What is post-exercise fatigue?

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Edit: For all those of you who got this by email, WordPress just completely dropped all the formatting, for no reason I can understand, (but it happens occasionally), and you got a giant wall of text. Sorry!

It’s with trepidation I approach this subject. I don’t have the medical background that seems essential in trying to understand all of it so bear with me and any potential mistakes I’ve made.

Years ago I discovered the best questions were the dumbest questions, the ones where you are almost embarrassed to ask, but when you do, you discover more than you hoped to find.

After the two recent posts on the value of long swims and the post swim fatigue caused, I asked myself just what was the fatigue we all experience for a week or longer after long training swims (six hours and greater). It was such an obvious question I felt stupid by framing it to myself. What I found, in as far as I can tell, is that this is an area that is still very much being researched and not all the factors are known. Quoting this abstract on physical fatigue, “physical exercise affects the biochemical equilibrium within the exercising muscle cells. Among others, inorganic phosphate, protons, lactate and free Mg2+ [magnesium] accumulate within these cells. They directly affect the mechanical machinery of the muscle cell”.

As you will see, we could consider this one side of fatigue, that of muscles and the causes of muscle fatigue.

We know that endurance exercise requires energy and for distance swimmers this means first using the glycogen stored in muscles, blood and liver, and after that’s consumed, later switching to ketosis and starting to use fat stores. So there is an initial fatigue or tiredness caused partly by energy depletion. But 24 hours later, the body’s glycogen stores are pretty much replenished (but not entirely, depending on food type High Glycemic Index food replenished stores faster, type of sugar has an effect also, maybe even that the Golden Window oft referred to, isn’t relevant, and various other factors).

We also know, I think, that carb-loading works, and various strategies for carb-loading are better than others. On long swims, depending on effort, type of sessions and previous training, we may experience muscle soreness. Generally, if you are trained enough, this isn’t too common a problem and muscle soreness is a sure obvious sign of over-work. Part of the fatigue and recovery process is for muscles which have been worked to the point of breakdown to recover and the micro lesions get repaired. This is how muscles get bigger and/or stronger. When the exertion is enough, this may result in DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness, that can last for a few days. DOMS is a whole subject onto itself, and it’s not what we’re concerned about here, but similar long-lasting effects without the soreness.

Muscle work is done by a process called the Excitation–contraction coupling mechanism, whereby an electrical discharge at the muscle initiates chemical events at the cell surface, releasing intracellular calcium, which causes calcium sensitive proteins to contract using ATP (Adenosine Tri-Phosphate, produced from glycogen or fat) ultimately causing muscle action. Lower ATP is part of the post-swim energy depletion mentioned above. However for long-term fatigue, the problem is not a lack of phosphate, but an impairment of the excitation–contraction mechanism, and possible other causes. This article, which is based on some actual studies such as this and this, says that part of tiredness, the inability of the person to make the muscles work to what they had previously, is actually also related to changes in the brain and communication between the muscle itself and the intra-cortical area of the brain. It seems like, (if I am reading it all correctly), there is a negative feedback loop operating between the two, with responses from the muscles during a tiring activity signalling the cortex to reduce the force (contraction) that can be applied. That mean it’s not just the muscle’s inability to function but that there is a central nervous system (CNS) fatigue also (whereas the muscular aspect is metabolic fatigue) and it seems that the CNS fatigue is the one that takes longer to recover from, that makes us feel low after long swims. On one study I read, (I seem to have lost the link for that one), it was found that immediately after stopping due to perceived exhaustion (on a cycling stress test), the muscles were still capable of exerting three times the work necessary for the test.

