Starting swimming, any advice?

Shamrock said:
It was the London Triathlon, Olympic distance.

It went alright, I didn't quite get the sub-2h30m benchmark though, thanks to a slow swim. I was rank 569 of 3773 with times:

Total 02:34:02
Swim 00:39:11
Bike 01:03:36
Run 00:43:53

So swimming was the weakest but also neglecting brick training of swim-to-bike meant I had jelly legs once I got on the bike.
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One thing I have heard form several sources is don't fear the swimming part of an ironman. No idea if it is true but I spoke to someone who has done a couple and also asked around online. I always said I wish there was a triathlon that replaced swimming with something else like kayaking, ski touring, etc. Everyone seemed to say that people who come form cycling and running fear the swim, and runners under estimate the biking (that's me). On average swimming takes 10% of the total exercise time, and is over in around 1H15 minutes. If you are a slow swimmer and towards the back of the pack in general then maybe 1Hr 30-40minutes. That doesn't seem too horrific. You are also fresh, don't have digestion or dehydration issues yet, shouldn't get too hot, and have the initial adrenaline. The biking you do for like 6.5 hours and the running for 5 hours on average.
Being 5% slower on average at the swimming puts you less than 5 minutes behind. 5% slower at biking puts you 20 minutes behind.
The main issue for slow swimmers I was told is that poor technique will waste a load of energy which will then hit them by the time they are running, and likely before they hit the half way mark of the cycle.
 
I would say stick with it for the front crawl but then again I was overtaken by many breast-strokers in the Tri so it's quite possible to be very fast without doing front crawl!:eek:

What really helped me with front crawl was using neoprene shorts to get that extra buoyancy at the hips whilst still being able to kick. I've yet to try a pull buoy but they seem to raise the hips whilst limiting kicking?

EDIT: based on my current speed, I'd be in the water for almost 2 hours doing the Ironman distance. That is a long time to swim for continuously!
 
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Shamrock said:
I would say stick with it for the front crawl but then again I was overtaken by many breast-strokers in the Tri so it's quite possible to be very fast without doing front crawl!:eek:

What really helped me with front crawl was using neoprene shorts to get that extra buoyancy at the hips whilst still being able to kick. I've yet to try a pull buoy but they seem to raise the hips whilst limiting kicking?

EDIT: based on my current speed, I'd be in the water for almost 2 hours doing the Ironman distance. That is a long time to swim for continuously!
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wetsuit and neoprene shorts definitely help but I want to get good without. If I keep struggling for a few months I will start looking for classes but I want to get some ability and endurance up first.

2hrs is safely under the 2:20 swim cut off so not a disaster. Even when i was comfortable swimming twice a week (back in 2010) I could only do about 65 laps in an hour I think so wouldn't make the cut-off even if I didn't slow down at all!
 
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Another wet day so back to the pool. 34 laps in about 29 minutes.
I did a little more front crawl than yesterday, was slightly easier going slower to begin with but as I got tired I ran in the same problems (technique gets worse, I worry about swallowing water, and I slowdown making it harder to breathe etc.).
 
Thats pretty good... we all have bad and good days. 4th mile swim this week and everything went wrong.

I was swimming at lunchtime today and for some reason my body didn't want it. (gotta give up vaping as it makes you short of breath)

Managed to get cramp and almost drowned lol.... and could only manage a few lengths before resting.

Here is the shameful log :( ...took me almost 15mins more than normal due to rests.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/961111462


Not going to swim tomorrow as cramp has bruised my leg... back to normal monday I hope.
 
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Flukester said:
Might get shoulder checked then... but I suspect there is nothing to be done.

I've also cut out wine and eating better foods so have dropped my daily intake by around 1500 cal. The missus is a weight loss consultant so has those fancy scales that measure all your body stats which is handy :)

After 2 years what is your average time per 100m ? ....I 'thought' I was quite quick till I got the watch and then looked around on the web. Seems I'm strictly classed as sloooooow haha
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Ah, that would explain how you're losing the weight quickly then :) I've lost a couple of stones so far by upping the exercise and being a bit more sensible over what I eat, but that's been over the 2 years.

I'm currently averaging about 1m55/100m over an hour in a 25m pool, but that's front crawl. I started off doing breaststroke and seem to remember getting to about 80 lengths in an hour (3m00/100m) within a couple of months of starting and that increasing to about 100 (2m24/100m) after about maybe 6 months. My knees and hips were starting to complain so I started to learn front crawl and after the initial drownings was doing about 2m25/100m which I've slowly managed to drop to 1m50/100m if there's no traffic. I don't seem to be getting any quicker lately and suspect I'd need to improve general fitness to make progress, and age isn't helping :(.

It's probably not very meaningful to compare speeds but it might give you an idea of how speed/distance could change if you stick with it. I'll see if I can share my Connect data with you if it's of any interest/encouragement.
 
