Swimming for fitness (part 3). Dive in!

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

Everyone welcome.

Glad you have RL support rights and hope you can find a stress relief that’s not exercise too.

whitetee I just count time or lengths and manually add mine to Strava to keep an idea on totals.

Advice please how do I get faster? I had coaching session tonight but didn’t get much out of it as the others are mainly learning the basics which I’ve taught myself and the guy said I had gd technique & a low stroke rate (17 in a 20m pool) which is all well and good but I want to get quicker?! Do I just have to spend hours swimming lengths? I do upto 8L kicking when I go, and around 30-35L of F.C. plus couple of breaststroke L. Average 40L in half hour but want to feel a lot more comfortable in the “fast” lane, I think it’s technique but I can’t work out the next tweak needed on my arm pull? With running I could see a linear progression but I’m feeling abit frustrated/impatient with swimming any helpful tips from those on here swimming further and quicker do I just need more time in the pool?? I think I just had a frustrating session tonight hmmm

Intervals in the pool just like running intervals, to go faster.

More time in pool is good, too, but intervals are useful. Eg., every 7th length can be a kill yourself one . To go faster you need to.. go faster.

Thanks for the info on swim tag, SwimIO and Strava, I'll take a look at them all and get back into it.

I've got faster just by swimming regularly. I give a lift to the pool to a neighbour who is much more strategic though and he does the sprint lengths like lljkk said and he has also been using a float to just focus on strengthening his kick at the moment. He watches lots of YouTube videos on improving technique.

I also watch loads of technique videos and have built up to much higher intensity swims since using a pull buoy. Because of my peculiar hatred of wet skin I cannot swim for more than 35 or so minutes so I have had to make the 35 minutes I do work harder for me.

The pull buoy was a revelation. I had no idea how much kicking slows me down! I try to work on my kicks with a kick board but find myself only able to manage one lenght of the pool before I give up and go back to working on my arm catch instead. When I swim without the buoy I now concentrate on getting my legs higher and my body more horizontal in the water by getting my head tucked in and my bum cheeks flexed as if I was trying to hold a coin between them and my toes pointed. I am working so much harder than before and I now get out of breath and feel my heart rate going up on each set of 100m that I do.

There are loads of swimming technique videos on you tube- some better than others. Ignore the ones that advise swimming with a kickboard out in front of outstretched arms, it can hurt your shoulders and your legs go down when they need to be horizontal.

Thanks there’s some good ideas here which i will use. Yes I do need to try some sprint sessions and I’ve been trying to work on my kick but after last nights session I don’t think it’s an issue. It’s the arm catch that I’ll keep working on now. I’ve learnt a lot from you-tube so I may have another look around thanks guys I was feeling bit fed up last night but I’ll get back in the pool tom.

Planning on doing some open water swim events this year but not sure what distance to go for.

The local one has 1.5k and 2.5k options. I've done quite a few 1.5k events so might be nice to do something again to assess where I am against a previous baseline. At the same time, 2.5 k is a bit more of a challenge. Decisions, decisions....

Had a good swim today working on my arm pull and pushing the water away at the end. made my left arm ache but got a good 35minset in before I took over the kids in the pool from DH.

Skigirl – I suddenly remembered a very good tip for getting faster while doing my lengths to day: get ||sandwiched|| between two very fast swimmers! It makes such a difference. Yesterday there were just two of us in the fast lane and it ended up being quite a leisurely swim, today there were about five people - two of them are particularly fast – and I felt properly pushed! I also realise that I've made small adjustments to my stroke over time: putting my arms in the water curved so they enter the water in line with my eyes rather than straight and in line with my ears (focusses on pulling the water in the right place), bilateral breathing, and also really thinking about lifting my bottom up which in turn brings my legs (and kick) up towards the surface.

tizwoz have you decided on your open water event? Maybe you should challenge yourself with the 2.5km (says me who is a little bit frightened of swimming in open water!).

I'm leaning towards the 2.5k but not made a decision yet.

I used to live on a lake and swum everyday through the warmer months and that's somewhere with venomous water snakes. At least in the UK it's only really the cold you have to worry about

Thanks avocado I will try that next time. I was lucky last night I ended up with a lane to myself in the last half hour of the session which was brill as I was on a mission to do a mile in 45mins. It was my self-imposed Swimathon target and I did it with 5mins left till closing time. It was all F.C. and did total of 66L in the end. I was really pleased as when I signed up 3mths ago I was only upto 40L of F.C. so a 50% increase was a push for me (& I cycled up a big hill earlier in the day )
Did anyone else do Swimathon stuff over the weekend? How did the relay go rights? At DD club 5xkid relay did 166L in 55mins! They were aged 11-14!

Well done skigirl – such great progress in just three months!

Hello,

The swimathon was really good fun. We had a laugh, all did our 40 lengths and truly admired those doing the whole 5K alone.

We took 1hr47mins. I was the slowest :-)

Just back into exercise and swimming and have developed rather suddenly an intense pain in my left wrist. Pain has now stretched to my arm (neck even) and fingers. Anyone else had this?

Just place marking - you've disappeared again.
I'm being incredibly lazy. Need to get back in the pool.
My 6 yr old got himself a gold medal last night for 32m crawl and 32 m back. He didn't win, so can only assume they had him racing older kids?

Hello! Can I join you? I am v.obese but getting back into swimming. So far only doing 500m + aquaerobics or 1k if im just swimming. But i love it. Im 3 weeks in and want to keep up the enthusiasm so thought Id find a swim thread...

Tizwoz- venomous water snakes?!?!? I could never swim there!!

@ScaredPAD welcome! You're doing good if you can get straight in and manage 1000m. Swimming is so graceful and the water so weight bearing I am sure your body will thank you for getting back into the pool.

Hi vera- I'm only 3 weeks in this time but last year I did a good few months and built it up, and used to to swim a lot when (a lot) younger. I'm fat and slow though and really hope I can keep it up this time!!

You are very welcome, scaredPAD. You'll get lots of encouragement here and what you've already achieved is excellent.

I've started logging all my swims, started on my birthday so aiming to continue so I have a record of all swims in my 39th year.

7.6km logged so far

Happy Belated Birthday, Tiz.
Well done to everyone getting in the pool.
1.3km here. Must get in the water once or twice a week til the holidays.

How you feeling, Rights?

Well done tiz. How are people logging swims? I'm wondering about getting a calendar so I can see them.

I'm just recording in a spreadsheet at the moment, haven't found an app yet that lets me record what I want to so I'm just writing into a google docs spreadsheet online.