As this study says, “Fatigue from SDE [Short Duration Exercise] may arise primarily from metabolic mechanisms, whereas fatigue from LDE [Long Duration Exercise] involves an additional slowly recovering nonmetabolic mechanism that may arise from impaired activation, beyond the cell membrane, at the level of excitation contraction coupling”. Symptoms of CNS fatigue include lack of motivation, poor mood, impaired cognitive ability and incorrect perceptions of exertion levels –  where we think we’re exercising/swimming harder than we actually are. Sound familiar? The body needs rest and we need to avoid injuring ourselves. Fatigue cold (and has been) even described as a brain-derived emotion that regulates the exercise behavior to ensure the protection of whole body homeostasis. If we didn’t have fatigue feedback, we’d overuse muscles and probably injure ourselves but at the same time, endurance performance itself is limited by perception of effort as the primary reason for stopping. (More to come on this in another post,as so often happens when I start one of these science-based posts). Possible causes of fatigue, long-term and short-term:

  • DOMS
  • CNS fatigue (neurotransmission problems)
  • Insufficient hydration
  • Low insulin
  • Increased ammonia in blood
  • Disturbed hormone and electrolyte levels
  • Other nutritional (vitamin or trace element) deficiency
  • Low glycogen
  • Tryptophan depletion

This isn’t a comprehensive list, just what I’ve come across. I had to stop at some point. :-) I’ve found some impossible to understand (for me) speculation about potential mitochondria damage, and I’m sure there are other possibilities that are completely mainstream. This is all very well and interesting, you probably won’tsay, but what does it mean in terms of recovery? How can we shorten recovery or do it better or differently. Is there anything that helps? I think we’ll stop here, more study is called for, maybe we’ll return to this at some point. :-) There are no smilies in scientific papers.

Related articles

On-the-go homemade oat bar

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Okay, I posted a version of this two years, back when the site was mainly text only. I used thought back then the Solo Bar would a good idea because of the all the training and eating I was doing. This is easy to make and requires zero cooking, I guess you say it’s a type of flapjack.

 

  • One cup of porridge oats
  • 2 tablespoons each of honey or maple syrup, and peanut butter
  • You could also add sultanas or raisins or flaked almonds

  • Mix the peanut butter and honey to a paste
  • Add the oats and continue mixing

  • Place on grease-proof paper and flatten to make a bar, cut into slices
  • Place in freezer for 5 minutes (just to firm up)

 

It’s also about 1100 calories total, so 350 calories per bar when cut into three, useful for travelling to early morning swims or airports. Also I dislike both Maple Syrup and honey, but when mixed with oats and peanut butter, neither are obvious to taste.  I did try it during a long swim a couple of years ago and it took a bit too much chewing.

I’d guess that you could extend it even further, no reason you couldn’t try Nutella for example. Or flax oil or goji berries, etc..

I’ve considered flattening the bar right down, adding a line of jam and adding a second layer on top, like a nicer version of those highly processed Breakfast Bar things.

How waves can interfere with swimmers and cut down on their speeds

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This phrase is a consistent Google autocorrect search term that bring people to the site so I thought I would use it directly.

Surf at Praia Grande. Porto Covo, Portugal

I’ve previously written a couple of posts on understanding waves, theory and some practical.

Writing recently about the 2010 eight hour pool-training swim followed by a sea swim, I was reminded of the problems waves present for many swimmers.

As we’ve seen in the previous articles waves occur where an open ocean swell meets where water gets shallow, on beaches, reefs, and rocks. Waves are somewhat unpredictable even in good conditions and care must be taken of them. So entering the water in the presence of waves requires some degree of caution, dependent on wave size. Trying to exit on rocks or reefs, in even small waves, is fraught with danger.

So why do waves present such difficulty? It’s simply because water is dense, denser than a human, and heavy and anything heavy has a lot of inertia. Difficult to start, divert or stop.

Everyone has probably stood on a beach in waist high waves and felt how easily the waves can push one around.  One cubic metre ( 1 metre x 1 metre x 1 metre, a fraction of a whole chest high wave) of water weighs one thousand kilograms. Did you ever try pushing against even a small car weighing the same? You are not as powerful as water, a six foot tall man is weaker than a five foot tall wave.

