High school Swim season starts for me tomorrow and was wondering how my teams practice schedule stacks up compared to other programs. Couldn’t find any other forums on this, let me know if there’s already one. Former swimmers chip in too.
My average week will look like this…
3-4 morning practices from 5:45-7:00
4 afternoon practices from 2:45-5:00
1 Meet
1 Weekend Practice from 8:00-9:45
Our big training week consist of going down to Florida and doing 6 days of 5-6 hours a day
Total Time: 15+ hours in addition to cycling/running
Is this average for most HS teams? Let me know how much swimming you guys were doing in HS/College
Interesting, swim seasons just ended here in Florida for our High Schools. Anyway, I swam morning and afternoon practices 5 days a week, then drove to Gainesville, FL to swim with a club on Saturdays. Probably 50k-55k a week.
Those times look pretty standard; however, the intensity is a big part or swim training. Where are you going in FL?
Looks a little light in terms of time in the morning and the weekend practice, about right for everything else including your travel trip to Florida.
I swam in HS, on average, about 75k a week and during Xmas training we bumped it up to 90k a week.
This. More than enough swimming for triathlon though. I’m not sure how much bike and run you’re going to be able to fit into that swim schedule, when you add homework and social stuff on top.
I’ve known this all along, but reading responses on here really makes me realize how much of a joke my high school swim team was. Most of the schools in the area didn’t have their own pools, so we shared the Army base, community college, etc. My team got the absolute lowest on the totem pole pick because we’d never even had a team before my junior year.
We had 3 practices a week, an hour each. Because we were a new team, we were also pretty slow as a whole. I doubt we ever even did 3k in a practice. And to top it off, Fridays were usually a meet day, so once the season started, we were down to 2 practices, possibly totaling as little as 5k.
That’s why when I tell people I swam in high school for two years, I put a HUGE asterisk next to it. Even when I went through a brief typical-triathlete phase in college and thought “oh swimming isn’t that important because it’s so short” I was probably swimming as much as I did on my high school team.
We did 3500-6000 yards per practice depending on the goals of the practice. Mornings were alternating weights on T/TH and maybe 2000 yards MWF. Saturdays were regular practices. Sundays were off. We likes meets because that meant less swimming and, in general, less total work.
If you’re committed to the HS team- Commit. That means taking time off from biking and running. You’ll still have time to do that stuff in March.
Were headed down to Sarasota Florida over spring break
Last season I wasn’t as focused on triathlon so I didn’t really try to squeeze in other workouts. I’m going to try and squeeze in couple bike’s and runs, but ill play it by ear if I cant handle the volume ill back off.
Saturday morning practices were always our longest and hardest practices of the week, but everything else looks pretty typical for a high school swimming schedule. This pretty much means you’re guaranteed to be the fastest swimmer at every triathlon.
I swam club in HS and was usually at about 40-45k/week, much more for “winter camp”, etc. Many people did more, but that was all I could handle with my class load (school always came first) and I STILL had basically no time for anything but swimming and school. High school swimming required us club swimmers to attend one practice per week with the school team, knowing that we’d get better training with our club coaches the rest of the week. I always looked forward to the school practice!
It’s hard to do anything else on top of being a swimmer, unless you’re skipping a few swim practices to do so. I always wanted to try cross country but bent to the will of my swim coach to do swimming only, and it was probably a mistake in terms of development for triathlon. Anyway, if you attempt to keep up the cycling and running, just be REALLY sure you are getting enough sleep to handle the training load. I noticed my best practices were always on Mondays after I’d caught up on sleep over the weekend, and things gradually deteriorated throughout the week. If you’re not getting enough sleep to absorb the training and keep it high quality, there’s not much point in doing it. Best of luck!
100 K per week in College. I lasted for about 8 weeks then got mono and shoulder tendinopathy…done. Every morning warm-up was 800-1000 of fly long course. It was meant to separate the wheat from the chaff. I was chaff.
100 K per week in College. I lasted for about 8 weeks then got mono and shoulder tendinopathy…done. Every morning warm-up was 800-1000 of fly long course. It was meant to separate the wheat from the chaff. I was chaff.
I have very little respect for coaches with this kind of approach it’s not necessary. But many do it. And we wonder why former AG/college swimmers can’t stand being in the pool anymore it’s a shame. Swimming is to enjoyable even if it’s recreational.
Are you swimming at the Selby Aquatic Center? Place is SOOOO nice you will not be disappointed in the facility. There are some fast as nuts old fart Masters swimmers who flap their wings in that place, not to mention Jr. Nats kids and the whole gambit. Have a great trip!
High School by my senior year had me at probably 55-60k including morning practices a couple days during the week.
Now I consider 9-10k “mainteance” yardage mid season and a swim focus will have me at 12-17k. With the weather turning to crap, I’m focusing on swim more right now.
My team had afternoon practices, 5 weekdays, 5000-7000yd each. 5800-6500 was most typical daily, so an average of ~30k/wk. There were Saturday practices, but I didn’t do them.
I swim with a tri club and each practice is at least 3200M to 4000M to even 4600M per practice. We do that 3 times à week but many are in the pool at least 5 times a week.
I’ve known this all along, but reading responses on here really makes me realize how much of a joke my high school swim team was. Most of the schools in the area didn’t have their own pools, so we shared the Army base, community college, etc. My team got the absolute lowest on the totem pole pick because we’d never even had a team before my junior year.
We had 3 practices a week, an hour each. Because we were a new team, we were also pretty slow as a whole. I doubt we ever even did 3k in a practice. And to top it off, Fridays were usually a meet day, so once the season started, we were down to 2 practices, possibly totaling as little as 5k.
That’s why when I tell people I swam in high school for two years, I put a HUGE asterisk next to it. Even when I went through a brief typical-triathlete phase in college and thought “oh swimming isn’t that important because it’s so short” I was probably swimming as much as I did on my high school team.
Yea. I’m grateful that I did at least swim a little, but it’s nowhere near even most other people who “swam a couple years in high school,” let alone anybody who swam in college. That’s why the only thing I can swim is an absurdly high stroke rate freestyle…I developed distinctly as a triathlete
45-50k.