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Swimming - Any other swimmers?
Basar
IstanbulRegistered User regular
IstanbulRegistered User regular
Well watching Phelps break every damn record out there I am pumped to get back to swimming. I swam competitevely between ages 12-17 but dropped it after I moved half way around the world.
Anyways, I am 25 years old now, and I just wanna start swimming again. I'll practice a little on my own for now but probably will join a team later on.
Do you guys have any recommendations? IIRC, my 1500m time was 16:21 at around age 14, so I used to be in good shape.
So any routines for me? I already took out my googles, cap, and will probably invest in a high tech suit + Swimp3 player to spice up the exercise.
Thanks.
Anyways, I am 25 years old now, and I just wanna start swimming again. I'll practice a little on my own for now but probably will join a team later on.
Do you guys have any recommendations? IIRC, my 1500m time was 16:21 at around age 14, so I used to be in good shape.
So any routines for me? I already took out my googles, cap, and will probably invest in a high tech suit + Swimp3 player to spice up the exercise.
Thanks.
i live in a country with a batshit crazy president and no, english is not my first language
Basar on
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That said, this past spring I picked it back up when I was unemployed as something to keep me motivated every day. At the time I was just happy to swim any amount of distance - what you'll find when you first get back into the pool is that you're not quite what you were when you stopped. It's a lot of relearning things as simple as flipturns, but it all comes back pretty quickly.
Nowadays I'm at the point where it's a really good point in my day to think, so I tend to go distance. I usually swim a 500 of back, 500 of breast, and 500 of crawl, with an additional 500 of mixed kickboard / drag buoy.
It keeps me pretty well worked out, and I've been losing a lot of weight / gaining muscle.
So awesome to have you other swimmers around!
incubus: That's great that you wanna start up again. Actually we can use this thread as a swimmer's thread about posting our routines, workouts, times, etc. I am not gonna get the high tech suite for a while as you suggested, I'll probably look too gooffy in it anyway. My initial plan is to increase my workout to 2000 meters. Last night I was able to swim 1320 meters under 30 minutes with some rest every 330 meters (my pool is oddly sized, 33 meters in lenght, so its 20 laps). I also do the 100 pushup challenge so I am going to swim on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturday and Sundays. 4 days a week should give me a pretty good pace to improve, right?
wallabeeX: Same thing happened with me. At age 17 or so I began more interested in computers, more specificly Counter-Strike and stopped it
What do you guys recommend for warming up and cooling down?
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About Phelps, yeah, he is amazing. I guess that's the reward you get for swimming 7 hours a day since age 5, no weekends, no holidays, nothing. AMAZING. Me and my father were watching the 4 x 200 freestyle relay and after Phelps was done, we looked at each other and were like "WTF? I could race after him and still win the race."
Haha
What kind of googles do you use? Just regular Speedos? I wonder how those single piece googles work
Also, apparently these are awesome: http://www.finisinc.com/products-swimp3.shtml
They are only 256 mbs but that's enough for training and they transmit sound through the cheekbones via vibrations! Frickin tech that is!
And just so I add something, short article on working up to a swimming a mile in 6 weeks.
zero to one mile
Gir: I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me.
Using water weights is great exercise too.
330 x 1 Butterfly
330 x 4 Front Crawl
Dead tired now!
I'm not sure I have any advice for you, seeing as I was psyched to knock out a sub 31 minute 2000m the other day. Maybe flip turns will shave 5 minutes off my time?
Working on core strength might not be a bad idea. The stronger the core the easier it is to skim the top of the water, correct?
Thanks! This is exactly what I needed to start a serious swimming regiment. I'd like to start doing some triathlons, but I've never swam competitively, so something like this is great.
As far as gear goes. I'm assuming goggles are a good idea, right? What about swimwear? I have a pair of regular ol' swim trunks, but I'm just going to be training for a while, not competing. Should I bother with a crazy suit, or no?
It's been 10 years since I've done any swimming besides playing in the pool or river. I did go swim laps about a year ago at a gym...but it was $4 every time I wanted to swim, or a hefty membership fee so I didn't go back. I have never been good at running...I always feel like I over heat and can't breath. But even out of shape as I was I swam for almost an hour strait without stopping and didn't have the breathing problems....I felt pretty good until I tried to get out of the pool and my legs were tired as hell!
