Starting swimming, any advice?

Quick update on my Aftershokz Xtrainerz, you want music while swimming? Buy a pair, they are blooming marvelous in the pool, sound quality is great although a few of my currently loaded tracks can have a little too much bass, that could be the music more than anything though as most stuff is great. Battery life is awesome, fit is awesome, they stay on and you hardly notice them, even when I occasionally knock them with an arm during recovery they don't move and that's without a swim cap. Plenty of room for a lot of music and compared to my previous Sony NW-WS623, well, there is just no comparison, they are in a different league altogether. My only minor niggles having had them for a few months now are the aforementioned silly short cable on the charger and the slight annoyance of shuffle mode being so random it will occasionally play the same track multiple times rather than going through the entire library and then starting again, but I think this is quite common these days sadly. Massive thumbs up from me, definite recommendation :D
 
Do you find swimming build muscle mass, how would you compare it to say the gym. For me it builds a very amount but I suppose it depends on how hard you train?
 
Definitely, not as effectively as dedicated weights but it will so long as you are actually putting effort into it and not just plodding up and down the pool :)
 
Anyone else going swimming tomorrow? I was kinda surprised to see indoor pools opening the same time as gyms unlike last time but been thinking about getting back into swimming so booked a session...

Looking forward to it but think I'm gonna ache a bit :p
 
Yes, looking forward to getting back in the pool, somewhat anxious abut how much weight I've managed to put on over the last year due to not being able to swim :( I've just cancelled my local pool session which was fully booked and would have been just too busy for my liking, the pool 15 mins up the road is only at 30% capacity including my booking so should be a lot better.
 
Yeah, my weight and fitness have suffered badly over the last year... mostly really the start of this year, the combination of winter and lockdown did not go well :p

Just had a check with my pool and it seems there'll be ~11 people at the time I've booked, some slightly less busy sessions but not many so going to go with it. I've had the first vaccine dose too so kinda not too bothered but also trying not to be silly with things still. But can definitelely understand being cautious :)
 
Not so much cautious as I've had my first dose too and most people were pretty good at distancing as much as possible in the pool, it's more that I just don't like that many people in a lane, I'll either be holding somebody up or getting held up and will just end up frustrated lol :)
 
Seemed like more than the 11 people the online system had suggested, it was 5 per lane (we ended with 6 at one point because clearly it's hard to count...), they only let us into the centre at the start time so of the 45 minute session I was in the pool for ~35 mins.

First time in a while so I was doing 4-6 lengths (33m pool) and taking a breather, which also served to re-open the gap to the other swimmers, breastroke is my preferred and managed 1066m, felt better than I expected but I am aching quite a bit now around my shoulders :p
 
Mine went better than expected, only three of us in the lane and I managed 54 lengths (25m) without much trouble at all, we shall see how I feel tomorrow lol :D

The new pool I went to was odd, one end was only about a meter deep so it was quite easy to hit the bottom if your stroke went too deep and, booked into my pool tomorrow, hopefully the numbers will drop off a bit in a week or two :)
 
Swimming going great, I'm knocking out 400m'ers with ease, feel really strong. That's wearing slightly baggy shorts also which I like as it trains you harder.
 
Started swimming for fitness recently. So far I've just been doing 1km a time plus a few warm-up/down lengths. I'm mostly focusing on technique and trying to learn bilateral breathing when doing freestyle. It feels like it's going well but I'm pretty sure if I could see myself it would be horrible haha.
 
I used to do a mile a day... it was great way to stay fit and helped blood pressure but it bored me to hell. Switched to gym and went similar... but swimming meant I could eat what I wanted... so looking to restart. Its kinder on older bodies too (no impact)
 
I don't know if any of you guys will know, but my mum is having issues with my old Apple Watch series 3 when open water swimming. She said it tracks time fine, but the map is always really erratic compared to her actual swim. She was expecting it to be the same as when she walks.

I assume it's a connection issue, as unlike people doing the crawl where the watch comes out of the water often, she will just do breaststroke so the watch will always be submerged. I'm wondering if that's part of the issue and wondered if anyone had similar issues or had any solutions?


EDIT - Ignore that, i spent a little more time googling and it seems i was right about connection issues, it'll only track reliably on freestyle type strokes.
 
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My christmas list might include one of these https://www.platysens.com/marlin/
so the gps is on the back of the goggle strap - with bone conduction for open swimming route direction update, or, for it to announce indoor lap-times,
pity there is no music/podcast option, to provide an alternative to aftershockz.
nonetheless £100.
 
ShiWarrior said:
I see Garmin have released (only just noticed my self) a Swim 2 Smartwatch, that tracks your Heart Rate underwater from your wrist
Click to expand...

I don't think it would be any kind of magic bullet for heart rate tracking versus a chest strap see
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/10/garmin-swim-2-openwater-pool-gps-watch-review.html
I performed the comparison that you suggested: alternate between low HR and high HR swimming while wearing both the Swim 2 (tightly on wrist) and the 920XT + HRM-Tri on chest. It was a brief 10-minute test. I’ve overlayed the results here. They both track pretty well for the first 2 minutes and the last 4 minutes; but during a 3-1/2 minute span in the middle, the chest strap rises to 145 and comes back down, while the Swim 2 misses that entirely and instead sinks down to around 110. I think the chest strap is probably correct there (although unfortunately I’m not 100% certain).
https://media.dcrainmaker.com/wp-content/cache/comment-plus/3697630-400x300.png?1610089896

Better than sleep tracking on most watches (well I have not seen any review of a good one)

jpaul said:
podcast including section on inaccuracy of watch sleep tracking, doctor said his has had no rem sleep recorded for years.

Derk-Jan Dijk, Distinguished Professor of Sleep and Physiology at the University of Surrey and Director of the Surrey Sleep Centre,
Click to expand...
 
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