1 day off a week question for Tri plan

I am following the low volume Tri plans right now. For the swim, I have very limited pool access on the weekends. Could I switch the swim to M, W, F instead of Tues,Thurs, Sat? Is it detrimental to recovery not to have 1 complete day off? My normal day off is Monday.

I’m doing mid volume half tri plan right now. I do think it is important to have a complete day of rest to let the body recover and adapt from the training. My suggestion would be to move your Saturday swim to Friday. I believe on the low volume that is a bike day so you could bike in the morning and swim that afternoon or vica versa. Such is the life of a triathlete to have multiple workouts in a day.

Not only is there a physical benefit to a complete day of but a psychological one as well. I’m afraid I would start to have compliance issue if I never had a complete day off. If you think you can manage without a day off, I would say take it easy on the Monday swim.

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I’m doing mid volume full (via plan builder) and i NEED at least one day off per week (but i’m not as young as I used to be) :laughing:

Due to other commitments, I normally end up dropping a swim session to ensure I get time off (i dont have mush problem with the swim)

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I have my swims scheduled for Wed and Fri, as that is when I can get to my Masters group. I have Monday scheduled as a day off. But I frequently swim by myself on Mon as I it helps the recovery from Sunday’s long run. I listen to the body (when it yells loud enough) and take a day when needed.

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You can shuffle the days and sessions as you see fit, but the best approach for results is in the default.

Can you shift the whole week of training back rather than just the swimming?

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I have days off now as I just ride - when I did triathlon I had no days off but as mentioned 2 days were just swimming so they gave my legs a day off!

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How good of a swimmer are you? Is it possible for you to have an easy swim? Decent yardage but no hard efforts is what I like to do. I like to pull with a snorkel, buoy and band on recovery days and will do like 3-4x 1k. Straight endurance, doesn’t tax the system.

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Thanks for the replies. I definitely need 3 days of swimming to improve. I think I’ll try Tues-Thurs-Fri then and keep my Monday off

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I wasn’t a great swimmer when I did triathlon (could swim 1K in the pool in about 14:30) - I just did lots of drills when I wanted a recovery day - bit with the buoy/kickboard but mostly single arm, catch up an clenched fist swimming to keep my elbows up during the pull phase. All easy and didn’t swim far - 1.5k in 40mins but it was all broken down into single 25m length drills. That way I got a bit of conditioning, a rest, a water massage for my legs and some work on my less than stella technique! :smiley:

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I’m in a similar situation. I do Monday, Wednesday, Friday lunchtime swims so I don’t usually have a complete day off. It works for me better than doing the swims on back to back days (unless one of those is a recovery/easy swim). It also gives me a bit of flexibility if the pool is closed on Friday or Monday for meets. I can move the swim to Tuesday or Thursday. I have been doing this for a couple of years now. This type of thing is something you will have to try and see how it affects you but it works for me.

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Last year I kept a full rest day but this year I’m not, as there are more 90 minute workouts in the mid volume base phase than I remember and time gets tight on double days. I don’t think I’m suffering unnecessarily without a full rest day; don’t seem to be more tired or sickly than I remember from last year.

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