Suggested Pool Workouts for an Injured Runner

A good place for ideas..

http://ruthkazez.com/50swimworkouts.html

I missed a load of time this winter/spring.

All of these are 10-15 min warm up/cool down depending on how long you want to go.

1) 10min-8-6-4-2min with half rest

2) 10-12 x 3min on, 1.5 off

3) 1-2-3-4-5-5-4-3-2-1 with half rest

4) 4-7-12-7-4 w/ half rest

These are just my coach's favorites. You really can to whatever you prefer. Make sure to mix it up and keep the rest minimal--you recover from each rep more quickly in the pool than running. Good luck.

Subject: SWIMMING TRAINING DURING INJURY

Ladies and Gentlemen,

During a time of injury we do not sit idly by and say woe is me. We become extremely proactive.

We have to involve Dr's, Physiotherapists, Chiropractors Trainers, Parents and Friends in the process of rehabilitation. This includes asking for the use of an indoor pool or going to one that is nearby from a commercial or school standpoint. If its the summer there are plenty of pools open, this is mostly for the cold months..

If you live in the boondocks, one way to find out who has an indoor pool is to call the local pool service or building company.

Tell them you are interested in an indoor pool and do they have any references of people who you can visit and see the pool. Then go by tell the person your situation and offer to mow yards or rake yards in exchange of pool time. The worst thing that can happen is that the person says no. The best thing is that they say yes.

The end result is a pool close by . The utilization of people in the community is your best source of information and help. If you don't ask, no one knows what your wants are.

I think the next week needs to be spent working your ass off and being committed to defending your aquired fitness. To do this you will need confidence and a positive attitude. I do not want you feeling sorry for yourself.

Lets get cracking on the work.

For the first 5 days I need you to do this twice per day.

Start with 4 laps of easy swimming I assume you will be using a 25 meter pool. (100m)

Then you will need a kick board and a set of pool buoys. These are two foam 4" diameter cylinders that are approximately 6-7" long. They will need to be both connected together with surgical tubing obtainable from the local pharmacy.

These will be placed in your crotch as a floatation aide when you are not using the kickboard.

1 lap equals up and back in a 25m pool

Now I want you to alternate ( kick board/ pool buoy )

5 x 50m of kicking using the kick board under your chest,up and back in the pool. This is 50m.

( Kick using your ankles mostly ) (250m)

Then ditch the board and put on the pool buoys.

Swim 5 x 50m easily to recover with no leg kick. Freestyle is the most relaxing and as you know its arm pull only. Be deliberate and smooth, concentrate on breathing in and out on each stroke ( 250m )

This will be 5 laps of kickboard and 5 laps of pool buoy

This is the easy part of the workout.

Now I want you to run in the deep water of the pool without your feet touching bottom.

Just stay on the edges and traverse the pool's outside edges.

You have to do a lap and the REST RECOVERY IS 3 MINUTES.

You have to do 5 laps

.

Then repeat the kickboard and pool buoy routine. ( 250 + 250 )

Finish with 4 laps of easy swimming. ( 100m )

When you finish you will be very tired to say the least

You will have completed 1200m consisting of 200m of easy swimming and 500m of kickboard and 500m of pool buoy swimming

Make sure you finish off with a cool shower and a Protein based smoothie within 20 minutes.

During your rehab time

Eliminate as much high glycemic index foods,

watch out for saturated fats and

nail the proteins and veggies.

Drink orange juice and make sure you are staying hydrated with 1 gallon of water per day.

Take your anti inflammatory meds exactly as prescribed.

ONCE YOU HAVE COMPLETED THESE 5 DAYS OF WORK DESCRIBED ABOVE YOU ARE READY FOR WHAT IS TO COME. I EXPECT YOU TO DO THIS WORK TWICE PER DAY MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY.

ONCE THE 5 DAY BREAK IN PERIOD IS COMPLETE WE WILL SWITCH TO THE FOLLOWING WORK LOAD

In the AM.

DO THIS WORKOUT EVERY DAY

100m of easy swimming to warm up

5 laps (250m) of kickboard with 1 minute recoveries ( these are hard )You are trying to go fast on these ( up and back )

5 laps (250m) of pool buoy swim relaxed and breathe deeply make sure you are exhaling underwater completely (up and back)

5 laps (125m) THESE ARE 25m LAPS of underwater swimming.

