Coach says track is pointless if I swim.

Larry, Curly and Moe wrote:

I completely agree with this says "the muscles and training are completely different."

No the muscles are the same. Yes the training is different.

How the muscles are used is entirely different.

another question semi on topic... run xc in fall.. basketball in winter.... outdoor track in spring.. thoughts?? is it different for males/females??

Some can balance both, you just need to get some running in during the winter.

I know Patrick Joseph from Virginia Tech, for example, swam during high school (though he was a much better runner, obviously).

TJ wrote:

another question semi on topic... run xc in fall.. basketball in winter.... outdoor track in spring.. thoughts?? is it different for males/females??

It depends on what your indoor track team does for training. If they run 10 miles per week like I know some programs do, you would be better off doing basketball.

moanswers wrote:

Downstairs wrote:

Why don't you swim but try and do a few days of easy running. Then when track starts you won't be completely out of it.

+1 Unless you are swimming doubles, why can't you swim in the morning and run in the afternoon? i find the combo of these 2 sports to be beneficial to running.

Another +1 here. Perhaps like you OP, I grew up swimming year round then picked up xc/outdoor in HS. I then switched to running full time after having similar deliberations, only sticking with the summer swim team (for social reasons) where the training was light. I then struggled with injuries for ~2 years (this is in HS), so don't discount the serious upsides of swimming - incredible aerobic strengthening without beating the hell out of your legs.

I eventually grew out of the constant injuries and went on to run decently in college (1440 5k, competitive d1 xc at conference/regional level) but always ended up back in the pool, voluntarily, to spare my legs - usually 1 day every 2 weeks during the school year and quite often during the summer distance buildup days. Swimming can be your superpower if you maintain it.

Your coach is full of shit and just wants you to do what s/he knows. If s/he had your best interest in mind, or knew anything about swimming, they wouldn't be pressuring you to quit. Staying healthy is half the battle, don't lose sight of that.

If you like swimming but want to be better at running, too, then keep swimming and just run some miles over the winter during swim season to keep your legs used to impact and to help build a little base. sure you might not be able to put in heavy mileage while swimming but there's no reason you can't get in easy mileage and some sprint or lifting work while you swim. I'd think you'd come into track season pretty dang fit and less injury prone (unless you dramatically increased mileage quickly, obviously).

I am throwing a huge BULL SHIT flag on your coach. He doesn't know what the hell is is talking about. I swam in the winter in high school and college and I ran on the highest level of D-1. I ran ~4:05 for the mile thru out college.

Swimming kept me healthy and strong. It gave me sub 55 sec 400 speed at the end of a mile in high school which was deadly. It gave me flexibility and kept me sane. Swimming allowed me to do 20-30 pull-ups at the end of a track session. Swimming makes it so you just don't have upper-body fatigue on the track.

You can't let your weight balloon and you do need to keep 10-20 miles a week of running. However, my senior year of high school I ran 3:51 in the 1500m, 9:05 in the 3200m and swam 5:00 for the 500yard and 1:55 in the 200yard free. Those are only ok times in swimming (no championships), but I lived at 5,000ft. I was perfectly happy and I went on to do triathlons for 20 years. I am 50 now and I am heading to OTILLO next year. Do what works for you and work hard. You will be healthy and happy as an adult. Only one of my college teammates even competes still. Most of them are old broken men. I attribute swimming to have gotten me thru a lot of injured periods in my life.

+1 . I didn't see this. Swimming is YOUR SECRET WEAPON! All swim run athletes with 20-40 years in there legs know this. Year after year, I just mix the swim run and just keep going. Most college runners are done by 35 if not earlier. My three kids are now swimming first and later I will let them run. Running is the last ingredient in my mind. First, team work and play, second, fully body strength and flexibility, then finally, after the first two are down down down, then running.

Continue to do both.

Ride your bike in the summer and you will be an awesome triathlete.

Your coach is pointless.

