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How to stroke real good (swimming)
spacerobot
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Back in December I remembered that I hadn't exercised in approximately 7 years (sports in High School) and was pretty much a 160 pound weakling So I went out and got myself a membership to our local park districts facilities. I went ocassionally in December to lift weights and swim laps, but then stopped. January rolled around and I started going again regularly. Since January I have swam laps 2 days a week, and lifted weights 2-3 days a week.
The part about swimming:
When I started swimming there, I wasn't very good. I struggled at first to complete 18 laps (half mile). By the time I finished that I was exhausted and getting cramps. While doing those 18 laps I would do 1 lap backstroke, 1 lap breast stroke (at the time I was doing it improperly), 1 lap side stroke, then repeat.
Eventually I was able to swim 1 mile in 1 hour, and eliminate sidestroke completely from the routine, and replace it with freestyle. More recently I have eliminated the backstroke completely and replaced that with freestyle also. As of this week, I am currently swimming 1 mile by doing 2 laps breast stroke, 3 laps freestyle (with a small rest in between each lap since I'm still not very strong). I feel I have improved a ton, especially since initially i was barely able to do one lap freestyle. I also used to do the freestyle very improperly and have refined it so I'm 90% sure I'm doing it correctly.
Anyway, one reason I'm doing all this (besides to be healthier and build muscle) is because I will be becoming a certified lifeguard at the end of May for my job at a Summer camp. I have no clue what the lifeguard test will be like, so I want to be in the best shape possible and be able to swim 1/4 mile freestyle with no rest between laps... just to make sure I'm ready. I would like to achieve this by May 1st, even though I'll be taking the test at the end of May.
My question is this: What is the best stroke to swim to build muscle and become stronger? Most of the people I see at the pool (who aren't old timers swimming for therapy) do only freestyle. I rarely see people doing breast stroke. Is the freestyle the best way to become a strong swimmer and build strength?
Lately I have been swimming 34 laps in 1 hour (just over a mile). Is it a good idea to pretty much put as many laps in as I can? Should I aim for a time limit instead of yards?
So far since January I've gained approx. 13 pounds which I believe is muscle, and weighed 173 pounds yesterday... I would like to continue to gain weight and strength.
I'm 6'0". What is a healthy weight I should achieve while I can still develop muscle?
The part about swimming:
When I started swimming there, I wasn't very good. I struggled at first to complete 18 laps (half mile). By the time I finished that I was exhausted and getting cramps. While doing those 18 laps I would do 1 lap backstroke, 1 lap breast stroke (at the time I was doing it improperly), 1 lap side stroke, then repeat.
Eventually I was able to swim 1 mile in 1 hour, and eliminate sidestroke completely from the routine, and replace it with freestyle. More recently I have eliminated the backstroke completely and replaced that with freestyle also. As of this week, I am currently swimming 1 mile by doing 2 laps breast stroke, 3 laps freestyle (with a small rest in between each lap since I'm still not very strong). I feel I have improved a ton, especially since initially i was barely able to do one lap freestyle. I also used to do the freestyle very improperly and have refined it so I'm 90% sure I'm doing it correctly.
Anyway, one reason I'm doing all this (besides to be healthier and build muscle) is because I will be becoming a certified lifeguard at the end of May for my job at a Summer camp. I have no clue what the lifeguard test will be like, so I want to be in the best shape possible and be able to swim 1/4 mile freestyle with no rest between laps... just to make sure I'm ready. I would like to achieve this by May 1st, even though I'll be taking the test at the end of May.
My question is this: What is the best stroke to swim to build muscle and become stronger? Most of the people I see at the pool (who aren't old timers swimming for therapy) do only freestyle. I rarely see people doing breast stroke. Is the freestyle the best way to become a strong swimmer and build strength?
Lately I have been swimming 34 laps in 1 hour (just over a mile). Is it a good idea to pretty much put as many laps in as I can? Should I aim for a time limit instead of yards?
So far since January I've gained approx. 13 pounds which I believe is muscle, and weighed 173 pounds yesterday... I would like to continue to gain weight and strength.
I'm 6'0". What is a healthy weight I should achieve while I can still develop muscle?
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Also, intervals are a good way to swim. It's not always about number of laps/distance, but also the time involved. So, you might set yourself up with a plan or a goal like "40 laps on 1 minute intervals" (or, in other words, you do a lap, wait until a minute has passed since you started the lap - so if your lap took you 45 seconds you'd rest for 15 - and do another lap, until you've done that 40 times. Intervals are good because it makes it easy to monitor your progress in a very concrete way, and also take a lot of air when you start getting fast, so you're getting in your cardio. Just don't get discouraged if your progress slows - it's a lot easier to go from swimming a mile in an hour to a mile in 50 minutes than it is to, say, go from swimming a mile in 50 minutes to a mile in 40 minutes.
