Recovery Time & Creatine
As I said in an earlier post, I’m 74 years old. Been swimming all my life. Took a break of about 10 years after high school but have managed to fit swimming in here and there over the years.
The last 16-17 years more regularly. I try and do two kilometres three times a week. Doesn’t always happen but I stay active otherwise if I can’t do this.
The last three years I have noticed that I’ve been slowing down a bit. The biggest problem is recovery time. If I do a really intense workout, it takes me much longer to be properly rested for the next swim.
My son told me about this video a few weeks ago. I knew nothing about creatine before this. If you are an athlete, you may think this is odd but, there you go.
I eat pretty well, never any fast food and cook almost all my meals. Very few packaged goods.
I watched the video - it’s very long, three hours. But I wanted to get as full an understanding as possible.
What is Creatine?
It is a compound made up of three amino acids: Arginine, glycine and methionine. It is an energy source for the muscles and the brain.
In less than 24 hours of taking it, I was amazed. I will mention that it is quite possible that there could be some sort of placebo effect here.
The Results
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been doing a one thousand metre swim in anywhere from 18 minutes 25 seconds to 18 minutes 50 seconds. After taking 5 grams of creatine twice a day for one day, I did same swim as usual. Eighteen minutes flat. I didn’t feel like I was going any harder and certainly didn’t expect such quick results. My next swim a couple of days later, same speed. Additionally, after my 1000 metre warm up, I generally to some HIIT (high intensity interval training). For each 100 metre swim, i was normally doing anywhere from 1:35 to 1:40. (One minute and thirty-five seconds at best.)
My second swim, I did six one hundred metre swims. Times ranges from 1:31 (one minute/31 seconds) to 1:33 (one minute/33 seconds). It has been three or four years since I was able to do times like this.
Several swims later my times are still much faster than they were over the last three years or so.
As I said, it’s long, but if you take the time, the video here is worth watching.
There is certainly controversy about creatine. What doesn’t these days. I am a big supporter of the idea that not everything works for everyone. We are all different.
We have to figure out what works for us as individuals.