First Week of Four

After the last not that pleasant to read blog, let's to continue with something else. I call it absolute fun and  a life style, for some might be still... oh well... freaky.

As the swimming season comes to an end and there is not much time left to THE swim meet of the year, training becomes harder and harder. Do not think that for the rest of the year we swimmers just splash around and enjoy ourselves. Improving means pushing the limits. However at this stage the limits are pushed more often and we come further out of our comfort zone each time. With only few days left till Nationals things become more serious. After only one mesocycle (4 weeks of training) for 2011 behind my back  I decided to get more  out of my swimming and started recording my heart rate (HR). This way I can not only record how much effort I am putting into practice and how I recover but also can calculate the optimum amount of fuel (kcal) I put into it. I know all those calculators are not really 100% accurate. However they give you a good idea to begin with and you can follow up the changes. Also, for me, it is a motivation factor - not only I have to make my starting times in the pool and the reps in the gym but also I have to make sure that I it is all effective and the HR is perfect indicator. Honestly, I was absolutely shocked as I first recorded my HR. It was so damn high - 172bpm during the first set and an average  for the entire session of 132bpm. I wasn't surprised that I "died" (tired off) so quickly by the end of my swim. However during the warm down and 2 min afterwards my HR dropped quickly. I was relieved. It simply means that I am fit enough to go on with this intensity and volume. everything has a limit though. I was so lucky that last week was the 4th week of the last mesocycle, so I could take it a bit easier and rest.  I had only 3 swim sessions and one weight session. I even slept through the entire weekend and watched movies. I just felt like that.

So here am I again at the beginning of the new mesocycle, in the middle of the very first week. The intensity is not that high yet, but the sets are long, the rest is short and there are as good as no days off. I even survived the first triple training day- a 1,5h swim at the AM and a 1,5h swim followed by a 1h dry land session at the PM. My average HR for those sessions was 140bpm, resulting in about 2.100ckal burned. Adding also the 8 working hours in the office I had a very long day. I had 3x breakfast, 2x lunch, 1x afternoon snack , a huge dinner and it was still very hard to cover those calories. It is a very wrong conception that athletes can everything. You do not want those empty calories like white sugar, animal fats, chips etc. I don;t know how hard it could have been if I would be totally into McDonald's and KFC and struggling to eat healthy. I consider myself very lucky that I just prefer healthy food. Usual nutrition for me is oats meal for breakfast; fruits, preferably grapes, for a snack; carbs and salad for lunch; maybe yogurt for desert; whole wheat bread with peanut butter and honey for snack; and carbs, protein and salad for dinner. Sure I like cake (had it today, yumm), ice cream, french toast and similar, however it is more important how often you eat healthy food and how often you "cheat". The only thing you shouldn't give me is caffeine. Do you know Hammy from Over the Hedge? Well I am kind of similar. Give me coffee and you won't stand it being even 5min with me. I bounce of the walls so badly, that I cannot even use it as performance stimulant - My body pretends to have so much energy that I completely exhaust myself. It is one of those moments when I am repeating that I am not tired and jump around and in the next second I am firmly asleep.

Talking about training let me give you some details. Two blogs ago I mentioned my friend Jess, who is a biokineticist and helps me with my training. I am trying to train with her at least twice a week. She does completely different training than my swim coach. Both training is performance enhancing but the difference between a coach's training and a bio's training is so obvious. My coach does only swim specific dry land training, targeting muscle main groups, that are mostly involved in swimming, and he does a lot of sets of the same exercises. Jess does absolute functional training, targeting also smaller muscle groups, which support the big ones, doing less sets but bigger variety of exercises. Training with Jess, I am still in the stabilisation phase. And I was so happy to see the foam roll yesterday. It made me think "Yay, stretching". Well, we didn't stretch... at least not then. We did abs and oblique training on the foam roll. I was absolutely amazed. I am a personal trainer myself and I studied with the most functional orientated program ever for CPTs (NASM). But biokineticist are an absolutely different caliber. And the best part is, that I am not only training with a bio, but I am also gaining experience for my future as a personal trainer. Thank you Jess for the great support. I really appreciate it! :)










PS: If you want to use Jess' services a biokineticist please give he a call on 079 5325978.