Anyone had swimming lessons as an adult to improve?

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I am a regular swimmer and I am reasonable technique wise but I want to improve. I have improved a lot on my own but I think I have done all I can now. I can swim 60 lengths in an hour but can't get the timing down.

I asked at my pool and the receptionist said their improvers course was for people who could only swim the basics. But I know the basics and had lessons as a child for 10 years.

I just want someone to tell me how to be more efficient and check my technique because I think I waste a lot of energy especially in breast stroke.

My friend said that at her private gym they do advanced swimming lessons which would seem to be more up my street, but that would mean joining her gym and I am not sure if its worth it.

Any experiences?

Yes, I did have improvers. I went to local pool years ago and was told adult lessons were only for beginners. I said I wanted to learn butterfly and how to do tumble turns. The receptionist laughed.
A few years ago, a girlfriend mentioned she was signing up for said adult classes (she is better swimmer than me). Anyway to summarise, I took adult lessons- they split us by ability- there were about 7 of us wanting to improve. It made a huge difference to my swimming, I had previously been taught to do crawl with head facing forwawd (I learnt as lifeguarding classes). So now lots faster and better. I just got these at my pool so maybe if you speak to the teacher of the basic class, they might be able to accommodate you- there is no harm pushing the question to the class taker rather than reception- my teachers loved the challange as us improvers were more interesting to them to get going and we needed less supervision

Thanks gallery thats really helpful. I will ask the lifeguards about it then.

I am far too scared to do butterfly would love to do a decent backstroke though.

I have been doing an advance class for the last 7 years at the local council run pool.
I used to have lessons until my teens and joined a club for a short while. I went back when I was 40 and have been going every since.

I had a good stroke anyway and went straight into the advanced, but I have really improved my breathing and to be honest mainly go now for fun, although we do stroke work, we also do life saving, diving and things like somersaults.

The trick with breast stroke is to extend the glide. When we do a breast stroke lesson we usually finish by seeing how few strokes we can swim the length in, then seeing if we can do it in less coming back.

I have found I seem to go backward and have broken down my strokes and feel that I have got worse before I got better again.

I'd look to see if any of your local swimming clubs have 'masters' sections that welcome competent, but not ex-competitive, swimmers. A few do and they offer just the sort of instruction you are looking for. They don't expect you to train loads either - typically around twice a week, but at our club a lot only come once. There are also opportunities to race occasionally if you want. Masters events are quite friendly affairs, you will be matched in a heat with people of the same ability and it's a good way to measure improvement, but not usually compulsory if you don't want to.

There is a company called The Art of Swimming here that provides instructors who I assume could just come with you to your local pool - I know people (adults who have had lessons with them) who absolutely rave about them. As I understand it, the theory is based on the Alexander technique, getting your posture aligned and balance in the water just right and then going on to breathing etc. May be worth checking out.