Children learn to jump as the waves approaches to go over the top, or to jump into the wave and let it take them, or to stand with one foot and chest forward to try to hold their position. These are all approaches to the mass of the wave and all and more can be used by swimmers.

Rob Dumouchel shared the video below with me, which perfectly illustrates the problems faced by swimmers unfamiliar with waves.

I hope you noticed the guy on the left at the start, who disappeared pretty quickly. He knew what to do. Instead of standing around like a scared duckling, trying to progress by hopping forward and getting pushed backward, he went under the waves.

Power within a wave is concentrated when it is breaking in the crashing top of the wave. Waves breaking into shallow water, even without being large, will travel fast and slow movement with a lot of lower density white water being pushed ahead.

The water in front of a wave is sucked up into the wave face, while the wave is moving forward so you may get a quick sensation of speed just before the wave hits. You can use this speed to your advantage to get under the wave. Just duck down and forward under the wave and then up and you will pop out well behind the wave lip and past most of the drag of the breaking water.

Remember that water being dumped on beaches by waves needs to escape back outward, so most beaches will have “channels” (some steep beaches will  instead have dangerous undertow).

The trough in front of a wave is lower than the average height, whereas the water behind a wave lip is higher. So if you plunge into a wave face and exit behind, you will be higher up, but if you come up just behind the lip of a crashing wave, you have to be careful not to get dragged back over the edge, “going over the falls”, though is generally not a problem unless you are very close.

In this image of Annestown beach, though the waves are only waist-high, one can see that the shingle isn’t all the same height, some is banked. The areas between the banks are more likely to be deeper, and more likely to be channels as this trough extends outward. The difference will usually look somewhat subtle, but is pretty consistent. If you notice in the image, where the arrow starts, the sand extends further into the shingle as this is a lower trough and this recurs along the beach, so there is actually more than one channel, more visible the more water is trying to escape. However Channels tend to exist closer to the beach and as you escape beyond the initial whitewater, the effect will dissipate.

Wave water escape channel at Annestown beach

  • Don’t panic. As I have said before, there is no situation made better by panic and most will be made worse, especially at sea.
  • Don’t try to get away from waves. You won’t win. Face them and work with what they are doing.
  • Look for channels, the narrow and usually deeper areas where waves aren’t breaking, where the incoming water has to escape back out to sea. That’s your easiest way out. But once in a Channel, don’t try to swim back in against it.
  • In water where you can walk, angle your body sideways to oncoming whitewater, and brace yourself as you move outwards, moving out in the intervals between the wave fronts.
  • Once you reach chest deep water, if you are over sand, it becomes harder to progress by walking even with no waves, so get swimming.
  • The best approach when going out from a beach is to dive under the oncoming waves.
  • Don’t take a huge intake of air, it’ll be harder to submerge. Instead hold the air into your lungs instead of trying to hold a mouthful. Popping under and behind a big wave is a pretty quick task.
  • Don’t try the same thing with waves breaking over rocks. Because idiocy.
  • Swimming against a rip current is a poor decision. Change your angle by 45 to 90° and you will quickly move out of it.
  • As you progress out pass the breaking waves, triangulate your position so you know where you started, might need to finish. Line up two objects, one of front of the other, a house and tree or similar, and you will be able to tell your position along a beach. otherwise you can be 100 metres to either side and it will still look like the same place.
So the simple answer to the initial question, which may be the subject of someone’s homework, (it wouldn’t be the first time, people sometimes include question numbers), is that waves interfere with swimmers by stopping them getting out deeper, by pushing them back into shore, by knocking them over, by pulling their legs from beneath them and by breaking over them. All these problems can be reduced or eliminated with experience and practice.

