Swimming Training More Than Once A Day?

Triathlon Forum
1

Hello All,

While I understand that training is specific to experience, age groups, and fitness levels …

I am wondering if I could improve my swimming training by swimming more than once a day …

Swimming at a nearby YMCA, (no masters program) about 10 min drive, outdoor 25 meter pool, and could easily add another swim session to my schedule, or even 3x a day.

Swimming 2K meters each day now, with a day or two off each week, and will move up to 2.5K m in a couple of weeks.

Swimming about 1:50/100 m at start and 2:04/100 m at end, some with small pull buoy and some without.

Swim 500m sets, except for one set of 5x100’s on :15.

The times get a little faster each week.

I recover nicely now with no shoulder issues (so far) and wonder if doing 2x day (morning and evening) might impact recovery, even if I split up to 1.5K m workouts?

I am self coached now but will start with a Masters swim group, a 30 minute drive each way, when I can do about 3.0K each day, as they go longer and faster than me now - even the slow guys.

The goal is to improve my IM swim time.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Neal

2

Look, I am no expert. Swimming twice a day has it’s place, no doubt.
I would suggest that you build your individual swims to at least one of them at 5000y/m, one at 4000y/m with a lots of meaningful sets, before you add swimming twice a day. Second swim workout in a day for you can only be a recovery swim, not a great investment of time.
Just my 2 cents.

3

You should focus on technique rather than giving more time, it can cause you different problems.

spend most of your time on your edge or side, not on your belly! Imitate a sharp knife, on the edge of the blade, not a big soup spoon. Good freestyle, both swimming and drilling, requires you to rotate or roll your body along your “long-axis” or spine. You should also try to take breaths on alternate sides to help promote this good body roll.

Try to learn more techniques…

4

Swimming is as low impact of a sport as you can get. It’s common for the college kids to spend 4-6 hours in the water in a day spread over two practices because the body can handle that kind of stress.

You just need to be sure you’ve got your technique really dialed down because doing high volume incorrectly is what leads to injury.

5

Agree that longer single workouts may be a good idea here.

To the point of focusing on stroke, may I suggest the morning workout being “easy” and focusing strictly on stroke and technique (lots of drills, etc.)? Then your afternoon workout being the longer sets for fitness STILL focusing on what you worked on in the AM.

Just a thought…could be a good thing if you really have all that free time on your hand.

6

Neal - while there are times in many of our lives that two-a-days make sense, but for most triathletes it does not. If for no other reason than time management, adding another drive to/from the pool, opportunity for the skin to dry out, etc., in my opinion you could more wisely use that time for a dkifferent triathlon improvement purpose or just to go get the dry cleaning.

If your stroke is sound, you can certainly slowly add distance to the work out. But, no offense intended here, at only 1:50/100m maybe the intensity side of the equation might get further emphasis. Can you find a swimming buddy, someone faster than you? Any local coaching available? Maybe a "Total Immersion Weekend?

In my younger days when I swam over 100k/month, it was all one work out/day. Best of luck.

7

I believe once a day should do, if you wanted to do other swim specific improvements, maybe a dryland strength program designed for freestyle would be a valuable addition. This over time will provide you with more strength and speed in the water. You can always add some additional time once or twice a week on drills, stroke technique, practice lifting the head up to sight your way (simulated open water swim or if you have open water in the area, that would be best). Working out with a Masters team is highly recommended to get coaching to improve technique. Asking for help along with specific drills so when you do a second workout by yourself, you will have all you need. Good luck!
.

8

I suspect some may not realize “nealhe” is the Boulder Center of Sports Medicine manager of the phys lab & personal coach of Taylor Phinney, former pro triathlete & his credentials go on & on. These are likely emails people send him asking advice & the manner which he presents them on ST appears like it is him asking. Seems like these are conversational bits to get various input for some reason or another. Which is good…it gets people thinking & out of the often negative/bashing ST mentality which is common on the forum. Figured I’d throw that out there for grins…this guy posting more than knows the real answer…he really knows his stuff! If I’m wrong then neal will correct me.

9

Well, if Rocky M is telling the truth here, good for you. You have the answer to your question.

10

Some of us non-fish people learn a bit from these threads too. :slight_smile: Thanks.

11

I’d say you need to do two things before you think about two-a-days swimming. The first is increase your distance per session up to 4-5k, and the second is to swim faster, closer to 1:30/100m.

12

Hello Rocky M and All,

Nope, I am not my namesake Neal Henderson in Boulder ----- I live in Escondido, CA.

I wish I knew as much as the Boulder Neal - and I hope I don’t look so uninformed I besmirch our name.

I am a retired airline pilot, and in my salad days was a USMC fighter pilot, and did a stint as chairman and CEO of a small computer corporation for 5 years.

I have been involved in various private aircraft projects developing and selling new equipment.

Now I am going to IM Kona again in October 2010 75-79 Age group.

Last IM Kona I did not finish the swim (I was too complacent - swam 1:26 IM FL 2008 - and 1:39 IM AZ wetsuit) and should have trained more.

