Pilates, philosophy books, piano rehearsals and mockumentaries: How elite swimmers recover from their intense workouts
With countless hours of training in the pool every week, it is easy for the sport to take over a swimmer's life. These Olympic champions and hopefuls have learned how to keep a balance, make the most of their recovery time, and come back stronger at every competition. Olympics.com reached out to them to discover their secrets.
Swimming
Lounging on a coach with an addictive TV series, attempting an inverted pigeon in a home yoga session or submerging into a lavender-scented bubble bath may suffice as recovery after an eight-hour workday in the office.
But if your office happens to be a 50m swimming pool and you’re training for the Olympic Games, that recovery routine will need an upgrade.
Olympics.com caught up with a handful of elite swimmers at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships to discover their recovery secrets and the hobbies that help them to unwind after long sessions in the water.
Recovery for the body: Bouncing back from gruelling workouts
Competitive swimmers do an average of 100 to 200 laps in the pool in a single workout. That's roughly 10 to 20 kilometres. Now, make that two daily workouts, repeat the pattern six days a week, and the importance of a good recovery plan is clear.
Seven-time Olympic champion Katie Ledecky, who won her first Olympic gold medal at age 15, has had to readjust her down time with age.
“There are things now that I have to be really focused in on in terms of recovery, getting massages and things like that," the USA swimmer said. "I remember Michael Klueh was on the team and ... he was complaining about a knot in his back. And I was 16 years old and I was like, 'What's a knot?' And all these years later, I know what that means.”
Now 26, Ledecky makes sure to sleep and eat well to be at her best for every training session and meet or, as she calls it, doing “all the little things right”.
Her teammate Carson Foster takes this game plan one step further. The 21-year-old world silver medallist tracks his sleep as well as his workouts.
“Tracking my sleep is big for me, more so because it keeps me accountable. I log my workouts because I want to be a coach one day and so I keep all my workouts,” Foster told Olympics.com. “I don't think there's any right formula to be good at swimming aside from doing the work and going home and recovering. I feel like I'm doing that very well.”
Muscle recovery is another focus for the swimmers. Aside from massages, common solutions include yoga and ice baths, which can help reduce muscle inflammation and soreness.
Not enthusiastic about jumping into a bathtub full of ice cubes, Olympic champion Freya Anderson and her British teammates have swapped their earlier cold recovery method for the soothing stretch of Pilates.
“We do Pilates sessions, which is a way of relaxing, but also trying to improve your body at the same time. It's a body and mind sort of thing," Anderson told Olympics.com. "You do that twice a week, which to me is relaxing because you're focusing on different things that you wouldn't normally focus on. But you're also making the gains at the same time.”
Improving the physical form while recovering, as with Pilates, is a win-win scenario. But sometimes the best recovery is simply skipping physical activity altogether.
USA's Thomas Heilman knows that firsthand. The 16-year-old swimmer is juggling daily training with high school, and has missed some pool sessions to keep his busy schedule manageable.
“It's really helped me having older siblings that have gone through the same path of club and then college swimming," Heilman told Olympics.com about balancing his roles as an international athlete and sophomore student. "It actually really helped me, and then my family just being supportive. If I don't want to go to practice, not being upset about that or anything. They trust me and my coaches and know that we have the best plan to be successful.”
Recovery for the mind: Life outside the pool
Carson Foster hit his lowest point in swimming two years ago when he narrowly missed the USA swim team for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
“I was definitely in a funk for a little bit and, I wouldn't say lost because I have a great family and they were directing me, but kind of lost for where I was at in my career – the thoughts of, 'What if that was my last shot? What if I'm never able to be an Olympian?'” he recalled.
But there was also an upside to this difficult moment. It became a turning point for Foster to start approaching the sport differently.
As news from Tokyo 2020 rang out from TV and radio broadcasts while photographs from peers filled his social media feed, Foster focused on enjoying life outside of swimming.
“Going back to Austin, being with my community and still having an amazing summer and having lots of fun, feeling like I was still loved even though I'd missed the Olympic team. That's what showed me that swimming is definitely important, swimming is what I do, but swimming is not what my close community loves me for,” Foster said.