Related Articles:

Waves for swimmers, Part 1 (loneswimmer.com)

Waves for swimmers, Part 2 (loneswimmer.com)

Exploring freak waves (loneswimmer.com)

Grid waves (loneswimmer.com)

Tides for swimmers, theory (loneswimmer.com)

Tides for swimmers, local effects (loneswimmer.com)

Swimming through it – the value of long swims – addendum

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Something was niggling at the back of my mind last week when I wrote the article on  the utility of doing longs swims, and what I’ve learned from them. I felt I’d forgotten something but couldn’t place it.

A question this week prompted me exactly what it was. Amongst the reasons for doing long swims is to get used to knowing how you feel after said long swims, and to understand and improve your recovery process.

After I wrote the article I happened to be checking something else in my swim diary/log, (which now has about five years of detail) and I noticed that almost exactly two years previously on the same weekend, 30th April, 2010, the Magnificent Seven did our toughest ever training session. It was to be a 30k in the pool followed by a trip to the sea for a swim. We completed about 28 kilometres in nine hours (including breaks) before The Boss left us off the hook, finishing strongly with 400 I.M. and at least as I recall, Liam, Eddie and myself ending with butterfly. My training dairy notes show I felt “strong and good”. And then we all decamped to Liam’s House at Ballycroneen for a sea swim taking about an hour to get dressed and get there.

Ballycroneen

For the Aspirants complaining of the cold this year … the water that day in 2010 was 7.5°  Celsius with onshore wind and overhead waves, and we’d come from the warm pool in Source. We changed in Liam’s garage and walked down wearing coats and I was quickly in the water, no point hanging around, having looked carefully at the breakers and headed straight for a Wave Channel I could see at the west end of the short beach. Eilís was watching on the beach, unusual for her to go near the coast.

I swam through the inside channel gap and duck-dived the outside waves and very quickly I was out back, beyond the breaking waves. By this stage I realised no-one had followed me. I played around body-surfing in the waves for a few minutes and headed back in. A couple of the guys were in shallow water, the rest were out, and everyone was shouting or giving out to me, all having thought I’d been lost at sea!

Ever since, Eilís has been suffering a type of cognitive dissonance, on the one hand knowing I understand waves and tides very well and  on the other, thinking I can’t be trusted around the water. Attempts to explain were ignored; that this was completely normal for my usual training since after all I had no-one to train with, that I made a point of understanding what I doing, and that getting through waves is easy if you understand the principles and that I had been a surfer for years, all were wasted. And the fact that there were six other extremely strong and experienced swimmers present that day was also lost on her. Ever since it’s been the day Donal could have drowned. :-)

But I digress, as usual.

The cold swim that day helped to loosen tight muscles but recovery from the long swim was slow over the next week. I wrote sometime back in 2010 that local Sandycove English Channel Soloist Danny Coholane had identified that every hour training over eight hours added another week to recovery, and we were all agreed on this (having previously swum six, seven and eight-hour training swims).

Swims of five to seven hours took about five days to a week to fully recover. The two training swims of eight hours that year took almost two weeks to recover.

So what do I mean by recovery? As I described in an email during the period there’s a feeling of having little energy or ooomph when you are swimming. Times drop away, swims become much more physically and mentally challenging, you feel like you have nothing in the tank. It varies of course for everyone, but I generally feel okay for a couple of days afterwards and the slump comes for or five days after the swim.

One thing I noticed this year is that extending the time above six hours to eight hours was no longer accompanied by an extra week increase in recovery, the slump lasted about the same time.

So feeling this slump is not the direct value of the long swims, but a side effect. The actual value is in knowing that this feeling is normal, and that you are also Training To Recover.  Too many people don’t seem to consider this aspect. Why go so far into your reserves for a Channel or other swim that you are done with swimming for months or up to a year afterwards?

Related articles

Swimming through it – the value of long pool sessions (loneswimmer.com)

24 miles in 24 hours (loneswimmer.com)

Two distance swimmers meet on St. Patrick’s Street in Cork …

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Swimmer 1: Well, how’s the training going?

