Improving as an adult- how many hours?

Mad_m is right - your times are very good for someone who has taken up swimming later in life.

I wouldn't think even the top masters swimmers in Ireland are doing 10 hours / week, maybe the best in Europe/World are but they have an added advantage in that they would have been top of the game in their youth so their minds and body's know what is involved.

I swim 4/5 sessions per week and like yourself have more than one coach and It has been mentioned to me recently that I should really stick with one, to achieve better results.

There are a few key things I think which will help you get your times down.

1) Train with swimmers who are as good or better than you and keep trying to swim with them.
2) Take at least 2 days rest per week.
3) Work on your stroke in the sense that keep thinking about what you are doing and try not to let it all fall apart when you get tired, if you find you have got sloppy in a set, you just pick it back up, no harm done.
4) Try working on pacing as opposed to going as fast as you can. If you always start fast, you will always get tired quickly and struggle thereafter.
5) Do one anaerobic session per week (pure speed and lactate).
6) Enter galas to have goals and PBs in race conditions to work on.

Hope this helps

Kurt Godel wrote: »

I was talking to a coach tonight, who said that an adult should spend 10+ hours a week in the pool to make significant improvements, and can then dial it back to 4 hours or so to maintain that level. I know this question is like "how long is a piece of string?", but I'm curious as to what sort of level adults here are swimming at, and how many hours they swim weekly for that return.

I'm 43, started swimming a couple of years back, and swim about 4 or 5 times a week. PB's (SC) are 100m 1:22, 200m 2:57, 400m 6:04, and 1,850m in 30 mins dead (for what thats worth). I have one coached session (Tri club), and one Masters session (much faster than me). I'd like to be able to do sets off 1:25 per 100m, (and get 100pb <1:10, 400<5:30) but am curious as to what extra time and work that might entail.

10hrs a week is an awful lot of swimming, in ireland you'd have kids doing maybe 13 or so that would be doing ag swimming, some at a national level and doing some land training strength sessions on top of that.

i swim 5 hours (5 sessions per week). It's a mix of basic endurance long sessions, some threshold type stuff and some drills and sprints. i do some masters swimming in the winter and pbs for this year are 29:50 for 50m free free, 1:06 for 100m free and 4:56 (in training, not a race) for 400m. At the masters events in ireland the top few guys would be doing those kind of 10 hour plus weeks, but the rest much less.

unless you've grown up swimming, doing 10 hours a week as an adult is way too much (imo) and you're probably going to end up with a rotator cuff or some other injury.

i do think core works adds a lot to a swimmer too.

respect on your times by the way, excellent for someone new to swimming like that.

Kurt Godel wrote: »

Great answer promethius, and thanks for putting in tangible numbers. So I guess my question to you is that you are hitting times that I would aspire to hit, while you maintain 5 hours a week. Do you think you could "up" your times by doing 10 hrs a week for (say) a month, and then maintain those better times with 4/5 hrs?

no, i don't think so to be honest but hard to say for sure since i've never done that level of training before. with swimming, the curve of improvement tapers off with time. So it's relatively easy to make the initial gains, but the quicker you get, the more difficult it is to cut more times. i coach swimming and have seen this a lot and it's always the same.

i think the best way you can continue to improve is to keep swimming with swimmers who are better than you and get pushed, i always try to do this myself, if im the quickest guy there, im not being stretched.

masters gala's are a great thing to be doing. really sharpens you up, you pick up a few tips, and as an old man said to me at one "you can train all you want son, but nothing focuses the mind like being told to get on your marks"

Hi Kurt, apologies I am actually asking you for advice here.

I am pretty new to swimming too. I started out last year with an adult group class and then joined in with a tri clubs swimming sessions for improvers.
I am swimming a 400m in around 7.00.

My technique could do with improving and my kick is close to non-existent. I am just wondering if you could advise on how you dropped your times.

Did you get private lessons? and what is your technique like now?

Oh and can you tumble turn?

Hey knee jerk cannot recommend a good masters session enough. I started swimming a few years ago training for my first tri and would have been thrilled to hit 1:45 pace for 400m in my first year :cool: Well done on that progress!

I've never had 1-1 coaching but have generally swam with a group containing much faster swimmers than I since taking it up and it has really helped. I generally swim on average 3-4 hours per week. I started from scratch in 2008 and I'd be around 5:40 (LC) for 400m when fit these days.

The things that will make you a better swimmer, similar to Kurt's tips..

1. Love swimming! So many training for tris see swimming ass a necessary evil and wonder why they make little progress :rolleyes: It has got to be fun if you are going to stick with it

2. Consistency. Not just consistent sessions but consistent habits. I consistently observe the real swimmers in my group. I consistently keep just one technical point in mind for a session like high elbow, fingers at the catch, glide, roll and notice how that pointchanges when I get tired or when sprinting etc.. I consistently swim. I have my weeks of absence but I mainly hit the pool 2-3 times as week and the lake or river regularly during the summer.

3. Swim with a group. Masters groups usually have a predetermined set and its a fabulous way to get through work. Plus you tend to push yourself more amongst peers

4. Technique. Don't do drills for the sake of drills. Understand what they do and always follow up drills with steady swimming focusing on the point of that drill. Tune into your body. Keep doing the same thing and you will continue to get the same results.

5. Step out of the comfort zone regularly. Try other strokes. Lead out the lane. Challenge yourself with sets.

6. Get feedback on your stroke. I find it just as useful to ask those faster swimmers questions than a coach. Its cheaper and they don't bite! Having as coach give you feedback is great too, if you listen and apply what you learn thousands of times!

All of this will improve to a point!

@Back to the original topic of 10 hours per week. I see the high performance kids doing this and more but that's more or less all they do apart from a few land based sessions.

I've wondered myself if I've plateaued and what improvements one to one stroke coach or bigger volume would yield? I'd imagine bigger volume would obviously just mean hours upon hours of technique. As with adult learners, efficiency is the key problem and there are diminishing returns to increasing volume without stroke correction/development. The high performance kids seem to spent at least half their time doing some sort of drills before they get stuck into work.

10 hours swimming is a bigger investment of time than that when you consider the commute to and from the pool, changing etc..