I want to get back into swimming to lose about 25lbs but whenever I read about swimming it keeps going on about technique..makes me wonder if I'll even remember any of this technique stuff. I still want to try getting back into it though. I've never cared much about being fast or beating other people. When school starts back up, it's about a 2 miles from my apartment to the campus pool. I am thinking about riding my bike up there for a warm up and swimming 2 or 3 times a week. I suppose 2 miles is a pretty big warm up though.
I think this is probably why a lot of people get distant from swimming.
Hmmm maybe your feet strokes (or whatever the heck you call them in English) are not properly done? Your legs shouldn't get that tired. How many times were you kicking them up and down between how many strokes? You don't have to do as many as possible feet strokes as they are done not to speed you up but rather balance your oxygen filled chest. Also $4 / swim is not bad compared to some I have seen in big cities like Washington DC / NYC = $20 o_O If you swam twice a week, that would be like $32 bucks a month, which is certainly less than most pool memberships.
Well your technique is important, as you have mentioned above, it can affect your endurance. But most people's technique improves overtime regardless of their routine as long as they stay in the pool for a while. Since you are not going to compete for the Olympics, most of the technical stuff easily learnable. Ask here if you have questions about technique, I haven't swam for a long time myself but just got back in the pool yesterday to do a mile and still all good
Yeah, more than likely. I never really felt upset that I didn't win, but since I didn't win I got less and less meets and more assfacery from the coach. I really did put in an honest effort, but I knew I was never really destined for the olympics or anything....swimming is just fun for me..
You very well might be right about me kicking too much, though I think it's more of the fact that I've become pretty out of shape/lazy as hell over the last few years that an hour straight of swimming wore me out. I pushed on well past the whole comfortable phase, aiming for tired :-P.
Anyway, thanks for the advice.
Another critical mistake most people do is pushing for too many strokes. Your goal should be to cover as much distance as possible with the fewest strokes. There have been numerous scientific studies showing that most medal winning swimmers are the ones who stroke the least amount. You can improve your swimming a lot if you work on that.
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I did 330 x 2 breaststroke, 132 butterfly and 330 x 3 front crawl today.
I think joining a team will boost my motivation. I was really bored today
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For extended workouts, I highly suggest some Swedish goggles, as they're dirt cheap and incredibly comfortable/non leaky. If you're just getting started again, I'd suggest doing some technique work as a part of your workouts, as you'll have less chance of injury (like screwing up your shoulder) and you'll start to build endurance/speed faster.
Thou shalt stretch before swimming. Also, this has a couple of decent drills - catch up and fingertip drag are especially good for teaching yourself how to lengthen your stroke. I don't particularly like the use of catch-up with a kick board, but some other people do. Also, to help you remember how to swim on your side rather than flat, try doing some 10-10 (ten kicks on your side, one arm in front, other at your side, then take a stroke as you roll to the other side, 10 kicks there, repeat.)
Why such high distance?
Katholic: I have gained like 20 lbs since I graduated from college and I want to use swimming as a tool to toning my body, getting rid of some belly. I guess I could do HIIT in the pool by a sprint one way, and a slower on way back but I like distance swimming (even though I am worse at it than sprinting).
By the way, you guys see my post in the fitness thread?
At my peak physical condition in high school, I was swimming 20,000 yards a day. I was on a team that didn't really work out though (the coach was more interested in money and being an asshole than coaching). I left and found a coach who emphasized technique and my times really started dropping. I am a backstroker and a sprinter/midrange swimmer. These were the fastest times I ever swam (yards) in my best events:
100 back: 53.2
200 back: 1:56.9
100 free: 48.3
200 free: 1:48.6
Anyway, 6 years later, I started to swim again, and I am starting to fall in love again. I swim with a friend from high school so that I have more motivation to keep going. My friend swims with a drag suit (kind of a loose speedo), and I swim with some long trunks mainly because I want to lose some weight before I spend money on a real suit. We both use Swedish goggles because they are pretty much the most awesome goggles ever.
