Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Watery experiment

Tried some experimental pool-jogging this afternoon. I think on the whole it is a failed experiment - either I'm using the flotation belt and have a hard time mustering the appropriate intensity, or else I am doing it with no assistance and frantically pedalling legs to stay above water... When I did it before, it was a coached workout with interval bits, which made it easier to get a really good intensity level going.

Anyway, 40 minutes, I will swop it in for 4 easy run miles but tomorrow I must do a real one!

6 comments:

Spokane Al said...

Here is a link to a local professional trainer with some advice on aqua jogging that might help -

http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2008/09/product-review-workout-of-the-week-aqx-aquatic-shoes-speedo-belt-aqua-jogging/

Unknown said...

Al has made a real and constructive suggestion -- I was going to suggest flotation belt + ankle weights! ;-)

ShirleyPerly said...

I've never seen anyone pool jogging without the flotation belt. And unless I do intervals of some sort, I am totally bored. While in Hawaii last month, however, I saw a guy in a pool lane jogging back and forth as I swam laps. I asked him how long he was doing it for and he said 2 hours, trying to get himself ready for the Kona IM! (he had some sort of foot injury)

Steve Stenzel said...

Yeah, I can't get it down either. That water running is a weird thing...

Brent Buckner said...

A few folks here jog in the sea when it's calm - apparently off Royal Palms is good (sandy bottom very gentle slope). Equipment is involved.

Jenny Davidson said...

Thank you for useful comments!

One of my students, who was on the track team and had an injury last year, was always to be seen slowly water-jogging up and down the slow lane at the pool (with no belt - but then she was a very fast runner!) I do think that it works very well to maintain existing running fitness during a layoff (I believe Paula Radcliffe was using it quite a bit this summer).

Because it may be interesting to some of you, I'm pasting in a sample workout from Doug Stern's website. Doug was my inspiring deep-water running and swimming teacher, who died last summer of cancer - a great triathlete and all-round amazing person. More workouts can be found on his old website (http://www.dougstern.com), but this was the sort of thing he did through the New York Road Runners class he taught.

(I cannot now remember the exact form distinction between running "uphill" and "downhill" and "flats" - but I think it was more to do with cadence than with leg position, you never have any bend at the knee and you feel it much more strongly in your quads and hips than you do on a regular run, because of the water resistance):

Warm up

Pre Set:
Check cadence 3 X (30 + 10) X 3
1 min. easy run

Main Set:
Run on flats for 1:45 + 15 easy
Uphill 3 x (30 + 10)
Run on flats 1:30 + 15 sec.
Downhill 3 X 30 + 15)
Run on flats for 1:15 + 15 easy
Sprint on flats for 3 x( 30 +10)
Run 60 on flats

1 min easy run

Speed Set:
Check cadence for 7 X (40 + 20)
1 min easy

Sprint set:
4 X 20 + 10

He would often suggest taking off the belt just for the last 5 minutes or so of the workout to end really hard - it's much more challenging doing it without a belt! His belt approach wasn't the aqua-jogger one, they were those belts that I think kids use when they're learning to swim, where you can add anything from 1 to 5-6 little square flotation pads...

Al, I'm going to check out that link now!