Swimmer 2: Meh. Ok, I guess. Getting sick of it.

Swimmer 1: I know. Week after week of the bloody chlorine box.

Swimmer 2: How’s the shoulders?

Swimmer 1: I’ve got some twinges but they’re holding up. Had pain in the good one a couple of weeks ago, got a bit worried but seems ok again. You?

Swimmer 2: Yeah, the same. Dodgy shoulder is … dodgy, but holding. I’m on massages every two weeks to keep ‘em going. Fell like I’m losing my speed though.

Swimmer 1: All those bloody 400s, I know what you mean. It’s like crawling through the water by now.

Swimmer 2: I just want to go, you know? I just want to get on with it. It’s one thing while you are building up, it’s another thing staying there. I can smell the chlorine off myself before I open my eyes in the morning.

Swimmer 1: How are you doing versus the target?

Swimmer 2: I’m a bit off. Not far enough to worry, I hope. I got sick in …

Swimmer 1: … February?

Swimmer 2:  Just about, end of January. Chest infection. Didn’t swim for six days, got a bit panicked. Bloody antibiotics left me feeling knackered. You?

Swimmer 1: Middle of Feb. ‘Flu. Missed a week, felt crap for another week.

Swimmer 2: How are the rest of ‘em?

Swimmer 1: Good. Not all training in Source, but everyone has been showing up for the monthly meetings. You know what they’re like.

Swimmer 2: I loved the meetings. Despite seeing the month’s plan, I always felt more energised afterwards, good to sit and talk shite with the gang. Though I made a knob of myself at least one.

Swimmer 1: Nothing new there I guess?

Swimmer 2: No, I have a knack for it. Are you holding weight?

Swimmer 1: Just about, I’m eating like food is going out of fashion. Started on the ice-cream before bed.

Swimmer 2: Danny Walsh once said to me he was on his home for dinner, and he had to stop for dinner, on the way home.

Swimmer 1: Sounds about right. Weather sucks. We get a good week, get all excited, and forget we’re living in Ireland.

Swimmer 2: I’m looking forward as always to getting away from the pool. Ned’s 3/5/9 list starting filling up early. Then the weather went back to normal.

Swimmer 1: How’s herself?

Swimmer 2: Pain in the arse, you know how she is. She has a thing for repeats at the moment. Endless 100s and 50s. She made me do 200 50s one day! I thought I’d go insane. And no toys allowed. Haven’t used a paddle or pull-buoy in weeks.

Swimmer 1: I meant your wife.

Swimming through it – the value of long pool sessions

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It’s over two years since The Magnificent Seven did our first 8 hour pool swim. It seems longer. Early in 2010 Coach Eilís started adding regular big long pool sessions for Aspirants and The Magnificent Seven were the first test pilots. That year we did, I think, five pool sessions of at least six hours.

By now I’ve done at least twelve pool sessions of six plus hours, maybe more. (How did that happen)?

The most recent swims have been with Gábor, the Flying Hun, and there hasn’t been anything specific worth writing about and guest-starring many of the usual suspects, Lisa, Eddie, Rob, Karen, Ciarán, and some of this year’s Aspirants, Padraic, Carmel, Catherine. On this swim Lisa was in the next lane having started an hour before us, starting a 15k swim herself, having swum 17k …THE PREVIOUS DAY!

All six-hour swims are difficult for varying degrees and often, or even usually, for different reasons. You may be more tired starting, you may have been ill recently, you may develop shoulder pain or stomach or even leg cramps, or like a few weeks ago,  you may spend two hours in hell chasing Eddie Irwin who is holding 1:30 intervals per hundred easily. The point being that these swims are never easy. They are just varying degrees of tough and each usually teaches one something.

The most recent 20k with Gábor solidified many of the lessons.

