So I’ve been swimming with a masters swim club for the last few years and have made steady progress, especially this year since I moved up to the fast lane and just tried to hang in there chasing the feet of the good swimmers. Unfortunately, the morning sessions are being cut and I can’t make the evenings (family commitments - I have eight kids so am always reading stories, driving them places, changing nappies etc in the evenings).
My question for ST is how can I maintain the progress training on my own?
I do all my cycling and running on my own and don’t seem to have any problems motivating myself to push hard on those sessions (probably because I love cycling and running but find pool swimming a little dull), but for some reason when I am in the pool I only find the extra gear when I am chasing feet. When I swim 100s on my own I’ll often average 1:36 or so, but when I’m with the club I can go 1:26 or faster (did 1:21 yesterday chasing feet). For reference, I am an okay swimmer, around 25 minutes Oly, 30 minutes HIM and 67 minutes IM, my big race next year is ITU worlds, for which the swim is only 750m. I know the only way to improve is to swim hard, so what is the best way to swim hard when you swim alone?
Are you in a masters club where form is being evaluated and corrected, or is it simply a coach driven workout? If it’s the former the obvious answer is no, unless your form is as good as the instructor’s eye (You aren’t being corrected anymore)
If it’s just a coach structured workout then the answer depends on your experience and drive, and the coach’s skill.
I self train. Some days you do drift off into lala land. A couple things to try. First would be to try to swim in a lane next to other serious or fast swimmers. So if there are other good swimmers that workout in the morning find out their schedule and swim when they do. On saturdays the kids team is working out when I do and I get in the lane right next to them. Then you need to learn how to switch gears when you swim. Swim at warm up pace in warm up and swim fast during your main sets. Learn your pacing for the 100/200/500/1500 and practice swimming at those paces. Just don’t swim to make the interval have a plan at the start of the set.
Man, if I knew the answer to that I would not have a problem! I think I push harder cos I’m competitive, I also try to copy the form and rhythm of the good swimmers. Doesn’t everyone swim faster in a group situation?
Man, if I knew the answer to that I would not have a problem! I think I push harder cos I’m competitive, //
It’s actually not that much of a stretch when swimming in a lane with4 to 7 other folks. The swirl you get is worth at least 5 to 6 seconds in a full lane and you are on feet, and the other few are just as you say, you get motivated to work just a bit harder to keep up. But hopefully you have not been swimming in a fog for all these years on the team, and you actually absorbed what was going on. I would say a large portion of us here swim on our own most the time, and if you look over at the monthly fishes thread, you can see there is no real issue with working hard, or being motivated on our own. Just take what you have learned, come join our virtual team, work hard, and have fun. You can pinch workouts from all sorts of places, the least of which is your brain that has swam probably 1000’s by now. Lots of free things out there depending on what you are working on. But if you need someone to tell you what to do, then hire that online swim coach to email you workouts, probably not too expensive.
And then every once in awhile, make that extra effort to hit a masters session, you can do it all if you have a mind too…The clock goes wherever you do, that is your primary coach…
Man, if I knew the answer to that I would not have a problem! I think I push harder cos I’m competitive, I also try to copy the form and rhythm of the good swimmers. Doesn’t everyone swim faster in a group situation?
The answer is yes; nothing beats chasing feet, or conversely, going faster to avoid someone tickling your toes. It’s that simple. If you don’t have an alternative early AM swim program, then you won’t be as fast as you were. The good news is that the kids eventually grow up and get their own familes and then your evenings are your own again.
No way you’re 10â€/100 slower, for a best effort set, when swimming solo versus having the motivation of chasing other swimmers… So many things could be factoring here that you may not grasp if you’re posting a question like this.
In short, to swim hard solo, have your schedule setup to allow you to be decently rested for hard workouts and take care of your body and nutrition prior.
I trained for a year in a club and it didn’t bring me improvement, so I have given up and currently train on my own until I can find another club which is more promising.
When I swim 100s on my own I’ll often average 1:36 or so, but when I’m with the club I can go 1:26 or faster (did 1:21 yesterday chasing feet).
What about moving to 50’s to get the feel for increased speeds solo? It’s a mind game. Try 20 x 50 and aim to come in at 40-42 sending off on the minute. Take an easy 100 stroke after 10 and then do 10 more. I have found this helps when I start back up after a long layoff form swimming to get the feel for speed back before hitting my 100/200/400 efforts.
You can train effectively on your own but you need to to police your efforts. I had my best HIM and IM swim splits this year swimming on my own, following a training plan set by my coach. I’m sure I would benefit from a club session where I am being pushed and had a coach to check my technique while swimming but that isn’t an option for me at the moment with family/work commitments.
Was on a Masters Team for over 6 years multiple IM’s, 1/2’s & sprints.
IM time usually around 1:04-1:06. So decided to only swim Masters from Oct to March, our Masters Team was full of ex-collegiate swimmer very few Tri people.
Lucky, had a friend who lived on a lake, took up lake swimming 1 lap was about an hour swim.