DO NOT SWIM FROM THE SHALLOW TO THE DEEP END ( One Way Only )

ALWAYS SWIM FROM THE DEEP TO THE SHALLOW END.

100m easy swimming.

p.s. You can alternate each of the above so that they become mini sets

TOTAL WORKOUT VOLUME 825m

MONDAY PM

100m easy swimming

5 laps kick board (250m)

5 laps pool buoy (250m)

5 x 3 minutes FAST WATER RUNNING in the deep end. Run to collapse each time.

Recovery = 90secs - 2 minutes minutes easy kicking holding on to the side of the pool

5 laps kick board (250m)

5 laps pool buoy (250m)

100m easy swimming

1200m

TUESDAY PM

100m easy swimming

5 laps kick board

5 laps pool buoy

30 minutes steady run in the deep end of the pool start easy and meter your effort so that each 5 minutes gets a little harder. The last 5 minutes should be BTTW/OTTW

5 laps kick board

5 laps pool buoy

100m easy swimming

1200m

WEDNESDAY PM

100m easy swimming

5 laps kick board

5 laps pool buoy

5 minutes 4 minutes 3 minutes 2 minutes 1 minute Each BTTW

REST RECOVERY IS 2 minutes.

5 laps of underwater swimming.( One Way Only )

100m easy swimming 825m

DO NOT SWIM FROM THE SHALLOW TO THE DEEP END

ALWAYS SWIM FROM THE DEEP TO THE SHALLOW END.

THURSDAY PM

100m easy swimming

5 laps kick board

5 laps pool buoy

20 X 1 MINUTE RUNNING IN THE DEEP END ALL OUT EFFORT

Recover 1 minute after each

5 laps kick board

5 laps pool buoy

100m easy swimming

1200m

FRIDAY PM

100m easy swimming

5 laps kick board

5 laps pool buoy

30 Minutes increasing pace run start at approximately 60% effort and each 5 minutes ramp it up until the last 5 minutes feels like you are in a war zone

5 laps of underwater swimming. ( One Way Only )

100m easy swimming

825m

DO NOT SWIM FROM THE SHALLOW TO THE DEEP END

ALWAYS SWIM FROM THE DEEP TO THE SHALLOW END.

Saturday Take a rest day. Go to the flattest grass area and attempt to jog three ( 3 miles )

Do not wear a watch or HR MONITOR.

JUST SEE IF YOUR INJURED LEG FEELS BETTER

Just use it as a test to see how smooth you are moving

To rehab in water you are capable of a lot of work without getting hurt. Its a different set of muscles and you will feel initially more fatigued than you actually are. To test this theory wear your HR monitor but do not press any of its buttons in the water. You will find that the HR is about 10-20 beats lower than when land running.

This is a bunch of hard work and lots of time commitment on your part. Failure to give yourself the best chance at success is something only you can decide on.

Take a jam box with you set your favorite music going and keep it away from the edge of the pool.

Make sure you keep your water bottle on the pool deck to stay hydrated during the workout.

Chris

Most of these exercises noted are done with the feet in a plantar flexion position (toes pointed toward the ground). The forward pressure of the water will force your feet into this position and will aggravate plantar fasciitis. The only exception here is the deep water pool running which you can do in a dorsi flexed position, i.e. with the toes pointed up, towards the shin. The dorsi flexed position wont aggravate a PF injury but you must be careful to maintain that position since the pressure of the water will naturally force the foot downward into a plantar flexion position. So, deep water running with the foot in a dorsi flexed position is the only safe exercise for someone with PF. I'm not sure about the other injuries.

I can't imagine how a knee injury would prevent you from aqua jogging. Aqua jogging is done in the deep end of the pool; your feet never touch the ground and it is completely non-weight bearing. It is just as non-impact as swimming.

HL wrote:

I can't imagine how a knee injury would prevent you from aqua jogging. Aqua jogging is done in the deep end of the pool; your feet never touch the ground and it is completely non-weight bearing. It is just as non-impact as swimming.