Neither of us wanted to do a speed set so I took a set from marathon swimmer Mark Robson that he had posted on marathonswimmers.org Animal Set thread and adapted it. The Animal Set thread is both a great resource for finding new ideas for long punishing swims and for feeling small because no matter what you’ve done there are probably other sets in there that you’ll find horrifying.

Mark posted up 1 x 1000, 10 x 400, 2 x 2000, 10 x 400, 1 x 1000 for 14k. I’ve used this set before as a good base that’s flexible and easy to change and adapt.

This time I changed it to: 
  • 2 x 1500
  • 10 x 400 on 6:45
  • 2 x 2000 as 1st paddles & 2nd pull
  • 500 b/c
  • 10 x 400
  • 2 x 1000 as 1st 1k paddles & pull, 2nd 1k swim
  • 4 x 500
  • 500 b/c, making up a 20k session

Plenty of rest on the 400s but still making good use of time by doing 8k as 400, and a few long sets.

View Visio v200mThings were mixed early on. Swimming was fine but I was cursed by a host of minor issues. On the first 1500, my nose clip kept slipping off, I was obviously having a greasy-nose day. My Oceanswims.com Fully Sick googles, which are now my firm favourites (and not available anywhere in Europe :-( ) have been solid for 6 months started leaking and I couldn’t get them cleared no matter what I did and ended up switching back what now seems like huge Aquaspheres. I got cramps in my foot on the first 2k set (after 7k), something that hasn’t happened six months so I obviously wasn’t drinking enough, then I started to get hints of stomach cramps. All minor, but cumulatively throwing me off and taking away that sense of easy swimming that should have been prevalent early on.

While the times on the 400s were fine, doing an easy 6:45 to give us plenty of rest each rep, they weren’t exactly fun and I’m didn’t know why, since repeat 400s are bread-and-butter in my training. The first difficulty really hit on the 2k with paddles, with developing foot cramps, and then my left shoulder started really hurting. This shoulder is my good one, as almost all distance swimmers have a shoulder more prone to injury, and it’s a problem that’s only arisen this year, when my good (left) shoulder started hurting from paddle work, so I’ve reduced power paddle work by about 75% from my normal. (I used to like paddles). Pull sets are fine with me, as I don’t have a big kick so I am less affected. After finishing the first 500 back stroke, we were at 11.5 kilometres done. Three and half hours in. And that was the easy part.

The slump nearly always hits me at this point. Back to another 10x 400s and by this time the pool got very busy, with people coming and going into the lane for about an hour, Lisa being pushed into joining us, all different speeds, etc. It was probably a good thing because it helped to distract us as Gábor and I were taking turns leading out. Talking afterwards we both hit the real slump at the same time, at 11.5k and both of us struggled for the same duration of over an hour. Despite feeling worse the second 400s went quicker. At the end of the 400s we were at 15.5k and started the 1k pull and paddles, which we cruised through. Starting the next 1k straight, we were both still moaning. Gábor said he was going to take it easy. I zoned out for the first couple of lengths, and was slipping back when I noticed Gábor dolphin-kicking off the wall. Did I imagine it? At the next turn he did it again…

We were back. That kilometer was a race, ending with a sprint finish (him, by half a body), going into the repeat 400s, ending again with a sprint (him by a finger, each time I couldn’t make an attempt to pass until the last length and I was coming back from behind and he’s usually faster than me so that was ok). But that’s not the relevant point. What was relevant was the gradual recovery, so when we decided to up the gears again, the bodies responded. By we were both sore and tired. (Sore shoulders are a rarity, especially when you are swimming all the time).

All this is by way of explanation and scene-setting and context.

I’m trying to analyse this swim, and the other long swims I’ve done and extract some useful lessons on the value such sessions.

