Training with learning how to swim

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello Everybody,

So I’ve known Derek Miles for a long time and he was my coach for about 1 year. The basic question that I have is the following. I currently train 4/5 days a week, but am looking to learn how to swim freestyle (I can already swim breaststroke). My question is very simple: Is it possible to train 4 days a week and do say 1/2 swimming sessions a week? Of course, if one is an 18-year old college student with little life responsibilities this is probably very possible, but as adults we all have responsibilities/life stress which make it less tenable.

I’m job hunting at the moment, which means apart from interviews/interview prep I have a lot of time on my hands. My sleep and stress are good (sleep about 9 hrs a night). With regards to swimming/endurance, for the past year or so I’ve been going to the beach on the weekends to snorkel for about 15/30 mins. In addition, I get around mostly by bike, so I don’t think I’m coming from a bad place.

Do you think this is feasible from a recovery/gains standpoin: Train 4 days a week, with possibly 1/2 days swim. In the gym, I’ll do the following. For simplicity I’ll keep the reps/RPE stuff out of it, but let’s just say each exercise will be 3 sets.

Day 1:
Clean
Squat
3 accessory exercises

Day 2:
Bench
3 accessory exercises

Day 3:
Deadlift
3 accessory exercises

Day 4:
OHP
3 accessories

Lastly, what would you recommend from a diet standpoint? Increase calorie intake?

2

Given that you are generally quite active and have good sleep, I think this this setup looks fine and is reasonable. You may need to adjust loading by RPE targets early on, depending on how the swimming impacts you (particularly from the upper body standpoint), but that is not a problem long-term.

I don’t have any specific recommendations on the diet standpoint without knowing more about your current weight/waist circumference/body composition and your goals. The most likely answer is that you probably won’t need to change much, at least not drastically.

3

Hi Austin,

Thanks for your reply. Regarding diet, I’m about 6"1.5, 177lbs with a waist of 31". My body composition is prolly something like 13-16% body fat. In terms of body composition goals, I’d like to be leaner as I think it would help with my swimming.

4

If you would like to be leaner, then it would not make sense to increase calorie intake. I’d probably stick at your “usual” / maintenance intake while you make these changes to your training and see how things go before adjusting further.