Lately I’ve been swimming more than ever before in my life or ever thought possible and I have some insights for you. This is the first time I’ve ever consistently held quality 60-65K per week for longer than one week at a time with a couple of easier weeks in between for recovery. Amazingly enough, it’s been easy for me. One thing I learned right away, and learned more from Dr. Jim Miller at the OW Conference about, is proper nutrition is key. I never used to bother feeding unless it was 10K or farther. This time, I’ve been feeding (Maxim + Hammer Endurolytes) before, during and after all of my workouts, always making sure to have a carbohydrate feed immediately following each workout. Next day recovery every time – even from 15 – 20K ocean swims in rough and windy conditions. I even feed during pool workouts now – my quality stays up where it belongs and I can recover in time for my afternoon ocean swim.

I massage wintergreen oil into sore muscles before retiring at night and healing is overnight.

Mentally, I have no trouble recovering if I’ve finished my scheduled workout(s) for the day. It’s when I don’t finish that I have trouble letting it go. Rewards for finishing are good…biscuits & gravy or In’N’Out Burger, for example. Right now I’m getting ready to mac out on some chocolate truffle filled cookies as a reward for my 15K ocean swim this afternoon.

Best,

Anne

In terms of the science, I am not sure I can be much help with this…and you probably know more about the research in this field than I do. I think the best source I saw about this is in Penny Dean’s book. She could probably get the original research results for you. She has some information from studies conducted in the flume with open water swimmers that swam long swims on multiple days. They performed core biopsies and looked at glycogen levels to gauge recovery. They were testing the effects of hydrating with water or gatorlode if I remember correctly and the ability to perform well on subsequent swims and recover was significantly better if they were fed gatorlode. So feeding correctly helps recovery.

In terms of training or racing back to back races, I think that the athletes get better at recovering as they become more experienced. After every 10K, Eva seems to recover better than the last time. The first few 10Ks she was sluggish for most of the week after the race and we took 4-5 days to help her recover. Now she just makes sure she gets a good warm-down after the race and we get a good day of recovery swimming in and she is pretty much on track for training at normal levels on the second day after the race. The 25K last year affected her speed for about 1 month. I think if she did it again, she would probably be up and going with in 1-2 weeks. I think a third time and she might be able to recover with in a half week or so. We did a set of 30x 1000 once and it took 3 weeks to get speed back again, so I do think the 25K or 30,000 yard sets take a longer time to recover. However, my guess is, the more races you do, the better your body gets at recovery…another argument for getting open water swimmers to race as much as possible…rather than skipping races such as world championships!!

I hope this helps!

Jack

“yes of course if you want.but really we do this very often.also angela adn even our “nutrition manager” says that its good after the race to recovery fast.of course we dont eat this all the time.”

yes.i go to mc donalds after the race.seriously because then i get back all my energy.i do this since years and in this eating there are the calories,carbs and everything.also it tastes good and not like all the energy drinks before the race.

i try to swim down and get massage.also on the next day easy swimming but at the end of the season like some 100m like between 5-8*100m free average 1:03-05.not fast but not too easy just that the muscles need to work a little bit.

Cold swims

My uncle, who I do my ocean training with, and I have perfected this one! On the physical side, we have two milk gallons filled with warm water (I bring from my shower at home) in an insulated bag so they stay warm. After a chilly winter swim we rinse with these and almost always feels like the best shower we’ve ever had. We change into warm clothes, fuzzy slippers, and walk across the street to the Starbucks to get a warm drink. On the way home we drink that and blast the heat so we warm up from the inside and the outside. Mentally (this part is just me), after each swim I go over my goal for that swim and assess how I did, reflect on anything else that happened or I dealt with during the swim, decipher what I learned from taking time out of my life to do that, and how I can get better next time. I write down a short summary when I get home.

Long swims

Mentally, I do the exact same thing on my long training swims. I do it in the pool also, and think that’s a key part of training and improving. Physically, after a long swim (6 hrs plus, and including marathon swims), to physically recover I drink more of whatever I was feeding on immediately after to recover faster. Then I drink a ton of water (I usually feel dehydrated). I eat as soon as I feel up for it (but don’t wait more than 2 hours if I can help it) and it’s usually a balanced mix of carbs-protein-fats, like eggs with cheese, veggies, avocado, toast, etc. Something like that. I ice my shoulders as soon as I can, and if necessary take an anti-inflammatory (only if still in pain after the swim). If I can get someone to give my shoulders and back a rub I will…I usually feel better the next day if I can. A full night’s sleep, and sometimes even more than 8 hours, I find helps tremendously in recovery if you can afford the time.

I hope I’m not too late with this reply and sorry for the slow get back. (I’ve been busy catching up from our two recent o/s trips and training hard for my next swim). I’m not sure if I’m going to be any help either, but I’ll give you my thoughts.

I’m sure if I was a professional athlete, i.e. world 10k champs, Olympics etc type swimmer my attitude to recovery would be far different and a lot more professional.

But as a mature age swimmer who swims for personal challenge and fun, recovery is close to the bottom of my list of priorities.

After spending months organising the swim, boats, crew, flights, accommodation, training and of course working to pay for the swim/trip, which doubles our vacation. Once the swim has finished my thoughts turn to enjoying the remaining days of our holiday in a different fashion. We are not ones for sitting around on the beach for days on end so we generally keep busy enjoying and discovering the area we’re in. We usually do some walking and even continue to swim most days, though it’s usually just a short swim, or even just some fun body surfing, but if the day has other things in it and there’s no time swimming well that’s ok too. I find this is a good way to recover mentally, by switching off all together and not feeling guilty that I should be doing X amount of kilometres per day. This is actually about the only time I take a break from training.

Once we return home from our trip we’re straight back into training and I certainly do find that the longer the time I rest (up to a week or so) before returning to full training the more quickly I recover. I feel as a mature swimmer we do need to allow a little more time to recover than a younger swimmer.

I think a massage is definitely beneficial especially if I can get one in the first day or two after the swim, but am careful that it’s not too deep. I find massage certainly helps to get that lactic acid moving along.

I eat well after my swim, if weight has been gained for the swim this is not the time to try to lose it. Eat well and recover first, enjoy the break and worry about your weight later. In fact I feel that I eat constantly for about three days after a long swim.

Short term recovery.

After my Santa Barbara Island to mainland swim last September I’d been awake for over a day (actually about 36 hours) and had swum for 18 hours but still wanted to take my crew out for dinner after my swim. I returned to my room, showered and changed then went to the restaurant, at this point I started to feel very tired, unwell and not like eating or socialising at all. When asked what I’d like to drink all I felt like was a Sprite or 7 Up, I was given a pint, I drank it and then another I felt it really replaced my fluids, was kind to my salt burned tongue and gave me some well earned energy, I felt fine, I couldn’t believe the turnaround in the way I felt, I ate all my food and socialised with my crew. I was so impressed I’ve now added flat Sprite or 7 Up to my feed schedule, just for a change every four hours or so.

Best Regards,

Penny

On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 10:38 AM, Steven Munatones wrote:

I am writing an article how people recover after open water swims (cold-water swims, warm-water swims, short swims, marathon swims, pro swims, solo swims) – including both physical and mental recovery for swimmers of every age.

If you have any preferences, ideas or proven formulas, please send them at your convenience.

Thank you very much in advance.

From Steven Munatones

Copyright © 2010 by Steven Munatones