I got leg cramps and got pulled at 2:20 with about 75 yards to go to finish. I had trained a lot for bike and run but it did not do me much good if I could not finish the swim.

This year I am going to improve my swim - a lot - if all goes well.

As you can see below in my age group swim times are not fast - and the IM Kona winner last year had a 2:12 swim.

Brockenbrough, Roger 7/3/1 75/M75-79 02:12:52 07:18:47 05:00:47 14:47:53
Scott, Bob 2/1/2 79/M75-79 01:48:44 07:15:03 06:05:26 15:24:17
Endo, Suimo 1/2/3 75/M75-79 01:32:55 07:49:41 06:06:01 15:47:34
Hollander, Lew 3/4/4 79/M75-79 01:52:12 08:08:54 06:38:43 16:52:29
Wolfgram, Edwin 4/–/-- 76/M75-79 01:57:37 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
Harter, Bill 5/–/-- 76/M75-79 02:01:15 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
Linder, Bill 6/–/-- 75/M75-79 02:01:19 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
Knor, Franz 8/–/-- 77/M75-79 02:22:59 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
Cokan, France --/–/-- 78/M75-79 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
Henderson, Neal --/–/-- 76/M75-79 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00

Scott, Bob 1/1/1 77/M75-79 01:47:02 07:10:28 05:40:17 14:49:48
2
Hollander, Lew 3/2/2 78/M75-79 01:47:42 07:40:46 06:43:08 16:28:23
3
Roberts, Lyle 4/3/3 77/M75-79 01:59:05 07:51:54 06:25:51 16:29:07
4
Wolfgram, Edwin 2/4/4 75/M75-79 01:47:32 08:06:15 06:42:50 16:48:22
5
Leonard, Loren 5/–/-- 79/M75-79 02:18:25 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
6
Cokan, France --/–/-- 77/M75-79 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00

Cokan, France 10/2/1 76/M75-79 02:11:06 07:05:02 05:21:19 14:55:19
2
Hollander, Lew 1/1/2 77/M75-79 01:38:34 07:26:31 06:26:58 15:46:36
3
Roberts, Lyle 4/3/3 76/M75-79 01:51:09 07:50:42 06:01:47 15:58:46
4
Knor, Franz 5/4/4 75/M75-79 01:55:09 08:11:00 06:11:20 16:31:45
5
Hunter, Richard 3/6/5 76/M75-79 01:50:15 08:28:36 06:08:58 16:42:15
6
Scott, Bob 2/5/-- 77/M75-79 01:41:40 08:24:37 00:00:00 00:00:00
7
Weagle, Cy 6/–/-- 76/M75-79 01:56:00 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
8
Fredericks, Art 7/–/-- 75/M75-79 01:57:04 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
9
Leonard, Loren 8/–/-- 78/M75-79 02:05:08 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
10
Farrar, Frank 9/–/-- 78/M75-79 02:07:42 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00

15:30:50 197 Cokan, France USA 2:05:47 7:11 7:45:45 8:35 5:23:35
2 15:36:17 195 Hollander, Lew USA 1:50:11 5:52 7:25:12 7:39 6:07:25
3 15:42:45 198 Roberts, Lyle USA 1:51:35 7:17 7:35:41 6:59 6:01:15
4 15:52:09 196 Scott, Bob USA 1:52:28 4:53 8:07:12 5:47 5:41:52
5 16:51:50 194 Allen, Winston USA 1:26:15 9:17 8:04:44 13:08 6:58:27
6 DNF 190 Albrecht, Bill USA 1:57:48 5:30
7 DNF 191 Kim, Hong Gyu KOR 2:16:38 8:57

Cokan, France 6/4/1 75/M75-79 02:05:47 07:45:45 05:23:34 15:30:50
2
Hollander, Lew 2/1/2 76/M75-79 01:50:11 07:25:11 06:07:25 15:36:17
3
Roberts, Lyle 3/2/3 75/M75-79 01:51:35 07:35:40 06:01:14 15:42:45
4
Scott, Bob 4/5/4 76/M75-79 01:52:28 08:07:12 05:41:51 15:52:09
5
Allen, Winston 1/3/5 76/M75-79 01:26:15 08:04:44 06:58:27 16:51:50
6
Albrecht, Bill 5/–/-- 79/M75-79 01:57:48 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
7
Kim, Hong Gyu 7/–/-- 79/M75-79 02:16:38 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
8
Farrar, Frank --/–/-- 77/M75-79 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00
9
Leonard, Loren --/–/-- 77/M75-79 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00 00:00:00

Cheers

Neal

13

Good for you and good luck in Kona. 75-79 - impressive. I hope to be able to walk to the fridge and wipe my own a$$ at 75-79

More importantly - Thank you for your previous USMC service.

14

it would be better to swim more frequently throughout the week than double up.

if you want to get better, youve got to swim 4 times a week. you can maintain pretty well on 3.