Swimming for fitness (part 3). Dive in!

[rightsofwomen]

Ohh la la....2nd thread filled up. Hopefully this Subject line will make it easy enough to find.

Everyone welcome.

No tips I'm afraid but I am .
I bet you'll come on leaps and bounds.

Back from my 1K. End of the session so pool to myself!
The school lessons arrived just as I got out. Dear God, who'd be a swimming teacher!

Oh and a man...A MAN I TELL YOU...wandered into the women's loos (it's all quite open, just signage and walls rather than doors), went in a cubicle, didn't shut the door and started to get his willy out for a wee. Ahem I said, this is the women's. Then said I didn't really mind, but he could at least shut the door. He scuttled off.

laughing at your man in the ladies tale rights
Did a run then swim morn it fits in with my eldest DDs activity but it’s not a relaxing swim as it’s SO busy whilst the training lanes for the kids are up so there’s only one adult public lane up and it had “mr ex-club man” who likes to do 50m butterfly sets down the middle of the small lane even though it’s PUBLIC swimming I feel like saying! There were only 4 of us in the lane and 3 of us were swimming same pace steady crawl and yes he was exceptionally fast & I had sympathy for him but he was just flipping rude grrrrr. There are plenty of much quieter evening sessions and masters times he could do his 50m butterfly sets in.....needless to say I didn’t enjoy the swim much as it all felt too tense.

People who do fly in public sessions are just plain antisocial.

I've got my ocean swim on Sunday, which I've been training for since December. I'm a bit nervous tbh.

Turns out that the scary swimmer who was overtaking me last week with her complicated drills – and was there again today (although she only overtook me once) – was wearing a cap saying London Swimming Championships 2017! I felt marginally better! She was amazing: flippers, those hand things, legs only backstroke, legs only butterfly – a woman on a mission.

Swam 1k 32mins hadn’t eaten properly due to work and ran out of energy half way through the set as I had set off fast. I have been working on my FC arm pull shape and something clicked

Oops posted too soon...
I’m hoping once I can get the arm working abit better I can start to up the pace a bit more.

I had a really helpful video analysis session on Tuesday. I thought I could point out my faults to see if it helps anyone else. I was crossing over my arms at the front, which then leads to you doing a “scissor” kick at the back, increasing drag and slowing you down. The coach said to imagine swimming with you arms at the 10’clock position on the left and 2 o’clock on the right. It’s a really common fault. I also have problem with my arm recovery - as in I don’t have one! My forearm is still engaged and I was leading the recovery arm with my wrist and hand, it should be led by the elbow. She’s given me a couple of drills - one of which is the “scarecrow drill” where I try to get my forearm wrist and hand all floppy. Have a look at some videos of pros online to see what I mean about the floppy recovery arm (the one above the water).

She also advised me to increase my stroke rate. In the 90-00s the vogue was to have a lovely long, smooth stroke rate (think Ian Thorpe) but actually that doesn’t work for everyone. I do a lot of open water swimming and a higher stroke rate can be better there. She suggested about 65 strokes per minute and it feels really good.

For anyone who can’t get coaching, it could be helpful to get a friend video you with their phone and you can analyse your stroke, even better if the friend has a Go Pro and could do under water too.

I might see if I can get stills of my video to post so you can have a look at the faults and the fixes too. Might not be that clever though.

Hi hope you don't mind me joining you here.
I have a couple of open water events later this year and am a terrible swimmer, terrified of the open water, nothing is in my favour at the moment!
Just about to go to the pool now. Early morning training otherwise I'll find an excuse not to go later!

Welcome Loopy. Hope your session this morning went well. There are a couple on here also swimming open water. I got chatting to someone at the pool this week and it turns out that she swims at the Saturday morning session at our local reservoir that I'd heard about. She said how friendly everyone was there, and how keen they were to give her tips on swimming in open water.

Interesting Corrigan. I'm conscious that my left arm doesn't feel like it is doing as well as the right arm (I am right handed). It feels a bit floppy and like it isn't going into the water at the right angle. It would be useful to see what I'm actually doing!

Thanks corridgons that’s interesting. I’ve been looking at a few YouTube vids to help me swim smoother, Spotted this one last night and the bit about 3.5mins in when he breathes out of time I went “ah ha” that’s what I do! So I’m hoping I can go today and practice/think about the timing of my breath. The video before that one also talked about bilateral breathing which I’m struggling with and it’s not the neck turn but the body roll. I panic when trying to breathe to my left so I need to roll more not try yank my neck round so hopefully I can enjoy my swim and not overthink it all too much later.

