Swimming for fitness (part 2). Jump in!

[rightsofwomen]

We've filled up the first Swimming for fitness thread, so here is the new one.

Everyone welcome.

I aim to swim 1-2 a week around also running 1-2x. so it's good cross training for me. Normally I only have half hour so do a 1k of breast stroke, backstroke and kicking with float. Have been trying for the last year to teach myself freestyle but I just can't stop panicking on the breathing. I've picked up lots of tips on here which I will keep trying. I spend a lot of time watching my daughter swim training or youngest DD at lessons, so I seem to always be near a pool!

Username: rightsofwomen
How often swim: twice a week for about 1/2hr
Distance: usually 1K, sometimes a bit more. Always in 100m units so I can log on Strava
Stroke: front crawl
Make of goggles: Aqua Sphere Kaiman
Goals: To speed up, learn to tumble turn and complete (and enjoy the 750m open water swim in July)
Anything else: I am so pleased I have found a love of swimming after always saying I was not a swimmer.

cheapmum when you did the Henley club to pub was the 400m against the tide ok? That's the bit I'm most bricking it about. I'm so slow I'm worried I might swim backwards. . Were there a few slow swimmers there?

skibike have you read Leap In? Sorry if it has been mentioned here before. She really struggled with panicking when doing front crawl. I thought that it was a nice read. I used to get in a bit of a fluster too.

No I haven't raaahh I will check it out thanks for tip. I did successfully teach myself full face in breast stroke so I know I can now happily swim face under but I really struggle with frontcrawl turning my head. I'm really stiff on one neck side but I also realise that I have really strong legs and it should be more about the arms, so I need to slow down a lot. I was scared a lot from childhood swim lessons and it's taken a lot to overcome that. Its made me determined that my DDs will enjoy and be comfortable being in the water before they started lessons. And that has really paid off with them. I read some of the TI infor posted further up about being fully comfortable "in" the water which I haven't achieved yet I have to really work at it, i.e. I can't just sink down and sit on the bottom of the pool not even the shallow end I get panicking so I really love that my 5yr old has just started to do this off her own back and loves just sinking under the water it's taken a couple of years to get her "feeling happy" in the water (the opposite of my fish-like older DD!)

The water is my happy place. Where i lived as a child we got a book of 30 swim tickets when we passed our Advanced. They built a brand new pool when i was 9 and i went from a none swimmer to gold in 2 years. My friends and i were always at tbe pool. If synchro had been around then i would have loved it.
Both dcs were waterbabes and their hobbies all involve water. Dd 19 just taking up board diving , wish i could but dont like heights

Can I join? I did a fundraising relay a few years ago, with a just turned 1 year old. I'm now much heavier and less fit than I was then, so want to get fit. And thinner. Childcare seems to be the main issue. Once a week I can go before work, my favourite swim. Plus Sunday mornings (can't do Saturdays, dh working from before the pool opens) and aiming for one evening a week, but I don't enjoy those, session times constantly change, webpage not updated or crashing, no paper timetables. I count in 8s mainly. Started with 24 lengths, now doing 32. Once I gets bit fitter I plan to up it to 40. I wont have time to do longer than that, except maybe Sundays. My goal at the moment is to keep going! A friend does open swimming, we are visiting a lake in June, so I want to be fit enough with enough technique to not let myself down. I figure even if the evening sessions are slow, due to overcrowding, just doing the lengths must help a bit! Just to maintain fitness.

I wanted to say, prescription goggles are a revelation. I dug mine out, had been doing normal goggles over disposable contact lenses, but I could see better in the prescription goggles. The prescription isn't precise, no astigmatism correction etc, but less cloudy than the other way.

Raaaaaah The 400m against the tide was fine. Yes you can feel it ie it feels a little bit harder but I promise it is not like walking up a down escalator or anything like that. You won't go backwards! The pay off is that the rest of it feels a lot easier. You also get a bottle of beer and a medal shaped like a bottle opener, which is pretty cool.
I am a slow swimmer and these events are not races, they are more sportive swims. You find in all open water events of this kind that there are a hardy bunch at the back plodding along and that is where I usually am. I was not last though! If you are last (which you won't be) you'll get a huge round of applause.
I just get a big thrill from finishing these things - I only learned to swim properly with face in the water etc as an adult and now absolutely love it.

Hi there! I have been reading and lurking on this thread these past few weeks and thought I would say hello.

I love swimming but have never been in proper swim training or the like. I never learned front crawl when I was young but have just done a beginners crawl course and I am loving it. I used to swim breaststroke and could easily do 60-80 lengths in a session but since starting doing crawl I am knackered if I manage to string 2 lengths together and so going swimming is very stop-starty for me at the moment which I don't like!

My swimming teacher said just keep at it but I wonder if you can give me some tips on how to get from needing CPR after two lengths to doing a continuous swim of crawl?

(was posting as lljkk)

I swim 2x/week
1.8-2k each time (50-65minutes)
front crawl, I taught myself as an adult, I can't do anything else. I have rabid loathing/fear of breaststrokers, tbh. Such painful kicks, shudder, even when they R in next lane.
Goggles never fit how I like!! Zoggs Predator Flex ones R mostly ok right now, though I also have some Predator Wiro ones that don't work @ all.
Goal is to avoid bingo wings. Also have a super-short triathlon to do in 11 weeks.

I love ocean swimming but UK waters R mostly too cold.

Best here.

