Swimmers unite!

Can I join you? I only really swim once a week as that's when I can get to the pool at a time when it's not booked by a club. I'm a plodder really, I spend about an hour in the pool and manage roughly 1.5km in that time. I do mostly breaststroke but quite like backstroke too and really have to force myself to do any front crawl.

I got a waterproof mp3 player for Christmas, just a cheap one from Amazon, and it's brilliant! It feels very odd to be able to listen to music under the water and actually my ears fill up with water around the earphones sometimes but I think it's my favourite Christmas present, maybe tying with the new properly fitting, supportive swimming costume.

legspinner - your race sounds exciting! Was going to say I like it rough but you know what I mean!! I haven't taken any big steps towards swimming the channel (like booking a pilot boat) as I wanted to have a good season of sea swimming first - my friends (aka 'support crew') seem to think its just a piss up boat to France tho. It's 22 miles, but the conditions make it very difficult - can take up to 18 hours if tides are bad.

I wanted a sporting challenge that would stretch me to the end before I die and I'm a strong hefty northern lass so I thought it would suit. I'm fed up of being overtaken by skinny runners and cyclists, and I think women make bloody good swimmers.

I'm off to Mallorca in April on a long distance sea swimming training holiday, hence the amount of time in the pool at the moment. I do go in the sea without a wetsuit every week but it's bloody freezing and none of my miserable friends will come in

I really envy you guys who do all the strokes - it's supposed to be really good for avoiding injuries. Anyone do butterfly? That would be impressive in our pool

I don't do dry swimming or swimming in my head. Maybe I should.

I do 3kms at the moment - 2100ms of 100m side stroke, 100m front crawl, 100m back stroke (so 700m each), then 600m of breast stroke (I am slow at this, so I change lanes), then 300m of working on bilateral breathing with my crawl (at the moment).

I am not sure it makes sense to keep changing strokes, but it helps me keep track of my laps.

hello everyone, can I join you? I swim twice a week - about 1k usually. I mostly do breaststroke, with a few lengths of crawl and backstroke to break it up. I would really love to improve my crawl - I am just finishing a PhD and should have more time on my hands afterwards, and am thinking of doing a sprint triathlon this summer, and would like to be able to do it all in crawl (can only do 50m at a time at the mo). So thanks for the suggestions and links up thread. Definitely want some coaching when the PhD madness is over.

Some good ideas for technique on this thread, thanks all (goes off to scare the cat) Still can't do tumble turns. Which brings me to ask all you tumblers - how do you see who is coming up behind you if they are faster so you can give way? (or are you all so fast that you don't have to? ) Doesn't happen often that I'm faster than someone who tumbles, but it did today and there was no way he could see me. I'm reluctant to toe tickle people I don't know!!!

Thanks for the good luck vibes kaizen and aristo! Think I'll need it as the forecast is for wind (and rain, though that's fine). Was pretty rough 2 years ago and I struggled but finished. If it's rougher than that I'll probably downgrade to the shorter race. Eek!
aristo it's not a triathlon, haven't done one of those for a while now (am really crap at running). It's here, one in a series of summer ocean swims across the country. My DD2 is doing the kids' swim too (200m) which is great - she did it last year too.

kaizen are you really going to swim the channel? How far is that - around 40km? Do you do open water swimming as well as pool swimming?

kelpeed have you thought about joining a swim fit class if there is one near you to counter the boredom? I go to a weekly one which is great, lots of mums like me go (and the faster triathlon blokes go in the faster lane next door). It's very social and there's a lot of variety in the workouts (endurance, speed, drills) which I sometimes try on my own. Not so much technique driven but there are others in my area which are focused towards technique or endurance.

I was lying on my floor at home last week practising my arm rotation - cat was a bit bemused. There are some good 'dry land' breathing and arms drills on you tube too. I find imaging what I want to look like in the water helps, especially when streamlining (tho I do tend to swim with my legs apart apparently - not very elegant

I don't really do sets at the moment, I do three 2.5km swims a week, one 5k, and some other bits and bobs on technique. I'm fairly quick, but not as quick as when I was more of a 'churner', but it's a lot easier now to go further. I want a fairly effortless stroke to take me across the channel in a few years (gulp)

I find it it bloody frustrating sometimes, change one thing and everything changes. It's the only sport where just pushing harder doesn't work!

My swimming teacher massively encourages swimming in your head, as well as walking through strokes on land which makes you look a complete plonker so best done with no-one around...

I swim in my mind as well. Glad to know I am not alone.

PS: when I say fast, I don't mean speedy, I mean just really kicking and pulling properly hard.

Hello all!
Another swimmer here, I also do total immersion, suits my lazy nature .

What I tend to do is warm up 10 lengths, I start fast for the first two and gradually slow down and the last 4 I do fast again. During the last 4 I focus on 'what hurts' or feels uncomfortable and then spend another 10 lengths focusing on that. Then I do a medley:2lenghts of each stroke, one slow, one fast, I don't do butterfly. I do 5 sets.
My fav stroke is backstroke, so my wind down is 4 backstrokes, another 6 lengths on front crawl and then out.

