Starting swimming, any advice?

You seem to (in those videos) have a similar problem as me. To combat this I've been told by the Tri Club coach to spear the water at around 45 degrees for the catch and then pull with high elbow. It's hard trying to get it right, especially as I'm still trying to get my kick right and learn bilateral breathing at the same time. Even using a pull buoy it's hard to get right :mad:
 
Shamrock said:
I bet you don't need neoprene shorts though!:(
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True, just some standard swim gear. I purchased some super tight Lycra jammers to look pro, but I'm too ashamed to wear them yet. Hopping they cut some time, otherwsie I will start shaving my legs:D
 
Dano said:
That looks as I expected, you're pushing the water down until you are halfway through the stroke and then starting to push it up at the end of the stroke from what I can see, which would account for your sinking legs and lack of pace.
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I think I suffer from the same problem. I have a high CV fitness but my swimming sucks and I dont believe I am making any of the obvious bug errors. there is a combination of smaller issues.

I haven't really understood "the catch", pull, or so on. I try to keep my elbow high and relax my wrist.

Sometimes once I've done 500yds and warmed up I start to feel what I think is the catch, suddenly I am aware that I can push water behind me rather than merely moving my arm through the water. When i do it it feels like I need to make a slight pause at the start so my body has moved forwards a little (this is liekly a bad thing to do I guess). But as soon as I start concentrating on replicating the feeling it tends to go away and I loose focus on breathing etc.

Is that soemthign that I should be aiming to feel?
 
I did a wetsuit swim today, first one since last summer!

It's amazing the difference it makes. I was considerably faster wearing the suit but I was also more exhausted, having to take rests after each length. I guess the suit improves my body position but my stroke is still inefficient.:o

Ys2CWlJ.png
 
Smokey Deza said:
Some dude told me that using the sauna/steamroom and jumping back in the pool for the cold shock is 'good for the immune system'. Can anyone verify that?
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I guess it could.. I always heard that hot sauna / steam increases circulation followed by ice cold water which makes the blood rush back to protect organs is a mild detox. Could be mumbo jumbo though :)
 
Shamrock said:
I did a wetsuit swim today, first one since last summer!

It's amazing the difference it makes. I was considerably faster wearing the suit but I was also more exhausted, having to take rests after each length. I guess the suit improves my body position but my stroke is still inefficient.:o

Ys2CWlJ.png
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That's a massive jump in av pace, you knocked a minute off!!! :-) Good job!!

I'm guessing the suit is keeping you body / legs up more and streamlining in water
 
Flukester said:
That's a massive jump in av pace, you knocked a minute off!!! :-) Good job!!

I'm guessing the suit is keeping you body / legs up more and streamlining in water
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Yeah, it seems to make a big difference to speed but notice the actual elapsed time of 55mins due to me having to rest for a bit after every 100m!:(

I must be wasting energy somewhere in my stroke.
 
Try swimming with fists for a few laps instead of the catch, for some reason when I get lazy it helps sort a few problems out.

My goal was to hit 1mile in under 30mins. Took me 9 months from couch potato to do it though and my technique I think is pretty bad, I just hate swimming in the pool when there is 3 or more to a lane.
 
Went swimming for the second time today, still slow pace at 162.7s/100m, technically a bit faster than the first time but not much, the good thing was though I did the 28:55 swimming in 32:40, so far less resting.

Mostly blocks of 6 lengths (33m pool so 200m blocks), with one set of 8 lengths. Which again is an improvement.

Right now working on trying to swim constantly for ~30 minutes or more rather than pace as such, once I've got that down I can improve the pace :)
 
Went to the pool today to recover from a marathon on Sunday. 10x breast and then 10x front crawl warm up and I then it thought I would rest my sore legs by using one of those floats that goes between your thighs. night and day different.

Breathing was dramatically more comfortable, I could happily skip breaths even while bilateral breathing, I barely raised my heart rate, I swam faster and didn't tie. i don;t even know how much faster because my Garmin swim was utterly useless and I kept loosing count, I think in 2 sets i did 12 lengths instead of 10 it felt so easy.