“I learned how to love the sport, like when I was 10 to 14 years old when I was just swimming to see how fast I could get with no pressure on me. Everyone goes through that when you first start getting expectations on yourself. You feel like you need to perform to be better. I think for a long time, I was performing to be loved, whether it was loved by me, loved by my coaches, loved by fans. So when I realised that I don't have to perform fast to receive that and it's just swimming, that's when my best performances have come.”
Foster's favourite activities out of the pool include hanging out with his brother and fiancée, watching movies and paddleboarding.
“It's important for me to be able to turn it off when I'm away from the pool,” he said. “I'm someone who loves this sport and who can be obsessive over it sometimes just because I want to be my fastest. I want to be my best. I take it very seriously. But then there's also that healthy balance of being able to enjoy other parts of life and take a little bit of that pressure off.”
Video games, piano and TV series
Unlike Foster, double Olympic champion Robert Finke prefers to unwind with a video game controller rather than a paddle.
“You got to find something outside of the sport to take your time away from it. And for me, I like playing video games. I have a Nintendo Switch. I play a lot of Super Smash," the USA swimmer told Olympics.com. "A lot of people, they find a hobby outside of the sport to get them to stop thinking about the sport itself because if you're just going home and thinking about swimming 24/7, I can only imagine it. It may work for some people and that's great. But I feel like for the majority, you will incur some kind of burnout easily and quickly if you're just only thinking about swimming ever."
Cooking is a popular hobby among swimmers. USA's Olympic champions Olivia Smoliga and Missy Franklin are among those regularly sharing recipes on Instagram and proudly showing off their new waffle irons and charcuterie boards.
For others, music is the hobby of choice.
Ledecky has mastered the piano and saxophone, and even performed as part of a marching band at a university American football game. She also shared the stage with fellow swimmer Elizabeth Beisel when they played The Beatles' "Let it Be" at USA's Golden Goggle Awards in 2018.
But not all down time has to involve learning a new skill. While Finke relaxes by knocking off Nintendo characters with superpower blows, Anderson chases the bad guys alongside police officers from the comedy TV series Reno 911!
“I accidentally binge them too much,” she confessed to Olympics.com about her love for the series. “It's hilarious. I think I finished five of them seasons in about two weeks. I just like going through it and through it. I feel like I go into hibernation in my bedroom watching my iPad but no, I love watching TV series and movies and everything.”
Romania’s world champion David Popovici takes the opposite approach, opting to avoid screen time as much as possible during his time away from the pool. His preferred method to relax – a book, and even better – a book that makes you think.
“Whenever I have the time, I prefer spending my time reading instead of endless scrawling,” Popovici told Olympics.com, adding that the best book he read recently is "The Practice of Groundedness" by Brad Stulberg.
“It's a book that tries teaching you how to stay grounded. Humble, down to earth. And its main message is basically that as long as long as you're grounded, there's not really a strong wind that can really push you down, just like the trees and their roots."
Dry land, and the art of doing nothing
With the rigid discipline that swimmers have and the innumerable hours they spend at the pool, the hardest thing sometimes can be just to relax.
Anderson admits she is still learning how to do it – but when she does manage to tap into her inner sloth, the rewards for her mental well-being are immense.
“I live in Bath so it's a lovely city just to pop into town and get a coffee with my friends," she said. "And I like shopping, which is probably a bit of a problem. But it's what makes me happy, being with my friends, relaxing. I like just taking time to do nothing. Sometimes it's what I like to do best.”
Still feel guilty about clocking out and enjoying the simple things of life? Swimming phenom Ledecky swears by it too.
“The biggest thing for me has just been to always have balance in my life," Ledecky said.
“I remember that I just started swimming for the fun of it as a six-year-old in summer league swimming in the DC area and that's how it should always be,” she added. “I try to have as much fun as I can when I'm on the pool deck and then when I'm off the pool deck, sure, there are times when I'm thinking about swimming, but I'm also thinking about other things and spending time with my family and friends and just keeping my life in balance.”