We started working on starts and go into the red zone, learned how hard we could go and just pull the throttle back into cruise mode.
Practiced speed ups during the swim sighting trees and houses on shore.
I finally got below 1hr IM swim, 1st it was 1:01 then it dropped to 59:58 and then consistently 54-56.
You have got to get open water swimming into your routine if at all possible.
I trained for a year in a club and it didn’t bring me improvement, so I have given up and currently train on my own until I can find another club which is more promising.
I think it depends. I did masters for over a year. I didn’t get much instruction, which I needed badly as a new adult swimmer. The sets weren’t that focused or aggressive.
I got a coach who gave me workouts. He didn’t give any technique training, just prescribed the workouts. But I’d have my list of what to do, and I’d knock it out on my own, focused on each set. Sometimes I’d be doing my own workouts while masters was going on at the other end of the pool. I’d be busting my ass through sets with no wasted time. Meanwhile they would be hanging on the wall for 5 minutes chit chatting about who knows what.
Needless to say, I got faster doing solo workouts.
So far one workout in. A few things are buggy like the device name changing on it’s own when I synch it.
I’ll copy this for my initial impressions on it’s own thread.
Form factor, small and compact. I wear my cap over my google straps and it covers the back of the device. I never really felt it dragging. If the goggles are really tight it does push on the temple a bit but it was fine.
The app is quirky (android). Don’t try to synch a work out if it doesn’t have one loaded. The app was trying to load a “workout” from the night before and didn’t accept my first try.
It’s simple to use during a workout. Once it’s on you press the swim button to mark a new set. Want your HR zone hit the HR button. I am going to try a small locker mirror (attached to the blocks either a magnet or string) and see if the coach mode lights are better. I think the unit it capable of more and it will see software/firmware driven improvements.
Workout upload is not as quick as a garmin. There are 2 steps here. 1st the data comes off the “head unit” and 2nd the app processes the data in Phlex’s server. This takes a bit of time (5-10 minutes). The feedback data is not localized on your device. You have to load it on the app every time (not cached). The upside is it will recalculate your HR zones on a workout if they were put in incorrectly or say if the device was loaned out the user didn’t have their own account.
The feedback data is damn good. It automatically detects your stroke, repeat times and your intervals. There were a few small glitches in my feedback but nothing terrible. It did detect my backstroke kick as backstroke swim but Fly kick on my back did show up as kicking in my stats.
The metrics like distance per stroke account for your underwater phase. Again there is probably more being captured than the software is currently giving back. I won’t be shocked if there is an advanced version of the app for swim teams on a subscription.
It’s supposed to integrate with Strava. Mine is not synching there. It may have be my strava is attached to my google account though and it gives errors when I have tried to connect them.
No way you’re 10â€/100 slower, for a best effort set, when swimming solo versus having the motivation of chasing other swimmers… So many things could be factoring here that you may not grasp if you’re posting a question like this.
In short, to swim hard solo, have your schedule setup to allow you to be decently rested for hard workouts and take care of your body and nutrition prior.
Same time of day, same pre-workout fuelling, same main set (10 x 100, pushing off on two minutes), same slot in my schedule, same training in the week leading up, same pool, same goggles, same EVERYTHING except for one variable: swimming solo versus swimming in my masters group and the average times were 1:38 on my own, 1:28 with masters. I don’t know what other factors you are referring to, the only two I can think of are those already mentioned: chasing feet and some drafting effect of being in a lane with three fast swimmers. What I would love to know is how to bridge that ten second gap. I’ve joined the online ST swim thread and will try to use that and the watch to bring my times down.
We went through the exact same issue last year when we moved to suburbs. Masters programs around here aren’t cheap. So had to swim on my own, performance wise I had no issues, was able to keep my swim fitness for races about the same (~22 min 1500m, ~60 min 3800 m with a wetsuit). Obviously it is mentally challenge to put in a solid ~4000 m workout with no one around you but it also builds you up mentally. One advantage I found, with the masters program I would go on a Mon morning after a heavy weekend of training an still push often harder than I should have as we would always be racing lol. When you are on your own it is easy to modify to easier or recovery swims when needed without worrying about our stupid male ego getting in the way The above applies if you have a basic swimming foundation, if you are still learning the basics, then maybe coached masters is still needed.
Yes, the number one factor here is the draft effect in the group
Sounds like you’ve attempted the workout solo only once as a comparison? Not good to draw conclusions yet if that’s the case.
Was the 1:28 set within a week or two of doing the 1:38 avg set?..or how far apart are we talking between the two sets you’re comparing? Fitness could be different (likely not 10", but could play a role in different avg times).
I think likely you just need to keep swimming on your own and learn to push harder solo over time It’s no different than cycling or running - most can do pretty close to/at maximal power output for a given set in those sports solo - why not swimming? There’s no secret.
I think the biggest advantage in the water to having a team around you is you get immediate feedback to minor technique changes (via changes in your speed) when pacing next to other equal/slightly faster paced swimmers.