I'm not bored, I find it deeply relaxing, I can think unintrerupted for an hour or so. But can I ask about your sets, do you chop and change? Do you have a 'structure'? I've done mine for so long I don't know where to begin to change it a bit.

Do any of you do dry swimming? Sometimes I swim in my mind before going to bed, not something I'll readily admit in RL, but this has helped with spatial awareness in water, in my mind I know 'how' to do it properly, does that make sense?

I can just about tumble turn, I can do it ok-ish, but not when it is busy, however, it doesn't come naturally and it does slow me down, so much to think about! :)

I swim! I do 3km, twice a week, at the moment (takes about 1.5 hours). A mix of front crawl, back crawl, side stroke and breast stroke. I'm working on speeding up my breast stroke, and learning to breathe bi-laterally.

The pool I use has a scheme called 'Swimfit plus', where you pay an extra £1 for your session, get a special wristband, and then you get coaching from someone on the side. So worth it! You just get little tips, to say how you could improve.

Forgot- good luck for Sunday legs!

I stroke count in each length too and I try and work on one focal point for each length - at the moment it's releasing my head for 20 lengths, breathing early for 20, exhaling fully underwater, hand entry, kick timing etc etc etc I've got a lot to work on. My teacher recommends one or two things per session, then your muscle memory starts to do it automatically.
I also stop when it gets hard and my stroke falls apart, as otherwise that imprints bad habits - doesn't matter how few lengths I've done. Or sometimes I sit in the spa for a bit then try again. Ebearhug I think it's meditative too! and I really miss it if I don't go for a couple of days

I haven't swum for ages, (bad cold before Christmas, and generally just very busy, yes, excuses,) and I refuse to go in January, as I can only go at peak use times, and I hate having to wait at the end of every length because it's so busy. But I am quite missing it

I find swimming can be very meditative - I count strokes in a length, and lengths, and it means I stop thinking about all the crap at work and so on.

Thanks for the info Kaizen and Pootlebug, I'll look them up. Really helpful. What a great place mumsnet can be!

Waves to aristo - hello, glad to hear you are still swimming!
Hello to everyone - I swim about 3 times a week. My technique is not great so I'll be checking out the links above - thanks all

I am doing a big ocean swim on Sunday (it's summer here) and am getting very apprehensive about it - it's pretty windy where I live at the best of times which makes local sea swimming quite challenging. Watching the wind / weather forecast closely..

I'm thrilled to have found you all - thanks to Kaizen.

I've just started going swimming again 3 times a week & today (fifth swim) was pleased to have done 500M front crawl. I want to build up both speed & stamina but am dire at backstroke & have been told not to do breast stroke as it's not great for back problems. I need to improve my backstroke, I reckon. Or can I just do front crawl, my best & favourite stroke.

pootlebug I have total immersion lessons, and Ive only been to workshops for 'improvers' so they use the videos as a starting point if you can already swim ok (or think you can!) We then used my video and went right back to basics of balance drills and building the stroke up. I spent hours in the outdoor pool practising balance drills and I still do them occasionally now (as I've got over feeling like a dick doing them- just) I envy the folks learning from scratch as there are no bad habits to get rid of.

And they don't have to see themselves looking like a little fat hippo under the water on video instead of the 5'7" mermaid they envisaged

That's really interesting Kaizen - I confess I really didn't research the options - found Shaw Method when googling for swimming lessons and went for it.

It didn't start with video analysis though - it started from learning all over again from scratch, on dry land and then in the pool (then another land session, and another pool session). Video analysis came at the end to see what you were and weren't doing in terms of 'new' method. So it was about re-learning (or learning in the first place if you had no front crawl ability at all), rather than adapting what you already do.

Hi everyone! I love this thread (see my name!).

I didn't know to swim until 2 years ago & learnt swimming only as an adult. But I love it, and now am swimming 50 lengths (1000m) over about 45 mins. Am rather slow as am more focussed on technique than speed at the mo. I swim 1-2 times a week regularly.

I would love to learn - to swim in open water, deep water (& treading), improving my speed/stamina.

Thank you for the useful links, I will be looking them up to see if I can find any training that can move me forward.

pleaseputyour the three main front crawl technique-based 'schools' are the Shaw method, as pootle said, Total Immersion, and Swim Smooth.

All have teachers (or coaches) around the country who will teach you one on one, or offer workshops (if you google). They will all offer video stroke analysis first, and then take you through the basics, usually in an endless pool (mini pool which has a jet that you swim against) or in a local pool if it's a workshop.

I won't get into the 'politics' of each approach as there are plenty of heated discussions online but there are lots of similar things in each approach. Basically each one will teach you to swim more efficiently with less effort and you will improve massively and very quickly whichever you chose. And you'll enjoy it much more too. They all have websites so you can look at to see which approach you fancy, or you tube videos so you can see people swimming. And then you can become a true swim geek....(