Did that help?
As for the intervals... That sounds pretty tough! But it does help me understand the workout. I don't know if I can even do 1 lap in under 1 minute... but that certainly is a new goal for me. Although at my pool 32 laps = 1 mile, so doing a mile in 32 minutes will be pretty tough from my currently 50 minutes. But I'll still make it my goal.
Each stroke builds different muscles, obviously, so no one stroke is the "best" to build muscles. I would say Butterfly is probably the most work intensive one, since it involves a whole body motion, unlike Free and Baack, which have the arms and legs doing separate things, while the torso just plain doesn't do much. Still, swimming alone will not add tons of muscle, and will not really give you muscle definition, you'll want to add on some weight training to get the muscles up running. To give you an idea, an average swim team's practice is 2 hours, and the swim team I was on was 2 hours in the afternoon, with half an hour of physical workout (a full hour in the summer) added on. The best swimmers also did two sessions a day, for a grand total of 4 hours swimming.
I doubt you want to go to nationals, but I gotta say my little brother is friggin' ripped (I'm the fat older brother. =( ).
As for how you should swim, I would suggest going around online and looking at the various workouts that you can find around. Most of them emphasize on certain aspects of swimming, so you'd want to switch them around, and build a schedule. For instance, one day you'll do sprint training (great for cardiovascular, since most time time you're also restricting breathing), the next you'll do a long distance medium-workout, and the next you might do a medium-intensity short distance. Trust me when I say that you should vary your workouts. Swimming is a hell of a boring sport if you're not racing, or paying perfect attention to your stroke (and to be honest, you'll have the strokes down perfectly if you're practicing correctly. Just think "what is most efficient?")
As for the other fitness questions, can't help you there.
Edit: Oh, and for the lifeguard stuff.... it's pretty simple, usually. The one camp I went to had it's lifeguard requirement basically be "Can you swim?" and "Can you drag a child from a few feet out", neither of which are particularly difficult. The pool complex where I used to live was much tougher, had to be able to swim 1000 yards in a certain amount of time, and hold a weight over your head in the water for either five or ten minutes.
You have to go easy on the intervals at first, to test your limits and also because they're deceptively strenous. You think you're doing all well and good for the first ten intervals and then you hit the wall. They wear you out and get your heart rate up much faster than just doing distance swimming - why I have no idea. You should have a pretty good idea of what you're capable of after trying them out for a little bit. Just remember to either increase the number of laps or decrease the time interval once a week or so.
As far as the butterfly- That's something I'd love to be able to do, but it looks pretty difficult and intimidating. Perhaps I should look into a personal trainer/swim lessons to refine this stuff.
And no, I don't want to go to nationals
Good. I would probably die if I tried 1 minute. I'll start off easy when I swim on Friday.
I know they will also be teaching me how to actually rescue people also, such as those rollovers and stuff you were talking about (I currently have no clue how that stuff works, thankfully my employer pays for the class when I do the certification). But the part I was worried about was the laps (some websites call them the pre-requirements) which I guess is what it is. My summer job won't even be as a lifeguard, just a camp counselor and we have to be certified and to have the training for when we do canoe trips. So there is more involved with it than what I mentioned... but they will teach all that stuff to me when it comes time.
90% of the beaches I've been to didn't have lifeguards, either, or had unmanned lifeguard stands which I guess were supposed to protect us magically.
Hey I'm glad to hear they're going over that stuff with you, I thought for a second you just had to fulfill the prerequisite and they'd hand you your certification, that's good to hear. Responding to Duffel, ya we are pretty stringent but there's a lot of that here too with the babysitting and pedophile wrangling, but with large athletic centres and community pools not so much, you see that more at the city wading pools. Man I hate those things, I used to do that during the summer and you'd end up sharing most of your lunch with the kids that came by (which I didn't really mind) because their welfare moms had basically booted them out of the house for the day and wouldn't feed them. Incidentally most of the park wading pools were in lower-income areas of town, the emotional apathy really pissed me off.
Edit: Again I'd like to stress learning/improving your eggbeater kick, it's awesome for supporting another individual's body weight in deep water and moving them to a safe location. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWV4GHp03gA
I believe he meant swimming a distance of 50m while underwater.
Oh ya, that's my swim team too, it's not expected for lifeguard training. It's not as difficult as it sounds once you get your lung capacity up.
That makes a hell of a lot more sense.
EDIT: Also eggbeater video sounds like it was taped in a Dantea-esque circle of hell.