Nathan Adrian's Speedo Blog: A workout from yours truly

I have been back in the water for a while now and I figured it was about time to share how it was going.

Our approach at Cal is fairly simple. We work our way up to our normal training volume and then slowly begin to add intensity. We do not come from an old school “shock the system” approach of the swimmers showing up one day and Dave (our coach) giving us a 7,000 meter set when we had been doing 3,000 per practice leading up to that.

We will begin the season with our Monday, Wednesday, Friday lift schedule along with 5 afternoon practices during the business days of the week. The second and third week we will gradually add our three morning workouts along with a Saturday morning workout to complete the full schedule. This works well for everyone because for someone like me who does not have another major competition until the summer to focus on I can start very slowly and work my way in to it. For the guys still in school they have a chance to get acquainted/reacquainted with college life slowly so they can get a better understanding of what school is like for a couple of weeks before jumping into the full time commitment of training.

We are now at full volume and full intensity training and as I write we just moved through one of our longer slow moving aerobic practices so I will share one of the sets we did with you all.

50- taking 3 total breaths
50- taking 2 total breaths
50- taking only 1 breath
50- Smooth controlled swim w/good technique
50- Steady kick
50- Steady kick
50- Smooth controlled swim w/good technique
50- Easy swim

This is all on your own interval. Take as much rest as necessary but try your best to keep moving through the set. I think we took anywhere from 5-20 seconds between the 50s depending on what was coming next. This is not meant to be extremely difficult but meant to keep you moving and your HR slightly elevated for the entirety of the set.

Final disclaimer: always be careful and swim within your own ability when it comes to hypoxic work. I very regularly work on doing no breath work so feel free to change the first 3 x 50s to something like 7 breaths 6 breaths and 5 breaths.

Enjoy!

Nathan Adrian's Taper Approach

As the trials approach I find myself with more energy, more free time, and a restricted list of acceptable taper activities. Throughout the majority of the season I spend my days off trying to recover as quickly as possible to ready myself for the next week of work we have ahead. I make sure to do at least one enjoyable activity during these days off (golfing, going out to dinner with friends, going to a movie etc.).

But now that I am at this point in the season where energy levels are coming up I want to take these activities to the next level. I find myself googling where the nearest place to skydive is. The cool thing about the bay area is that google then asks you if you prefer to skydive indoor or outdoors.

I have also spent time researching where the nearest go-kart track is (ideally they would have a wet track) and even spent time looking into kiteboarding lessons. Unfortunately for me I have a crippling fear of opaque water that would make falling into as scary as death itself.

As fun as any of these activities would be, I force myself to be a good swimmer and listen to my coaches about getting as much rest as possible. I wear my sunscreen when I go outside (which we should all do anyway) and limit my time on my feet. And as I write this blog I am about to go to relax at a newly discovered lake near my house.

Best of luck to everyone as their taper’s approach the high energy but low activity level that mine has reached leading into trials. As much fun as go-karting on a wet track would be, I would definitely suggest something a little more low key.