  • All long pool swims are difficult. The reasons change.
  • Feeding during pool sessions may not be completely applicable to open water.
  • But you will get better figuring out when you will run out of energy and what that feels like.
  • Long pool sessions can be used to figure out some other stuff like preferred analgesic/cramp intervention.
  • The session structure is less important than just putting in effort and time swimming and hitting that wall.
  • The post-slump improvement is gradual as your body adapts to ketosis and you don’t get a sudden sense of feeling better.
  • The glycosis to ketosis transition can vary by person and time and swim.
  • Post-swim recovery, immediately after the swim, and over the subsequent days, are important parts of long swims and the more long swims you do, the quicker and better you get at recovery.
  • The most important lesson: You can swim through it. Whatever it is. This is what makes a distance swimmer. Everything is secondary.

I hope for a future guest post on this subject and I can think of NO-ONE better qualified than Lisa to write it. Let’s everyone ask her nicely.

An addendum to this post.

Related articles

A visit to Hook Head

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Hook Head is one of our favourite places in Ireland. I’ve been lucky enough to finally get a new halfway decent camera so I wanted to take a visit to the Hook for some long-hoped-for photos for the site. A long flat low bare almost treeless peninsula in the south-east, at the other side of the Suir-Nore-Barrow estuary, it stretches out into the Celtic Sea and at the end is Hook Lighthouse, reputedly the oldest operational lighthouse in the world. (You’ll have noticed by now that I have a thing for lighthouses). Unlike most lighthouses, there are actually public tours and inside the modern tower are the older walls of the 13th century tower

Estuary up toward Waterford from above Passage East

The fastest way to the Hook from Waterford is on the car ferry at Passage East, the trip across the estuary takes about 4 minutes.

Passage ferry

Just outside Duncannon is an old lighthouse for the inner estuary.

Duncannon Lighthouse (1774)

Halfway down the est side of the estuary is town of Duncannon which was used as a military Fort to protect the entry to the estuary.

Duncannon Windsurfer (taken on greyer day)

Duncannon beach is very popular with wind and kite surfers.

Duncannon Fort & Hook Lighthouse in the distance

Hook reefs

 

The currents round the Hook are pretty vicious and it catches a lot of very rough water, howling winds and big unsurfable waves. It’s also a great spot for whale watching.

Before the Hook on the west side is an old small fishing slip, with only mere nubs of rusted iron stakes left in the rocks, which is a nice walk where few of the visitors go.

There are some interesting blowholes in the rocks, with a northerly offshore wind and flat water that day, they weren’t providing any entertainment but I took some a very short video there previously.

The dogs like the area.

Scout on the reefs on the reefs

Lighthouse & buildings from the gate

The (probably apocryphal) story told locally is that that the phrase “by hook or by crook” derives from Hook Head, referring to Ireland’s historical bete-noir Oliver Cromwell who stated his intention to invade by Hook Head or by Crook Head, which is on the opposite side of the estuary.

Lighthouse from the road

The old residential buildings are used for a café and gift shop and children’s art gallery. The café serves the largest chunks of cheddar in their Ploughman’s Lunch!

Lighthouse from below the road

Hook lighthouse

Unsurprisingly for somewhere with a lighthouse, the area is surrounded by exposed reefs.

The dogs would happily stay playing around.

Time to go you say?

The first monastery (St. Dubhan’s) was built on the peninsula in the 5th Century AD and there are still remains of a later Church on the same site. In Irish the Hook peninsula is actually named after this Church.

Dubhan's Church

There’s a great view of the whole estuary, and the western bank including  Crook Head, Dunmore east, Creaghan Head, Woodstown and Passage East.

Waterford to Passage East to Dunmore & Crook Head (size has been reduced so it loads quickly)

When we got home Toby would have stayed in the car. He loves the car.

Thinking of a visit? The Hook Lighthouse webcam is my favourite webcam.

Hook Head webcam.

Related articles:

HookHeritage website.

Lighthouses of the North Atlantic – loneswimmer.com

Sailing from Crosshaven to Dungarvan – loneswimmer.com

Tall Ships Waterford 2011 – loneswimmer.com