Swimming for fitness (part 4). Everyone welcome.

[TheOrigRightsofwomen]

Old thread here

Anyone interesting in swimming for fitness welcome here.
Newbies, experiences, the fast, the slow - we're all sharing, learning and most of all supporting each other.

So my campaign to start adding regular swims into the mix after recovery from slipped disks has been sloooooow, just so many bugs around?! But made it to the pool this morning for 50 lengths 🕺

Well done lurcher, I too have been out the pool for a couple of weeks nervous to go back now as every time I do I get ill 🙄

Eeek, I haven't been on this thread since August. Good to see it's active.

So I had to come and tell you that I've entered a 1 mile open water swim.
20th June, Great East Swim (if anyone else is about).

It's my friend's fault! She is injured from running so is swimming and cycling more and to stop herself going nuts she's made some goals. Big ones!

I've done 2 open water swim events, longest was 700m. With wetsuit.

I swim 1K in the pool twice a week so obv need to increase that.

I know with racing long distances you don't actually need to train to the full distance (e.g. for a marathon the furthest most plans have you run/race is 20 miles) as you need to recover.

Is it the same with swimming? As it's no impact there obviously isn't the issue of bone injuries.

I actually have no clue. Maybe I should look up some plans. I suspect just adding a length a week from now until June is NOT the best way!

OrigRights good for you on signing up for your race! Its always more motivating to have objectives. I can't help with the plan as the most I've swum is 500m in open water and both times it was a disaster, even though in a pool I was able to swim 1500m crawl with no problem. I ended up doing breast stroke in the lake as I panicked with the other swimmers and not being able to see anything (below water or above). I'm sure other people on here will be able to help, but I know I need to spend more time in open water!

I went to the pool yesterday, first time in 10 days after a nasty cold. Despite still being snotty, I broke through the 50 minute barrier for 2kms yesterday, yay! So at last 2.29m per 100m, non stop. Just another 9 seconds per 100m to go

You don't need to necessarily follow a plan/do the full distance but I would say you do need to practice in open water.

It's a completely different experience to the pool, I pretty much only open water swim between March-September because I prefer it.

Thanks Frangi

I think I'll struggle to get much open water swimming done before Easter, unless I go to the sea. I guess I can work on increasing my overall strength and stamina over the winter and then focus on some quality OWS as soon as they open the lakes.

I did a 1 mile sea swim swim and a night swim in a lake last summer. Though I trained for the 2.5 mile sea swim.

Lake swimming is much closer to pool swimming in my opinion. The main thing is getting used to swimming in a wetsuit.

I basically added lengths every second swim, working back from swimming the full distance twice shortly before the swim to work out how many to add.

I was talking to a friend about it on Saturday and he favours doing sets of different speeds. There's lots of information about that on triathlon training websites.

The swim location looks beautiful.

Hello you lovely lot, can I join in please? Inspired by this thread I went to the pool this morning for the first time in ages. I was a club swimmer in my teens but for all sorts of stupid reasons didn't keep it up and now in my very late fifties (must have passed through some sort of time warp I reckon) I need low impact exercise that I actually enjoy. We have a nice pool only 15 minutes away so I am hoping to go two or three times a week to get back into it again. It was good today, I managed a few lengths, maybe 15 or so, but I am definitely out of condition so it will be interesting to see how much I improve, if I can of course!

Welcome pantscrisis hope you continue to enjoy your swimming. I had a quick 450m whilst the kids played in the other side of the pool yesterday but missed a few weeks of December due to a virus. Hopefully I can get back to regular swimming now again.

Looking for some advice please. After a life of team sports (mostly football) I need something which won't fuck up my joints any more (hypermobility) so have taken up swimming. I'm working through the swimfit cards at my gym. I've gone from not being able to swim with my face in the water at all because I just couldn't figure out the breathing to now being on card 20 and doing 60 lengths. I feel incredibly slow though.
I go twice a week. How do I speed up?
It sounds ridiculous but if I'm going really slowly I can swim for ages now but should I be going faster so that I'm worn out and have to stop every few lengths and recover? I literally have no idea where to go and get better. I have had to go really slowly to get the breathing business sorted as I really was clueless.
Main aims are to get a cardio workout and get strong arms.
Should probably add that my backstroke is fine but again I either go slowly and go on forever or go faster but can't sustain it.
I don't seem to have an in between speed which probably stems from playing football where it's sprint, walk and recover repeated over and over.

I’m very slow so can’t really help but can you do a few 121 sessions?

Feeling very virtuous. Was in the pool at 7 and now having coffee in Starbucks. I am so NOT a morning swimmer but it wasn’t too bad.

vanessa speeding up in swimming is as much about technique as fitness. I’ve spent the last few years poolside watching my DD at swim club trying to be seconds faster. If you don’t have access to a coach or teacher poolside try a few effortless swimming videos on you tube and try some arm drills then some kicking with a float for power. One tweak on the angle of your head or pull arm in Frontcrawl could make a big difference to streaming your body position then just lots and lots of repetition. Also try sprint sets, where you try swim 50m hard a d recover for 50m (same principle as running sprints), mix up your swim speed, do a timed 30min swim every few months see how many lengths you can do, then compare any progress. Good luck sounds like your doing really well already.

should I be going faster so that I'm worn out and have to stop every few lengths and recover?