We have sea swimming group where I live but I’m too scared at the moment to go, I think I’ll spend this year working on my technique then next year my goal maybe the sea swimming as it’s something I’ve never managed since an awful experience in the med when I was a young child swallowing lots of salt water after being sucked under by a wave.

Managed just under half a k last night in just over 20 minutes. Not too bad. Was sure I'd eaten enough but got quite shaky so must remember to eat a banana before I go next time.

Hello swimmers! I've had a bit of a lazy week but went this morning and had a lovely swim. Just one other person in my lane and we were really well matched in speed. I managed 1 km breaststroke in 25 mins, and I'm feeling great now

Oh coffee we are about the same speed, except I do that in crawl! Suspect it would take me double the time to do breaststroke!

I have only managed 1 swim this week - can't think why I couldn't go on Monday now. Ah well. I won't manage 2 next week either as it's 1/2 term.

Hi all!

I'm a very new swimmer - current DP is a beast at swimming and is currently teaching me breaststroke and front crawl. I can do about 22 laps now; which is slow for most but pretty good for me!

Hoping to use my new found passion for swimming to drop a few stone if I go a few times a week; and then I'll get better. Fingers crossed!

Had break through yesterday on bilateral breathing yesterday the drill from one of the you tube videos worked brilliantly using float sideways out front and reaching under it before pulling backf to breathe. I did 4 L with float drill then switched to a pull buoy then managed 2 more L with out a float was super as I’m tried several times before with no success.

Hi Swimmers, lovely to hear everyone’s stories. I agree SkiGirl007 that bilateral breathing is the way to go if you can crack it.

I had my ocean race today and it was a cracker. I really enjoyed it and managed to follow through with the suggestions made during my lesson. I took 5 minutes off my PB! I came it at just over 1 hour and 1 minute for the 3.6k.

It was a bit of a fight at times but some race tactics helped. I was in the second wave (each wave was 400 swimmers, total of 1700 doing the event). I got into a pack and manage to draft off people for a lot of it. Drafting conserves quite a bit of energy, but can be tricky to get real right (and you risk having your head kicked in if you’re not careful!!).

I’m now celebrating with a G&T.

Orig - you're one up on me, I can't do crawl at all!

Corrigans - that sounds amazing and, frankly, more than a bit terrifying! Go you!

I have been wearing 2 old swimsuits together... and decided to retire them both tonite. They got s u p e r s t r e t c h y. That leaves me with mere 3 suits .

I tried to increase stroke rate but ended up flailing with no technique. I've done better to learn long strokes. Most people have way higher stroke rate than me.

I remember struggling to bilateral breathe. Heck I could only dog-paddle before I was 25. I have come a super long way .

I wasn't giving anyone a lift to the pool today, and didn't have to rush home as DH is on leave for half term so I pushed myself a bit beyond my usual 2km / 62 lengths and managed 74 lengths (was aiming for 72 lengths, which is 1.5 miles but miscounted). Did it in 48 mins. I'll give it another go tomorrow when I'll have a bit more time again. When I finished my swim my car door was frozen in the open position and I couldn't drive home as my car won't go without the driver's door firmly shut. A kind fellow swimmer gave me a lift home after I'd tried all sorts of fixes. When I returned with DH 1.5 hours later the temperature had recovered and all was fine. Spent time this morning googling forums of what to do! One suggestion was aiming a hairdryer at the door, which isn't easy in the middle of a car park! It makes me nervous going out as early as I do, in the cold.

72 lengths / 1.5 miles done in 45 mins today. Fast Man was in my lane giving us all a bit of a push.

Car working fine today. It prefers 4C to –3C (as do I!).

Glad you haven’t got stuck out of your car again Avo, luckily someone came to your rescue. It’s going to be 37 degrees here, so the opposite end of the horrible weather spectrum.

I had a nice swim last night, good to turn the arms over after the race. I was doing a few “finger drag” drills. I used to think this drill was pointless - because I was doing it wrong. It’s going to help me fix my arm recovery.

Just came back from brill swim as something else just clicked yah! I’ve been watching other swimmers last few months trying to work out how to get faster but by watching this you tube video from effortless swimming on timing of the breath, finally made it click, by breathing maybe half a second earlier I’ve suddenly found my whole alignment better and proper power in my stroke with minimal extra effort. I was like WOW in my head couldn’t believe I was keeping up with some speedy swimmers I’m still not speedy but can now see a way to improve again which is fab. I’m also working on bilateral breathing which is also slowly clicking doing some pull buoy drills to practice with breathing both sides.

This one in case anyone else has this issue

Sorry it’s swim smooth both effortless but ive watched some of there’s too