One of my favorite new workouts is based on the fibonacci sequence. Basically start at index=0 and work your way up:
100
100 100
100 100 200
100 100 200 300
100 100 200 300 500
...etc. I try to swim the last of each index fastest out of the set (the ones in bold). I swim each set at a 1:45/100 pace, but I try to swim at a 1:30 pace so that I get about 15 seconds of rest per hundred.
tl;dr happy to be talking swimming again
Focusing on triceps and shoulders/lats will do you a lot of good. Abs, chest, and legs would come next. The best thing though is to just keep swimming. Eventually you will get to the point where the motion becomes natural and your arms will stop feeling like 100 lb weights.
The reason your heart feels like it is going to explode is probably because you are kicking so hard. It takes a lot more effort to move with your legs in the water than it does to run or bike. Also, the importance of technique cannot be overstated. If you are serious about swimming, it would do you a great deal of good to find someone who can show you proper technique.
Technique for freestyle. The first thing to help actually getting some propulsion with your arms is to make sure that you do an s-shape (or backwards s with the left arm) for the underwater part of each stroke with a slightly cupped hand. This means you actually pull yourself through the water. This also leaves you in the best position to bring each arm up in a good position with a nice bent elbow essentially giving each arm a rest before starting the stroke again. With your legs, think of it more as an ankle kick rather than a leg kick. Make sure your ankles are nice and relaxed and kinda floppy.
Also, if you can't do 100m in one go, doesn't matter. do 50m, rest for a minute, do another 50m and once you've got used to it after a few sessions you'll be able to build up.
Another important thing is to remember not to lift your entire head out of the pool to breathe. A nice training pattern (not racing but taking it fairly easy) is to breathe every third stroke. You want to put your head to the side just enough that you can breathe without choking to death...you can train yourself to essentially breathe with half your mouth open.
(ASA accredited swimming teacher)
As Basar said, you're probably swimming "uphill" in this case, and it also sounds like you'll need to get some work developing your stroke again. You probably also need to learn to get comfortable in the water again rather than fighting against it. It doesn't take a ton of muscle to swim, as long as you've got proper technique.
Again, stretch before swimming or I will appear on the deck and yell at you. You will also warm up in some way.
First, don't worry about speed. Or distance. They will come. Second, if you're a runner/cyclist (ah, triathletes), you're probably kicking incorrectly, as they tend to kick like they run/cycle. My favorite "develop a stroke" routine goes like this:
10/10 - Lay on your side, with one arm extended above your head, and the other down along your side. You can turn your head to the side to breathe, but you should generally have your face down in the water. Kick 10 times, then take a stroke, rolling all the way onto your other side. Repeat. Your kick should NOT come from your knees - it should come from your thighs. You'll want to keep your legs generally straight without locking your knees.
Focus on: Swimming on your side. The more you are on your side, the more streamlined you become. This drill is also good for helping you become more comfortable breathing to the side again rather than picking your head up out of the water.
5/3/5 - Same as above, but 5 kicks/3 strokes/5 kicks.
Focus on: Rolling your hips from side to side during the stroke. Your body should never be parallel to the bottom of the pool for more than an instant while you roll from side to side. You also have to breathe to both sides during this drill - bonus!
Catch up - Swim freestyle, but leave one arm out in front until the other catches up with it (ie. you should reach a streamline for a moment). Take a stroke with the other arm; repeat.
Focus on: Lengthening your stroke while maintaining a side to side rhythm. You should only be flat on your stomach the instant the other hand catches up with the other, then begin rolling.
I like to do 100's or 200's, broken up into 25's/50's of those 3 drills with a 25/50 of freestyle at the end. Speed is not important here. If you feel like you're about to die, slow down, but try your best not to stop - you're trying to develop some muscle memory here.
After you spend time doing technique, you can do a short set. If your endurance is not where you want it, I'd suggest starting with 50's or 75's. On an interval. If you need assistance with developing an appropriate, non-slacking, non-ridiculous interval, sprint a 50 from the wall and give me your time.
Finish with some cooldown/technique work. I'm a huge fan of the fingertip drag and thumb up the side drills at the end of workouts, as this is the time that most people start to get sloppy with their arms.
Fingertip Drag - As you recover your arm over the water, drag your fingertips across the surface of the water past your face.
Focus on: High elbows and keeping your arms from sweeping wide. Your arm should be coming right past your head on the recovery.
Thumb up the Side - During the recovery portion of the stroke, drag your thumb up the side of your body.
Focus on: Same as above.
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That's a good tip. I'll try it tomorrow morning. I think I can do about 35-40 meters underwater without breathing.