The biggest thing here is the fact that you don't do the strength training in swim. I was like you, I did all three sports year round, but we had a dedicated dry-land regimen. This tended to tone me up a bit more to be strong physically and aerobically for the track season. However, I do have to agree that you won't see the same potential curve that you would if you focused exclusively on running. Admittedly, I've seen this difference more in college where the coaching is far different in the winter period compared to most of who went self-coached during the winter period, especially those without an indoor season.

If it helps, my senior year of high school, I joined the swim team and took those practices relatively hard. I would really focus on getting an aerobic effort out of the swims, and a pysical effort out of the dry-land regimen. I also chose to run to my swim practice (we swam at an external pool), and this added 4-6 miles daily to and from swim practice. So I was doing about 25 miles a week (not extremely quality of course) in addition to a swim and strength regimen.

If your swim program doesn't have its own dry land regimen, I would say that you should go for swim and some quality running. Do somewhere between 4 and 7 miles a day, with a 10 mile long run, and run at least 6 days out of the week. This, coupled with swim, will get you pretty fit for track season even without actual running workouts. It'll be a bit more difficult to run workouts because your legs won't be used to going fast, but your ability to increase mileage and general aerobic strength will be far greater than if you had just done swim.

I'd have to also agree with everyone else. You don't have groundbreaking times, you could puruse a D2 or D3 career though with your current times and probably with whatever you could run this upcoming season. Good luck!

It really depends on what you want to maximize your potential in. If both running AND swimming, then you'll have to settle for being less than your best in both..........unless you have unlimited training time, which I doubt. I was a collegiate swimmer that ran track in the spring, however I couldn't do the fall/winter running as I was training twice a day in the pool. In the summer I swam long course. Once I got out of college I began training seriously for track, which I found out later after several years, was my better sport. Go figure. I did also have big problems in college with shin splints, from going right from the pool to the track with no lead up training. So if you're cool with being less than your best in both, go for it. If not, then its decision time.

I coached swimming, track, and cross country at a small school.

I tried to get as many kids as possible to do whatever they could during the winter. If they didn't like the cold, they would swim. The first year I was coaching, we didn't do any running during the winter. The second year, we added in running 3-4 times a week with a running workout instead of the 'runner' swimmers doing an am and a pm session of swimming. (Not all schools will work like this if there isn't a great relationship between the coaches across different sports) Now, if they didn't like swimming, they better be running. If they were on the basketball team, we would make sure they got in a run 2-3 times a week, nothing long, just average mileage.

I think making sure they are active during the winter is the biggest part. All of my runners who swam were not hindered compared to my guys who ran the whole winter.

I have a great example involving twins. They aren't that far off each other where one ran all winter and the other swam.

I don't agree with your coach unless the swim coach doesn't like to work well with others or vice versa.

If you wish to swim and run, you will probably not be great at both. You have to chose one or the other to see your true potential. Since you have already regressed, you are very likely to continue regressing each year if you chose to swim and run.

If you're interested in triathlon in the future, stick with both.

I wonder about it from the other side. How do you swim well enough to make a high school team if you only do it in season? Down here, I think pretty much all the kids on the high school teams are doing club swimming all year.

FatherOfASwimmer wrote:

I wonder about it from the other side. How do you swim well enough to make a high school team if you only do it in season? Down here, I think pretty much all the kids on the high school teams are doing club swimming all year.

Runners have enough of an aerobic base and leg muscles that it doesn't take much effort. I was in a club team from 4-6th grade, didn't do it in 7th and 8th, and came back my freshman year of high school with a much much faster baseline and handled the volume increase a lot better as well.

I totally agree with this reply. I swam in the winter my senior year in high school and in the summers from Age 9 - 18. Just make sure you run 4 days a week (with one light speed/ hill workout) in the winter so you aren't starting from zero. I ran 3:44/8:05/14:00 in college, and in retrospect should have kept swimming in the summer in college. I was nowhere near a 5:00 500 yard swimmer, but the swim workouts kept my aerobic system intact without the pounding. Going outside to run was then a joy compared to getting my butt kicked five days a week on very short rest.

Hopefully I will be joining you at OTILLO next year...

I discourage kids from swimming due to the fact our swim coach tries to get them to do water polo in the spring and club swimming in the summer and fall. But if that wasn't the case I would not care.