I have back to back swimming events!! HELP!?

Question

Ok, in my swim meet finals, i have an event that is ten events after the other. That's not a lot of time. What is the best way to renew myself so i will do good and at full speed on my second event??

Answer 1

This should be plenty of time to prepare yourself. Dry off as quickly as possible and throw on a warm up after your first event to keep your body warm and your muscles from tightening up. Take some deep breaths and sit down and relax. Ten events should take about fifteen to twenty minutes depending on the event, which is actually quite a bit of time. Personally, I would be more concerned with your muscles tightening up between events than anything else.

Answer 2

First of all, my Master's degree is in physiology ... I've coached swimming for 30 years and had kids who were world ranked, national record holders and Olympians.

An important thing to remember is that in a swimming race is not like doing a triathlon or running a marathon. In those races, due to the length of time you are exercising, you run out of certain types of energy supplying chemicals. Unless your swim race lasts more than an hour, you do not run out of energy from food. Instead, you build up waste products from exercise. Those waste products interfere with the ability of your muscles to function. So, eating immediately before a swim race does you no good whatsoever.

Keep in mind that you need a very thorough warm-up (well over 1000 yards ... great swimmers do a 2500 to 3000 yards warm-up) BEFORE your first race. You should step onto the starting blocks as close to your finishing your warm up as you can. Your heart rate should still be elevated (up around 120) from your warm up when the beep goes off. Doing so means your muscles are working aerobically and that will reduce the accumulation of waste products in your muscles which will enable you to swim faster AND enable you to recover faster from your race. If your heart rate is not elevated then when you start your race, you'll be working anaerobically and you'll build waste products (lactic acid) and your muscles will not work properly.

Second, immediately after your race get right back in the water and swim at a comfortable speed (if you can do a 52 for a 100 crawl, you should be swimming at about a 1:05 pace which is 25% slower than your race pace --- .25 X 52 = 13 ... 52 + 13 = 65). Most world class swimmers will swim 1000 to 1500 yards/meters -- or even more -- after a race. You should 'cool down' until your heart rate is down to about 90 or less. The whole purpose of doing this is to reduce the production and eliminate waste products which interfere with muscle function.

You might also want to drink some cool (not cold) water between races.

If there is only about 20 minutes between your races, I'd suggest that you never get out of the water. Just keep the easy swimming going and wait for your next race.

After a race, you should never simply put your sweats on and walk away as waste products from your race efforts will stagnate and accumulate in your muscles and your muscles will not recover from your exercise and you will NOT be ready for your next race.

Bottom line is to get a thorough warm-up and cool down for all races.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Relax,just swim your first meet and then cool down and get ready for your second meet, just eat breakfast three hours ahead before you go to your meet, and if you don't have time for that just remember to eat litely and don't eat a plate of food right before getting into the pool or going to the pool in order to prevent you from getting leg cramps or any other types of cramps but just in case go talk to your coach about the things you can eat and cannot eat when swimming or simply before swimming just to be safe, and if he or she says its ok to eat than try to find something lite to eat according to the types of things your coach says its ok to eat but I don't usually eat before swimming at all but I might sometimes if there are chips i might get some to eat just make sure that you eat breakfast before going to the meet or school if that's where you have to go before you go to the meet to meet up with your teammates,so that you will have energy. So after your cool down just sit and relax and listen to music if your allowed to until its time for you to go and warm up for your second meet and so on but remeber that timing is the best thing that you can do when you swim that much, so all you have to do is swim to the beat of a song, it can be your favorite song that you use to pump you up and gives you the motivation that you need to keep going on, oh and remeber if you swim along to the beat of your favorite song you can also use it as your breathing technique and that way you won't get tired so fast, if you follow along with that beat and time yourself while breathing you'll not lose your breath just remeber to breath out through both your nose and your mouth at the same time a little bit at a time and slow and do that three times then take a breath of air you'll do great and you won't be gasping for a breath of air, just keep that in mind and you will do great!!! good luck!!! and have fun while your at it .

Answer 4

oh, thats bad. i was in an actual back to back 1 last week, it was horrible. work really hard on slowing ur breathing after the race, isotonic juice (like lucozade), and eat somethin really sugary like jelly babies (or a banana) 10 mins b4 each race so u can race on the sugar rush. works 4 me!