Swimming for general fitness +/- weight loss - a few questions

[blowninonabreeze]

Am generally pretty unfit post 2 children. Started weight watchers in Jan and have lost 1.5 stone, have 7 pounds to go to reach my goal weight.

Am interested in increasing my fitness too.

So what's the best regime for using swimming to achieve this? I went tonight for the first time in ages (prob about a year) and did 50 lenghs in about 40 mins. Constant swimming, Breast stroke. But if I tried an alternative stroke eg crawl, I'd have to stop and rest after about 4 lenghs.

I feel like I could go forever doing breast stroke.

So how should I go forward from this, does it matter which stroke I use, can I happily just continue with the breast stroke if my only aim is increased fitness?

Any thoughts?

Congrats on the weight loss!!!

I have had a few personal training lessons in the gym recently and we got chatting about swimming.

My trainer recommends 'sprinting' for however many lengths you can manage, then swim the same no at your normal speed - and so on and so on. This will get your heart rate up so you will start to burn more calories!

I also swim several lengths on my back but only using legs and then turn over back to breast stroke. I think the key is to mix it up and vary your speed.

Although, obviously I'm not qualified so please feel free to ignore.

Good luck!

imho it depends on what you're aiming to do. All swimming will give you a good all-round excersise, and good on you for doing it You sound pretty fit already, and swimming is fantastic for cardiovascular fitness anyway.

In your shoes I think I'd go for a 16 length breast-stroke warm up, then a couple of mins breather, then try 4 lengths of back stroke if you're ok with it, that's the one that will help tone your "middle" then another short break.
If you can lay your hands on a float, (scuse the pun) then try a few lengths, mebe 4 or 6 of leg kick (still back stroke) and then chill back down with your good old breast stroke.

That's a bit of a training schedule should you want one - though what you are already doing sounds perfectly fine if you are happy with it and want a relatively stress-free and enjoyable bit of excersise. The thing is that by doing all breast stroke [sorry, a bit of tech for you] will be likely to work well for endurance but possibly not hit the rate of oxygen uptake and heart rate that you need to 'burn' anaerobically.
But the best of luck to you, keep it going. Frequency is the most important part of the "training principle" - roughly translated I'm saying go regularly, twice a week at least, and you will see a real improvement in your fitness

x post merlin, but saying the same thing

(I'm a PE teacher fwiw)

Oooh get me - knowing as much as a PE teacher

I so hated it at school - sorry giggle!

lol merlin. put that hockey stick down if you don't mind - you are waving it too close to my head

I didn't confess on the (excessively long) first post - should have used my brain and kept it that way

Thank you, will give that a try. I'm planning to go 2-3 times a week. (all good intentions....)

Hopefully it'll get easier to mix it up a bit

I was like you - I could swim breaststroke for length after length, but tired quickly if I did front crawl. I injured my knee a few months ago and the physio recommended no more breaststroke so I was forced to do something about my front crawl technique.

I had a few one-to-one lessons and it has made such a huge difference - I get tired much less easily and the teacher's given me different exercises to work on to keep on improving. As you can already swim you wouldn't need too many sessions to sort out your front crawl and I've found it's definitely been worth it

When I started swimming ages ago, I could only do breast stroke continually, but I just did one breast stroke, 1 front crawl, and gradually upped the front crawl proportion. Now I can do front crawl for as long as I like, could even do it at 40 weeks pg!

I used to be a good swimmer as a kid though so maybe my technique was kind of ok though (I am sure it's not great) so lessons could be a good idea.

50 is v.g, it took me ages to build up to that and I can't do it in 40 minutes!

When I started I used to alternate breaststroke and front crawl and gradually it got easier and easier. I started off being able to do 4 lengths of front crawl and now I can do as many as I want (although I stop at 20ish most of the time because i am a lazy bum). I asked for advice on here about swimming and watched some youtube technique videos which have really helped me.

I swim Mon & Tues and Mon feels like the warm up. I always swim better on the second day.

I found that my swimming really improved once I started going to the gym. I also do aqua aerobics which I love if you wanted to do some more water exercise?

I am soooo at 50 lengths in 40 minutes !!

here's another vote for aquaerobics.
i love it

very good at burning the weigh off

50 in 40 mins is fab - I can't manage that.

The other week I did my usual 32 lengths in 32 mins, but stopped because it was time to go home and I was bored, not because I was tired at all. the next week I swam 6 fast, then rested a minute, then another 6 fast etc. I did 32 in 30 mins - so not much faster, but OMG I was so pleased to finish. I had worked SO much harder.

Also this should help givwe you ideas.