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East Gorteau22261 Posts
In all sports, there are periods when practice gets intense. Sometimes, especially in swimming, these periods tend to coincide with the coach going nuts and adding another 8 practice sessions to the schedule. In my team, we call a week like that "Hell's Week" and though I don't believe in hell myself, I reckon that if such a thing exists, it is probably a lot like our practice sessions during those weeks - cold, wet (duh), quiet with only the screams of the coach breaking the silence...
Alright, so it's not actually that bad. Or actually, it is, but not right off the bat. This week, there are no lectures because almost all schools are off the week before easter, and there is very little SC2 for the writers to cover, which means that my week is essentially all swimming. The coach likes to stay updated on studies and other commitments, and given that there are none, he was free to create a week to fully utilise that. The schedule?
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Monday: 0530 - 0730 (swimming), 1200 - 1400 (swimming), 1630 - 1900 (swimming + 30m gym)
Tuesday: 0600 - 0815 (swimming), 1300 - 1445 (swimming), 1900 - 2100 (1h swimming, 1h gym)
Wednesday: 0800 - 1010 (swimming), 1600 - 1815 (swimming)
Thursday: 0600 - 0900 (2h swimming, 1h gym), 1700 - 1915 (swimming)
Friday: 0600 - 0800 (swimming), 1215 - 1415 (swimming), 1700 - 1900 (swimming)
Saturday: 0700 - 0930 (1h30m swimming, 1h gym), 1300-1500 (swimming), 1800 - 2000 (swimming)
Sunday: 0800 - 1000 (swimming), 1600 - 1730 (gym)
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I'd post a picture of the more detailed schedule, but it's in swedish and very blurry. Either way, this is how the week looks. Despite what it may look like (and what it sounded like to us when we heard that after all 18 sessions, we'll have swam some obscene number - 120,000m or something like that), I'm starting to think that the physical part of it is not actually what's tough about this, but rather the mental part. Eighteen practice sessions, almost 40 hours altogether. It's a lot, and even if it's not physically exhausting (though I suspect that it might end up being so, anyway), it's almost the equivalent of mental torture.
Not only is there the part about getting up early in the morning, which I never have and never will enjoy, there is packing the bag after downing a quick breakfast and driving to practice, swimming ~6500m and then rushing home to prepare for the next practice session. Even if it's not tough for the body, knowing that you'll be at it again in a few short hours is really tough.
I'll probably end up getting through this one as well, though I've never had a Hell's Week like this before, not even in the hardcore practice camps we go to once or twice each year. There is definetly some charm to it, despite all the hard work it takes - we're a tightly knit group of swimmers as it is, but with a week like this the supportive words and help in general that everyone is given when it looks like they need it (especially some of the more frail girls looked like they were about to die earlier today when we finished up a series of 50x50 fly, and they were immediately "taken care of" by those who weren't as tired) goes a long way, and really is quite heartwarming.
I normally don't post blogs that aren't interesting or about Life, so I'll round this up with a question for those of you who've actually been in a competitive sports environment: do you think a week like this is worth it, in any way? Unless you take really good care of yourself with food and rest, your body might end up being a wreck after 18 practice sessions in 7 days, but do you think the exercise in willpower is helpful in the long run, or is 18 sessions overkill? I'll go through with this anyway, but I'd like input from someone who doesn't get blasted with daily coaching propaganda.
I'll update you on the progress as the week goes on.
Cheers
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Good luck, it will be hard but seeing as you win money from this I think it may well be worth it ^_^
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Oof. I'm glad I stopped swimming when I did. Shit get's really hard.
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I'm already doing sports 3 x per week, 1 h per session, and I don't see how I could manage to keep up such a schedule cause mostly my muscles become inflammated (especially lower leg tendons from jumping) and sometimes back pain if I do some exercises wrong, especially involving weights. I'm not professional and not into swimming so idk if it will work out for you.
If your coach is good at calibrating the exercises in a way that he only trains a certain muscle group per session while another rests then it could work out.
It won't be a cardiovascular problem for you (you will feel the need to rest if you hit a limit) but in a rather short time you should start feeling your joints and muscles, unless you take stuff like aspirin to push you through that, needless to say you'd need a medic for such professional schedules. He would also be able to tell you best if that schedule is doable and healthy. A coach only has so much knowledge.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
What level are you swimming at? Jeeeez...
