OK, this may be a dumb question from someone who was never a competitive swimmer. How and when do the olympic swimmers (or any swimmer for that matter) warm up for their events?
My guess would be that there is another warm up pool that’s ‘backstage’ maybe?
warmup session runs for an hour or so (usually) before the session actually starts. typically around 1000-1500 to warm up (thats what I usualy did anyway) mostly easy, some kicking, some drills, some pull, and a few 12 - 25 m sprints.
At the Olympics, they have the luxury of a 2nd 50m pool to get in another warmup / warmdown right before and after their swims.
2nd pool
When I used to swim competitively, I would probably swim 500-1000y before an event, just nice and easy.
Would also swim about 500-1000y to cool down after each event
Swimmers generally warm up the same way any athlete does, by first stretching then swimming at varying speeds to lossen up. Swimmers will usually then do some hard short efforts at or above race pace. I’m sure it gets pretty scientific these days but basically they just swim around until they feel good. During heavy training periods when you’re tired and sore, that can take a long time (2000 meters +). When fully tapered, one might be able to feel ready to race after doing as little as 500 or 600 meters.
However, all the time they spend swimming before the race is just a physical warm up. Competetive swimmers can swim at a fairly decent pace with almost no expenditure of energy. (kind of like a decent cyclists spinning at 12 mph) So, alot of the time they are paddling around they are really just relaxing, getting some peace and quiet and getting mentally ready to race. Many swimmers prefer to be in the pool right up to race time. One of the things the Olympic swimmers have to deal with is they have to be out of the water and in the ready room 30 minutes before the race start. Not all meets are like that.
They will always warm up as close to race time as they can. In the case were the swim is in the evening or later in the day, it would not be unusual for a swimmer to do a bit of swimming earlier in the day before the actual warm up too.
They just said what Phelps is doing today. (going from memory, I think the total was 8300 yards for today so I am missing something)
9AM: 2400 warmup
race
race
800 cool down
1PM: 2400 warmup
race
race
800 cool down
almost all large meets have a second pool for warm up cool down. i would say all world level meets have a warm up, cool down pool.
I saw that too. I would wager he is doing way more warm-down than they reported. I believe it takes him about 20-25 minutes of easy swimming to return his blood lactate levels back to almost normal levels. But, sometimes in the games there is not enough time. With medal ceremonies and then having to get back into the ready room for the next event. So maybe that report was correct.