2 to 3 times per week but only 30 minutes so aim to do as much as I can, usually 800m, I have done the Swimathon in the past but am very slow.

Front crawl only. Can't do breaststroke at all, just can't coordinate it plus have dodgy knee. Love a bit of backstroke (I'm told my backstroke is very elegant) but only in an empty lane as I don't want to endanger anyone else.

Goggles - prescription ones, Hilco, have discovered if I wet them first,they don't leak. They are ancient so I am in the market for new ones but these work!

Taught myself to swim in Llanelli baths aged 7 and grew up swimming off the Gower coast. There is nothing like the feeling of lying in bed at night after a swim in the sea. That said, I haven't swum in the sea for about 5 years and not off the UK for much longer.

Have a dodgy shoulder at the moment so watching from the sidelines at the moment :(

Name; blumkin

How often I swim; 3 times a week for around 45 mins, plus have just started aqua aerobics

Distance I'm up to 80 laps in a 20m pool, (when I started a few months ago I was at 40)

Stroke; breaststroke, but when I need a rest I change it to backstroke

Make of goggles; pound store ones, they were £1

Goals; to get to 100 laps by summer, to just tone up and improve my cardio

Anything else; I love secretly racing against other swimmers in the pool, and will count is as a win or a loss even if they don't know I was racing them.

Just back from a trip to the Lido - a success as although I still had to pack his wetsuit, ds did concede that it was warm enough with just trunks, and especially in the childrens pool. It was however, bloomin cold out of the pool so even though I abandoned him to amuse himself to go in the lanes (I think the pool is 50m x 25m so there are 4 permanent lanes and swam for 90 minutes in all, I was shivering after as you get cold going to the changing rooms (choice of original 30's stable door ones or heated modern). Ds chose to stay in until hoiked out and inserted into my dryrobe which he went home in, sans anything else.
But the total result was he enjoyed it so much he asked to go again tomorrow! Think I need to take a dressing gown for me as dryrobe has now been appropriated!

My local open water swimming venue opens tomorrow. I'm afraid with a predicted temp of 12', I am not going! Its a beautiful Capability Brown boating lake at a Stately home, but its spring fed, so chilly at the best of times compared to the gravel pits

Thanks cheap that is really reassuring. I find that getting competitive makes me get in a fluster and swimming feels awful. If I just get in the zone and don't compete then I love it. Kids will be thrilled with the medal and I will be delighted by the beer. Excited (ish) now. Final question..sighting...how?!?

calabalamuc I think it is just down to keeping keeping on. When I started swimming lessons a couple of years ago I was in the 4 lengths of front crawl and then stuffed. I just kept on building it up week by week.

Envious of the Capability Brown boating lake CMOT. Our Lido opens to the public this weekend. Feeling a bit nervous about getting in as the swimmers are all way more serious. Beside the sea at the moment so I might take a very quick dip with the kids tomorrow.

Few more reasons 2 swim
...to get value out of my monthly membership
...gets my appetite up, enjoy my food more later :)
...a type of exercise 2 do on bad weather days

Hello everyone. I got to the pool today to find it was opening later than usual! So, luckily as it is right next to the Olympic sized pool I went there instead. There was hardly anyone in it so I had a lane all to myself. Got a bit panicked halfway through though - 50m seems very, very long for someone who normally has a rest after 25! And even though I didn't need to put my feet down, the fact that I couldn't stand up (2.3m depth) flustered me rather. All in all it was fine once I got into the rhythm and probably better for me considering I am trying to build up some stamina and not rest so much!

Well done Allegretto, the big pool is scary at first

Ds and I had another lovely lido swim yesterday. When the sun came out it was lovely, and dh had decided we needed another dryrobe thing so he had bought one for himself so ds and I were both cosy on getting out. Am getting the hang of this! Its great that he can have fun while I get some serious distance in

Wooo my first 1k in about 7 years. All front crawl and no stopping (apart from turning at ends of course). So chuffed. Think it took me around 45 minutes but who cares. Downside is I lost my nose lip and now have a streaming nostril and very sneezy. But hey, I don't care.

What also interested me is that I've started the 8 week blood sugar diet and had done a 16:8 fast and hadn't eaten for 16 hours at that point and felt great.

I always swim first thing on an empty stomach Bestiswest.

I usually swim before lunch, it's usually 6 hours after eating but I was interested that it seemed to make no difference

Hello. I'm trying to get back into swimming after about a year of no exercise thanks to all sorts of injury and health problems. I swear my local leisure centre makes up pricing structures on the spot, but last week they insisted it was £6 for a year's disabled membership including free swimming, so I didn't argue! Obviously I need to make use of it now.

I used to be able to swim a mile in 40 min, but now I really need to be able to avoid injury so I've done 500 and 600m, half breast stroke, some crawl, and a bit of back stroke, trying to get my right arm working. Had to stop using right arm after 500m today as the forearm couldn't take it.

Much more pleasant than taking the kids at weekends - the showers were actually strong and hot! Only problem is I'm increasingly allergic to chlorine so while goggles stop my eyes getting too sore, I've been sneezing and blowing my nose solidly for the last 6 hours.

I've never actually used a nose clip - how easy are they to get used to? I used to shove vaseline up my nostrils but that was almost as unpleasant as the snot...

I need to do a catch up on here, lots of people joining the Mumsnet synchronised swim team group.

But I'll do that later. Just popping in to report my 1K swim done early doors. All a bit achy following a race on Monday and a hard run yesterday.