Kind of reminds me of my days in gymnastics where we would do ~20 hour weeks, burns you out 
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So....
You're an athlete-swimmer-starcraft-nerd-who-also-happens-to-know-how-to-write-well?
That's fucking OP.
At least I take pleasure knowing that you are a fan of  StarTale_Curious
a character flaw.
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Wow. This looks competitive. :D
I would fail during the first training session and for once that would have nothing to do with it starting at 5:30 (who the hell comes up with the idea of starting a two hour training session at 5:30).
Respect for what you're doing, I can swim maybe half an hour but that's it, I'm not a water guy.
I was in training camps for football, but we flew to Turkey and it was much more fun. :p
I think short-term there's definitely improvement with more focused training (at least I felt that way), also because you're with your teammates more often so the chemistry amongst each other is enhanced (ideally, obviously, counterproductive if you hate each other) but over the whole season the effect kinda wears off because you fall into the same routines as before and if you don't keep up a more demanding training schedule you might not get all too much out of it long-term.
For me personally your schedule would be complete overkill and there's no way I could follow it to the end, but that's probably just because I'm not used to that much physical exercise. I'm training three times a week at the moment, if I had training every day, I'd probably be fitter and in a better position to go through with such a schedule.
But I don't know exactly how that relates to swimming, you must be in sick physical shape anyway, that kind of schedule sounds heavily competitive.
I assume you'll be able to follow it. Zealously.
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I was on the varsity fencing team in college (national champion contender level), and the worst we ever had was I think a bit less that what you have: a week or so of 2 2-3hr practices a day with 30-60min private lesson maybe twice a week. Some of the real tryhards would hit the gym independently as well, but I was never that dedicated. So not quite as much as you're describing, also the coaches would be sure to let us have a day or a day and a half off before we actually traveled to the tournament.
Just from the sound of it, that schedule you have up there sounds borderline overboard. Definitely if you push yourself too hard and for too long you run a big risk of injury, and I saw people right before my eyes take bad falls during intense practice that ended up putting them out for weeks. However, I guess it really depends on the sport, and what your practices are like. Hopefully some of them will be lesser intensity, maybe focus a little on stuff like mindgames/strategy or teamwork? I dunno if that plays a role at all in swimming, it certainly was huge in fencing.
For sure though, it helps create a great team camaraderie, going through such a grueling schedule like that. And it definitely helps focuses you on your sport, for example, there's no way you can even consider going out and partying or drinking when you have rigorous training the next morning.
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I hope your coach knows what they are doing...and I hope you are a longer distance focus, because that practice schedule makes little sense for most swimmers other than as just a mental exercise from my experience (which does have value). I know in my old program we would never have touched that kind of thing, but we were sprint focused as well. The data from track and field (a much more studied sport), as well as newer swimming studies shows limited returns on the massive milage that lots of older competitive swimming programs used. Much better results were coming out of programs training near your race distance and at higher intensity, or at least that's what what coming out 5 years ago when I was a competitive swimmer. I haven't read newer research or kept up to date on swimming training methods so I won't judge.
Its really important to talk to your coach a ton and ask them why and what research and ideas they are basing their training on, down to the actual physiology and energy systems. There are way the fuck too many coaches out there who are basically bullshitting their way along or following someone elses 12 year old program. If you are committing as much time as it looks like to this, you gotta make sure you are following something and someone who is putting in an equal amount of effort into making sure you are spending that effort in the most scientific and efficient way possible.
My old club program was tiny compared to other area teams, but we had a seriously amazing coach who spent all his time keeping on top of the absolute latest advances in the sport. As a result we ended up doing like half the distance of many of the other programs, a lot more crosstraining, much higher intensity. The results spoke for themselves, we performed far better than any of these larger teams and over the time I was there we had many kids get truly absurd results and head off to nationals etc as well as all sorts of age group/state/regional records. The difference between that program and everything I had ever been a part of in the past made me a bit angry and almost embarassed for all the worthless coaches I had before. Its not a job with a lot of checks and balances, so you really have to self advocate and make sure you aren't basically throwing away all that effort you put into the sport.
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EPT
