Background is have been swimming 2-4x per week for the last 5 years as a part of tri training regimen until this past Oct when I hurt my shoulder which prompted me to train for a mary and let the shoulder heal…well it is healed, the marathon is over and after a 3 month break where I may have swam 1x per month, I am getting back to it building up for IMCDA.
Real training starts this week, today to ease back into it did some ez drills for 300 then 8x200 free on :30 sec rest odd pull, even swim, 200 cool down and felt pretty good. About 5 sec slower per hundred than normal and had to concentrate not to let my form break down but overall felt better than I would have thought. How long do you think it would take to get comfortably back to where I was pre-swim break?
I say not too long. I am a MOP swimmer and take months off at a time because I loathe swimming but the fitness comes back pretty quickly. I think swimming is about 90% technique, 10% fitness. I regularly get absolutely schooled by 50 year olds who used to swim in college, don’t swim at all anymore, and come out to an open water mile swim and beat me by six minutes.
I was off for three months this winter with a broken collar bone. I started serious training again in Jan. and have noticed I am a bit faster so must have better technique, but my endurance is not there yet. I’m guessing another couple months for my endurance and I’ll be better than last year. I’m certain you’ll find the same thing. Just don’t push it, it’ll come back pretty quickly. Good luck.
I hope my fitness comes back quickly. First time in the pool since IM AZ and it was hard. I will get in the pool again tomorrow and see how much it improves over the next few weeks.
I think it depends on your technique and history. I swam from the time I was about 5 years old until 18, when I swore after my final high school meet I’d never do another lap. I held to that for almost 17 years until I decided to take back up triathlon. The long endurance wasn’t there right away but I was swimming decently in a short while.
Now after being back in the sport full time for a few years I can still take 6-8 weeks off, or just do 1-2 short swims (1500 or so) a week and be able to regain swim fitness in just a short time once I start back up with a more consistent swim.
I took about the same amount of time off that you did. I am assuming 2 months to get back to pre-break swim fitness. But I feel like I’m off by more like 8 seconds per hundred now. And I fatigue faster.
Bob Bowman says 2-3 days needed to get back 1 day missed of practice.
Assuming you are an elite level athlete. Matt Rauls (me) says: “If you are not an elite level athlete, it takes .1 day per every one workout you miss.”
I have not swum for 9 days. And all swimming before that, amounted to 22k for the entire month of January. I am miserably out of swim shape. Tomorrow I get back in and we will see how quickly I can get back to cruising 100s on 1:20!
will do, i can tell you that if it only takes 2 months to get back to good form that I will probably enjoy a break of 2 months every year regardless of injuries (my traditional off season usually is about 2 weeks off followed by 2 weeks unstructured and then back at it)…on another note, first ride outside today in months (only had been doing trainer sessions 1x per week for 1 hour) and felt good for 1:30, HR was 5-10 beats higher than perceived exertion and about 1mph off on avg speed but overall felt pretty good, seems like running 40-50 miles per week has some good crossover effect…this week it starts for real in all 3 disciplines and ramps up fast, time to remind myself how to fit it all in!!!
I hope you’re right about 2 months. I swam this morning (the 4th since October) and I have a race in 2 months. I swam 2K in open water (so more like 2200 with my poor sense of direction) I was about 4 minutes slower than the end of September. I was a lot more tired after the swim than I figured I would be. Made my long run a little more painful than I had hoped it would be.
Bob Bowman says 2-3 days needed to get back 1 day missed of practice.
Assuming you are an elite level athlete. Matt Rauls (me) says: “If you are not an elite level athlete, it takes .1 day per every one workout you miss.”
Not necessarily. One of my kinesiology classes we were given a rough estimate of 2 days to get back the fitness for every 1 day missed. There was also an interval between last workout and the onset of fitness decline, IIRC it was 4-7 days. So, after about 4 days, you start losing 2 for 1 on fitness.
And I think your formula is a bit off. You’re basically saying that if I miss a run of 45 minutes (one workout), it’s going to take me 2 hours and 24 minutes of running to get it back?
Bob Bowman says 2-3 days needed to get back 1 day missed of practice.
Assuming you are an elite level athlete. Matt Rauls (me) says: “If you are not an elite level athlete, it takes .1 day per every one workout you miss.”
Not necessarily. One of my kinesiology classes we were given a rough estimate of 2 days to get back the fitness for every 1 day missed. There was also an interval between last workout and the onset of fitness decline, IIRC it was 4-7 days. So, after about 4 days, you start losing 2 for 1 on fitness.
And I think your formula is a bit off. You’re basically saying that if I miss a run of 45 minutes (one workout), it’s going to take me 2 hours and 24 minutes of running to get it back?
John
I’m referring to swimming only. I believe, and it seems like many of the posts here back me up, that for non-elite athletes technique is far more important than fitness, and the amount of fitness needed to swim 1500m is trivial. So maybe after 10 months and 100 workouts of swim training, someone is doing the bulk of their workout at 1:20/100m pace easily. Then they quit swimming completely for 3 months. I would predict that within 10 workouts that swimmer would be swimming very close to 1:20 again. Maybe not right at 1:20 but far closer to their “regular” pace than if they took 3 months off cycling or running and then did 10 workouts and compared their run or cycling pace to their pre-vacation pace.
Bob Bowman says 2-3 days needed to get back 1 day missed of practice.
Assuming you are an elite level athlete. Matt Rauls (me) says: “If you are not an elite level athlete, it takes .1 day per every one workout you miss.”
Not necessarily. One of my kinesiology classes we were given a rough estimate of 2 days to get back the fitness for every 1 day missed. There was also an interval between last workout and the onset of fitness decline, IIRC it was 4-7 days. So, after about 4 days, you start losing 2 for 1 on fitness.
And I think your formula is a bit off. You’re basically saying that if I miss a run of 45 minutes (one workout), it’s going to take me 2 hours and 24 minutes of running to get it back?
John
I’m referring to swimming only. I believe, and it seems like many of the posts here back me up, that for non-elite athletes technique is far more important than fitness, and the amount of fitness needed to swim 1500m is trivial. So maybe after 10 months and 100 workouts of swim training, someone is doing the bulk of their workout at 1:20/100m pace easily. Then they quit swimming completely for 3 months. I would predict that within 10 workouts that swimmer would be swimming very close to 1:20 again. Maybe not right at 1:20 but far closer to their “regular” pace than if they took 3 months off cycling or running and then did 10 workouts and compared their run or cycling pace to their pre-vacation pace.
Ok, now I see where you are coming from. Thanks!