Considering how trashed my body is post-marathon (I have to scoot down the stairs on my bum) I did a quick 2200yd in 58 minutes taking it easy, which would be 2nd fastest swim.

So I think I'm like Shamrock, hips are dropping dragging me down and making me exhausted.
 
D.P. said:
Went to the pool today to recover from a marathon on Sunday. 10x breast and then 10x front crawl warm up and I then it thought I would rest my sore legs by using one of those floats that goes between your thighs. night and day different.

Breathing was dramatically more comfortable, I could happily skip breaths even while bilateral breathing, I barely raised my heart rate, I swam faster and didn't tie. i don;t even know how much faster because my Garmin swim was utterly useless and I kept loosing count, I think in 2 sets i did 12 lengths instead of 10 it felt so easy.

Considering how trashed my body is post-marathon (I have to scoot down the stairs on my bum) I did a quick 2200yd in 58 minutes taking it easy, which would be 2nd fastest swim.

So I think I'm like Shamrock, hips are dropping dragging me down and making me exhausted.
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Have you thought of using a float between legs ? ....the guy I swim with is slower than me without, but with it I have to grab a 'tow' to keep up. Makes about 10 per 100m difference

Still weird your Garmin is playing up, mine is 100% accurate. Make sure you tag the wall with your non watch hand and rest the hand with the watch... then just a mild push off
 
Is the swimtag device swimovate 'technology' in disguise ... does it give a more reliable length count ?
I continue to search for the grail of a multi-purpose (/tri) device that will count lengths without the need for an aggressive or contrived push-off at the end, so that I can avoid interminably counting lengths in my head and concentrate on other things.

[ I swim regularish but have never bothered to develop a roll turn, since in 25m pools, if you push hard at the end this, personally, detracts from the enjoyable methodical aspect of swimming and you effectively reduce your 25m to 20m or so ? ]
 
I've only used it twice but I find the swimtag to be pretty accurate, I don't do tumble turns but do a reasonable push off at the ends which feels natural enough to me.

I thought today it has miscounted but looking at the data once I got home fairly sure it was me, I was (or thought I was) counting sets of 6 lengths, thought I'd got to 4x6 so did an 8-length stint to match my previous session then a final 6 length one as time was running out. Looking at the data I did 3x 6 length sets, an 8 length set and a final 6 length set, so either it missed an entire 6 length set or I can't count to 4 :D :p

But, although it seems decently accurate to me I've not used anything else and/or done any other timing or measurements for lengths/strokes or anything.
 
I find swimtag is pretty accurate and on the odd occasion it gets it wrong it only take a minute or two to adjust the data, you are able to view the raw data so it's fairly obvious where the automatic process has had a moment and got it wrong.
 
ok, I will have to see if there is an option to try out swimtag and see if it works for me.

As you suggest I had not realised it is giving wall clock times for each turn so you can spot missing turns - I apply negligible effort to pushing off, the deceleration on arriving at the end is greater than push off - it seems that reliable gps based solutions working inside buildings does not exist, I had long time considered one of these sportcounts but thought it might be too inconvenient.
 
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jpaul said:
ok, I will have to see if there is an option to try out swimtag and see if it works for me.

As you suggest I had not realised it is giving wall clock times for each turn so you can spot missing turns - I apply negligible effort to pushing off, the deceleration on arriving at the end is greater than push off - it seems that reliable gps based solutions working inside buildings does not exist, I had long time considered one of these sportcounts but thought it might be too inconvenient.
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A few of us here use Garmin Swim watches. They don't use GPS instead use accelerometers. I used to swim quite erratically and it often had errors, but always bang on these days. Trick is to have a definite transition between lengths and moderate push off / launch from side. Also never stop moving the arm with swim watch on until you get to side. I grab side with non watch hand and drag swim watch briefly.

Here is yesterdays swim...

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1153666500


I find it makes you a smoother swimmer and eggs you on to improve. I think in the 7 months of having the watch I've knocked around 12 seconds per 100m off my time :), though possibly that's largely down to losing over 30lb in weight
 
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