Hello fellow trainerroadies, this is my 2nd year doing triathlon, 2nd year trying to stick to a TR training plan (with much better success than last year) and my 1st year joining a masters swim club.
I was just wondering how you guys who practice both sports, mix both disciplines. I find that in my current build phase (LV in order to accomodate my higher swim volume) i tend to not get much recovery in the legs due to having a schedule that’s like
monday: bike
tuesday: swim
wednesday: bike
thursday: swim
friday off
saturday: long bike
sunday: optional swim
The masters club practices tend to have quite a few kick sets… so i’m mixing vo2max, suprathreshold and threshold workouts on the bike with relatively intense swims. Do you have tips or pointers to be able to keep up with the work load, or is it just a “keep putting your time in and you’ll get used to it” kinda deal?
Swim workouts should not be crushing your legs. If the masters group is doing kicking, put some fins on and do gentle kicking.
If your training plan isn’t being looked over by an experienced coach, I’d probably also not suggest doing too much intensity in the pool, unless you’re doing a swim focused block and trying to get faster. I absolutely think you need to put in enough time in the pool so that you are fresh out of the water at your event, but doing a bunch of intensity while also trying to do intensity on bike and run can be too much for AG triathletes.
I rarely do the kick sets. If I do, I put the fins on. Partly as my kick is EXTREMELY slow. Partly as my swim days are recovery for the legs.
The intensity of the swims is not an issue for me anymore. I can do the really hard stuff, so long as the legs are allowed to rest. On truly killer weeks, I just have to go less at swim.
I don’t see running in your schedule. When do you do that?
@SeanH@dprimm
Now I know that for triathlons, the kicking isn’t an as important part of propulsion and acts more as a “floating” and positioning mechanic.
A lot of the kicking we do is with fins on already and within a month of going there twice a week, I find that my kick gets me across the pool a lot faster than it used to… So something is happening. I guess my hopes are that kicking will end up becoming less taxing by practicing it more and that’s why I’m not just skipping those sets.
I did bring it up to the master’s coach and she did say that I could replace those sets by swim or drills. But I still end up pushing myself.
So I guess what you guys are saying is to put the intensity on the discipline that I wanna focus on the most. Using the other one more for recovery.
Re: running, I’ve been trying to build a routine in order to stick to my training schedule and add components slowly. So I’ve been doing ssb1 and 2 mid volume since Oct, then I started build in January on low volume while I incorporate the swim.
For my running I’ll be adding it in April (March will just be having runs replaced by skip rope…) I was hoping my body would adapt to the loads of work better that way rather than just add all 3 disciplines at once.