Although pool running in the deep end is completely non-impact, dont forget that your tendons, ligaments and joints are still working against the force of the water. I would see a competent doc and let him/her guide you regarding pool running and your injury. I intuitively thought that deep end pool running was OK for the PF injury until I asked my doc about it. It can be OK with a PF injury but only if done right.

Dude....it is PULL buoy....not Pool. And if you are ONLY swimming from deep to shallow.....how do you get back to the other end of the pool? And WHY can you NOT swim from shallow to deep?

Injured guy......use an aqua jogger in the deep part of a pool. Not real difficult.

yeah and don't bend your legs like the running motion. you're supposed to keep your legs stiff and rigid. also helps you stay afloat in case you're too tough to use an aqua jogger...

former cali girl wrote:

if you are ONLY swimming from deep to shallow.....how do you get back to the other end of the pool? And WHY can you NOT swim from shallow to deep?

That part made me lol too... As did some of his math.

I have a knee cartilage injury that hurts like hell aqua jogging--sometimes it only matters how much you bend your knee, and is not about weight bearing. I can swim and even walk on an incline or elliptical are fine, but biking or aqua jogging, not so much. Luckily, you can get a really hardcore workout from swimming in not too much time if you are as bad at swimming as I am.

Do 10x 3min hard of aqua jogging with 1min rest. It's like doing a small tempo.

Pfitzinger has a 9-week schedule from which you can get some ideas for pool workouts:

http://www.pfitzinger.com/labreports/water.shtml

Can you guys read, the guy says he CAN'T AQUA JOG! All these aqua jogging workouts don't help the OP.

former cali girl wrote:

Dude....it is PULL buoy....not Pool. And if you are ONLY swimming from deep to shallow.....how do you get back to the other end of the pool? And WHY can you NOT swim from shallow to deep?

He's talking about swimming underwater. When I do these, I swim underwater 25 m in one direction and then swim a slow recovery 25m in the other direction. Repeating this 4-5 times takes the wind out of me so I assume that it is doing something for my aerobic capacity.

As for the direction (deep to shallow), I have no idea what he's talking about...

Underwater swimming? I missed that. That makes sense of the deep to shallow, it is easier to start underwater in deeper water then go shallow than the other way around. I wouldn't recommend that, lifeguards hate underwater swimmers, they are very difficult to see and they can get into trouble quickly.

I also missed the no aquajogger part. And frankly, if it hurts to use an aquajogger....maybe the OP should be doing something that does not involve his legs at all.....or better yet, resting the knee.

haha, you beat me to it; except, I was gonna say birthday sex in the pool, and then again in the hot tub, and then back in the pool. "Every day's my birthday; so, SURPRISE, let's have birthday sex!"

I recently sprained/strained the MCL, LCL, and illotial band and also suffered a bone contusion in my left knee and had to stay in the pool while training for a tri so I know what you're talking about with aquajogging not feeling good.

If you want, you can train, but most importantly, let that knee heal up fully. There's nothing worse than working hard now, getting in great shape, and then finding out a few months down the line that you simply aggravated it with your training.

When swimming, I stuck to JUST freestyle because it was the only stroke which didn't hurt, but you do whatever feels comfortable to you. A few of the workouts I was doing were stuff like this:

8X200 with 2 minutes rest. Decrease time by 5 seconds every 2.

3X600 with 4 minutes rest. Did these based on my discomfort, not time.

For a fun aerobic workout, do some longer stuff, like try out what it feels like to do a mile swim, or something like a 20 minute swim, just to get your body used to a sustained workout. Not sure what kind of swimmer you are (where you're at with swimming) so I don't want to give you terribly painful workouts.

Most importantly just make sure you take care of that knee. Good luck with your training.

I am a college track coach, and I also ran college track. I have had a lot of injuries, one of them being some pretty serious knee injuries. I used the pool a lot, but just bending my knee bothered it. So what I did was I "crossed country skied" in the water. Its a great upper leg workout. Make sure your torso is upright, and if you really want a workout don't use the aqua joggers, if you are moving fast enough you shouldn't need one. When I have my athletes do pool workouts I don't let them use one.

good luck

THanks so much for the suggested swim workout, you are a lifesaver! It is great to have a plan instead of just aimlessly cross training. I finally feel like I am doing something proactive while I can't run! Only one question, is all kick board done on your back? I just noticed it said on your back and I have been doing it the opposite way.