Triathlon - Swim team = good training?

Would joining my schools swim team help me in readying my self for a tri?

Also, any advice for someone with a bad knee?

Swim team would be great training. But, you probably wouldn't have time to train for anything else during the school year.

For you knee, get good quality running shoes. Change often, about 300 miles. Run on soft surfaces when you can, dirt or treadmill about 50% of the time.

Bad knee - also read ChiRunning by Danny Dryer. If you run with the proper form it should help your knee.

Swim team would be a fabulous way to improve your stroke technique and improve your swimming endurance. And it's fun and social, too. And if you just swim for your school's team (and not a club team), that's about 3 months out of the year, if I recall. In my day, we swam every afternoon for 1.5 hours (I think) plus maybe 2 mornings a week? (That was a long time ago.) Plus one or two meets a week when season starts. You will be spending more time in the water, but I would imagine that if you could still get in a couple of rides and runs during the week, you'd be fine. When I was in H.S., swimming was a spring sport, so you'd be finished by May or June and could hit the bike and run a little harder before tri season started.

I was on the swim team in H.S. and college and long before that, too. It was a great experience! Go for it.

The swim team will definatly help you with your speed, and technique. Thouhg make sur eyou are still getting sme endurance work done in the pool, like sets of 750m say.

For the knee, swimming is great, almost no impact on the knee. When running, for training, alternate sides of the road to put the stresses evenly on your knees, run on the dirt shoulder, ect.

For riding, make sure you get your pedals set up right for your knee, you dont want to make it worse.

For your knee, make sure your running technique is correct. Landing on your heels provides no shock absorption except your shoes. A correct footstrike, with almost all of the weight on the heels, uses elastic tissues in the arch of the foot, the Achilles tendon, and the Gastronmius and Soleus muscles of the calf to absorb impact stress. This will not only help your knee, but will make you faster and more efficient. More information is availble at www.EvolutionRunning.com Good luck, Ken

Is the team you're thinking of joining HS or college? I swim for my college currently and when the season starts (Sept. - March) we are in the water about 9 - 10 times per week for a total of about 17 to 19 hours per week. It doesn't leave much time for anything else being a full-time student. I didn't run or bike at all last season, but I'm going to try and run a few times a week this season....hopefully. Just be forewarned, swim team is life, not just a fun way to learn how to swim. You'll probably get up at 5am or earlier to be at practice, and then have another practice in the afternoon on somedays. If you love swimming it's wonderful, but if you don't, then it can be a real hell. During the season we'll swim anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 yards a day. With the theory that 1 mile of swimming equals 4 miles of running, that would work out to about 14 to 24 miles a day of running. In fact, we don't have tryouts at our school for swim team, you just show up with the paperwork completed, and if you can hang, then you're on the team, otherwise they usually just leave and never show up again. Peace out.

if i could offer some advice.... swim training is very time consuming, moreso than cycling and running. so, if you really want to improve your swimming, absolutly join a team. like others have said, it will improve you technique and endurance. that said you really dont want to put the running and biking on the backburner (im assuming), so i would try this. swim every practice you can for 2 months, run and bike when you can. this will give a good swimming aerobic base. after that, you can back off to 2-3 practices a week. this idea behind this is to get your body in swimming shape and then keep it there. with 2-3 practices a week (after the 2 months of intense training), you wont loose that base and you will have more time for running and biking.

Well the school year just started, so the team is just starting.

I think I may go through with it, fill out my upper body some more and get stronger.

Elvish

Well the school year just started, so the team is just starting.

I think I may go through with it, fill out my upper body some more and get stronger.

Elvish

Oh yeah, that's definitely a side benefit. Swimmers have nice bods. And I''ve never again felt as strong as I did when I was swimming in college. I say do it! Or at least try it!

amen to the team. i swam on a team from age 7 through college. no matter what you do on your own an organized workout from swimming works better. most school teams split off into sprint and distance groups, with different set based on the group, so getting longer, endurance type workouts shouldn't be a problem (especially if you are new to team swimming, most that i have worked out with put new people into the distance category until they show speed)

the one other thing to keep in miond is that you will still need some open water time, swimming in a pool and swimming open water are worlds apart

uhmmm swimming is different from running and different from biking. you are working different sets of muscle groups. being a great swimmer (and as all of you i swam in HS and partially in college) does not equal greatness in running or biking. to tell you the truth, running is my weakest point only because i either swim or cycle.

Well I decided to do something else. I decided that while the weather stays warm I'll go do some lake swimming, and then when it gets to cold I'll join a local gym. I figure that way I can swim as far as I want/can, and I won't have to worry about loosing a day of trainning from running or biking due to swim meets. I figure it will do the same for me, I have a decent form.

Elvish