I swim 3 times in a week, the next week I could pretty much be where I will be. I’m not a great swimmer, but I’m not bad either.
Bernie
I almost drowned when I was around 5 years old…so I have this irrational fear of the water, and any swim training is better described as “not drowning”…With the onset of my latest bout of PF, I was relegated to the pool by default…and was swimming 3-4 times a week, much more than usual…For me, it was still like learning all over again every time I got into the pool…I believe that there are "fish,"who are natural swimmers, and “land mammals,” who will just never get it…Count me among the latter…
KJR
Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.
It takes a while, but 2X a week (after going 4X a week for a few months) just takes some getting used to: Call it “maintaining” form, you won’t lose much, just not improve or get faster … I prefer 3X, but I can feel good just going 2X a week. And I am a stronger swimmer than most triathletes.
Most anyone will tell you, do not fear putting your strength on the backburner while you work on your weakness … For you, that may one day mean 15 hours a week on the bike and just 2 in the pool! But your swimming will suffer only slightly … maybe even not at all.
I usually swim 2x week in the season but for some reason if I miss one and I go for more than a week without swimming I feel like garbage for the first 1000yds or so after that it’s not bad.
Well, I want to swim the amount you are swimming. However, my shoulders are slowly building up to what I need. Like…if I swim 1600 meters or so one day, I need at least 48 hours to recover. My left shoulder is going thru the whole learning stage I guess. I bought a pair of zoomers and they are taking the pressure off the shoulder. Do you have any opinions about distance training with them?
Tigerchick, being an Aussie I can swim. I only swim max 3 times a week, about 4km each session yet I am the fastest swimmer in my A/G and not far off the pro’s over most courses. Its all about technique baby, not so much the mileage.
I lose some feel if I skip a weeks swimming but at the moment i only swim twice. I train a lot of hours but feel my money at the moment is best spent on the run and bike. I’m relatively lucky since I’m an ok fish so whilst more sessions would make me faster that could lead me into an over training cycle.
I took Nov. & Dec. off from swimming to focus on running, and I just got back in the water for the first time on January 2nd (I’m doing twice a week for the next month or more because I want to take it easy on a rotator cuff that’s been previously injured … ).
When I swam for the first time last week, it didn’t “feel like relearning how to swim” … and my speed was okay … but my stamina was NOTHING. I used to get in and bust out 3,000 yards continuously on like 1:35s (not super fast but not bad either), and I was EXHAUSTED after two hundred!! It felt like swimming in molasses. My arm muscles just felt so ridiculously weak. Since I’ve been running, I’ve lost 8 pounds in the last two months, which I know it’s mostly shoulder muscle :(, my shoulders and arms just look like bones with skin stretched over them … that’ll change though.