I call people who do this "gassy sprinters". They sprint a few lengths, then stop & gas for a while. Sprint-gas-sprint-gas. It's the way to train if you're gonna compete or save lives. Repeated short bursts of speed. But it's not the only type of cardio workout.

... Main aims are to get a cardio workout and get strong arms.

Strong arms will come with any form of swimming that involves the arms; butterfly stroke looks like the best one for big shoulders, imho.

Cardio: remember that cardio thresholds are lower when swimming b/c of the water support & horizontal position of the body (?). You can wear a heart monitor to see how you're doing. So like on this chart (I'm 52) if my heart gets to 135 in the water then I'm pretty much flat out top of sustainable effort. At HR=120 bpm, I'm already in aerobic zone. No need to gassy-sprint to be getting cardio benefits.

Keep falling off of this thread but coming back with a new level of commitment for 2020. swimathon countdown 12 weeks to go so need to get back on it. Happy 2020 everyone.

Happy New Year

I've managed a couple of swims this week after being on holiday for most of December. It felt pretty good, but pretty slow for me when I checked the clock. Annoyingly my fitbit gave up the ghost in mid October so I don't have my yearly stats - i know I missed my target of 300km in the year. I'll have to try harder this year

Oooh, can I join in?

I’ve signed up to swim 100k over the month of January.
Started off this morning with 150 lengths of a 22m pool (3300k).

I’ve got this crazy idea of trying to do 100k every month for a year. Thank god it’s a leap year so there’s an extra day in Feb! 😂

@VanessaShanessaJenkins
To improve speed you can focus on technique, particularly stroke count (i.e. how many strokes you do per length) and stroke efficiency. The more efficient your stoke the faster you’ll be able to go. You can also do some speed sets. If you google swim speed workouts you’ll find loads.

Vanessa. I agree focus on your technique by watching effortless swimming videos. Also observe the really good swimmers in the pool. And try the backstroke which means you can push yourself without worrying too much about breathing. I do find backstroke is slower.

Thanks for all the advice. Will get working on it in the pool

Thank you TriSkiRun99

Breathing does takes a little practice Vanessa, but it's worth persevering. I just breathe out when my face is in the water for however many strokes it takes to empty my lungs (usually 2 or 3) so when I do come up for air, all I have to do is breathe in. You will get a feel for it as you practice and your confidence will grow. I think it's also worth practicing to get your body as level with the water surface as you can as this will help you get your face out of the water enough to breathe whilst not impacting your efficiency.

I’ve been reading and I know I fit into this “over glider” type www.swimtypes.com/overglider/ any ideas on how to get out of it I’m a classic thinker, only breathe one side & I glide with low stroke rate. Previously a teacher said my stroke rate was fine but I can see it’s low compared to other faster swimmers. Before I try the £12 guide, as I do find Swim Smooth useful in their free videos, anyone got any good drills I can try?

@TriSkiRun99 Have you tried using hand paddles? They’ll force your hand to enter the water correctly.
Count your stroke rate for a length then increase by 1, then again, then again.
Use a pullboy so your kick cant help you glide.

Did another 3300m this morning.
Running Total: 6.6k / 100k

Did 30 lengths today of our 25m pool. It was only the second time I've swum there and I was a bit worried at first that I was going to be frustrated as people were swimming all over the place and chatting at the ends of the pool. After a couple of lengths though it seemed that they all made allowances for me and left the pool edge lane clear for me, bless them!
Had to argue with myself about going this morning, but now I've been I'm really looking forward to the next time. Can't go tomorrow or Saturday unfortunately but might manage Sunday

Thanks MGC31 I haven’t tried them before I’ll add them to my kit list and give it a try . I went swimming with the kids today and tried upping my stroke rate with one length crawl with constant kick and one breastroke to recover. I can “feel” how I think it should be but I can’t keep going non-stop like I would normally...yet.
Sucess today as I did manage 2/3 of a length of full fly my DD has been teaching me, so I now do 2-4L of fly kick with breaststroke arms as part of my regular swimming but starting to add in the full fly arms.

Well done with the fly @TrySki! I've never mastered that, fear it's too late now
All I can manage is breaststroke atm. Fc feels too tiring and I don't want to over do things and put myself off. I know what I'm like, I can easily lose heart and give up if I'm not careful.

Trikski what is your stroke rate? My SWOLF is around 53 doing FC which is terrible and I have no idea how to improve it. I think it should be 26 or around that. I did 2km at the pool today, 51 minutes, still getting no faster.
MGC31 100km a month is huge! Good luck to you, you must swim really well. I run 100km per week outdoors, but get bored after 50 minutes in the pool