Thanks got the share... you stats are dam impressive. I could not even think of not resting every dozen lengths :)

Gives me a goal to try and get under 2min / 100m rather than hovering around 2:20


Traffic in lanes gets really bad sometimes... my pet hate is when you let someone through who is faster when doing crawl, for them to break into some near drowning back stroke and hold you up. Then there is the guys who know they are slower but will never let you by even if you clearly right up behind them forcing you to do a crazy ,mid length overtake that kills you to get past in time ggrgrgrgrgr.. I usually end up waiting for them to pull a length and a half ahead at side so I can then swim uninterrupted
 
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Flukester said:
Thanks got the share... you stats are dam impressive. I could not even think of not resting every dozen lengths :)
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Thanks; it doesn't feel that impressive when someone quicker effortlessly cruises past though :(. I guess that's true whatever speed you swim at, so it's all relative.

Flukester said:
Traffic in lanes gets really bad sometimes... my pet hate is when you let someone through who is faster when doing crawl, for them to break into some near drowning back stroke and hold you up. Then there is the guys who know they are slower but will never let you by even if you clearly right up behind them forcing you to do a crazy ,mid length overtake that kills you to get past in time ggrgrgrgrgr.. I usually end up waiting for them to pull a length and a half ahead at side so I can then swim uninterrupted
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You've got the first signs of pool rage :p But, yes, it's annoying when people either haven't got any spacial/speed awareness or simply don't care. Another option if you're really stuck following someone slower is to turn early before the end of a length so you end up ahead.
 
Duncan Bannatyne?
That's impressive - best I've done is 2 miles in 60 minutes when the pool was quiet. Unfortunately the local pool is pretty busy and it's not often that you can get an uninterrupted swim.
I've been practicing a few flip turns lately but haven't managed to properly do them in long swims - I seem to lose a breath at the turn that I really need to keep going length after length. It's likely a fitness and practice thing to survive 'losing' a breath but if anyone has any suggestions it would be welcome. When I'm overtaken by faster swimmers about half of the speed difference is down to the turn so I'd like to get it 'cracked' sometime.
 
An efficient tumble-turn should really use a lot less energy than turning a the wall by hand. Take a breath on the last stroke before you reach the wall, so you have full lungs as you enter the roll. Make it smooth, quick and give a good push off and you won't actually spend that much time not breathing. It's just a practice thing.

Another 52 minute 2 mile from me today. Lots of slow people in the lane. Ironically I actually find it helps to have a few sprint overtakes in there though it can be pretty annoying waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear for the overtake!

We should get this renamed to to The Official Swimming Thread, with stars :D
 
50 laps in 40 minutes, a lane to myself helped but I'm slowly getting used to swimming again. Did 10 breast stroke then 10 front crawl then mixed things up between front/back crawl and breast stroke. My front crawl was a little more variable today, some really strong laps where I found all of a sudden I was at the other end of the pool with easy breathing, but others I ended up going off course, running out of breath or swallowing water. Fully breathing out under water definitely seems to help by giving more time to breath in. I used to breathe out when my head was tilted up to kind of force any water running down my face to clear out the way before breathing in. Sometimes water was going in my mouth but it seem if you really tilt your head sideways instead of up then the water collects in your bottom cheek rather than running down your throat.

A long way to go but I'm pleased with that. wont be long before I can do about 60 laps in 45 minutes I reckon which is a nice work out. I only really stopped because I had to get back to work, could have easily done another 5-10 laps of breast stoke and back stroke
 
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yer_averagejoe said:
An efficient tumble-turn should really use a lot less energy than turning a the wall by hand. Take a breath on the last stroke before you reach the wall, so you have full lungs as you enter the roll. Make it smooth, quick and give a good push off and you won't actually spend that much time not breathing. It's just a practice thing.
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Thanks - it sounds like I'll just need to take my chances to practice whenever it's quiet, which isn't too often unfortunately. I only swim for fun/fitness and it's just a bit of a personal challenge. A suggestion from the better half that I might be 'getting a bit old to be doing that' isn't influencing me at all. No, not at all :D.

yer_averagejoe said:
Another 52 minute 2 mile from me today. Lots of slow people in the lane. Ironically I actually find it helps to have a few sprint overtakes in there though it can be pretty annoying waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear for the overtake!
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I fixed your post for you :p. Although I'm not in the same league speed-wise, I know what you mean. At my speed I've often got both faster and slower swimmers around me, and if anything I prefer to be amongst slower ones (but not too slow!) as I don't like holding others up and pausing to let them past can lose more time than a slow length or two following someone. It's also not always easy keeping track of who is faster and where they are, and it becomes a distraction from trying to keep the stroke together. (In other words, it ain't easy being slow either!)

yer_averagejoe said:
We should get this renamed to to The Official Swimming Thread, with stars :D
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It does seem to have become the "Swimmers, dive in here!" thread :).
 
60 laps in 51 minutes and then another 4 leisurely laps in my wife's lane. Could have been a little faster but the only free lane had a stair case so I could only push off from 1 end, I then managed to get to a free complete lane half way.

Did much more front crawl this time and felt a little more confident doing it. On Monday I was a little variable with some good laps and then some laps where I hit the floats or missed a breath and went back to breast stroke for a little. this time my laps were fairly consistent and after a warm-up of 10 breaststroke I got 10x front crawl with barely a stop. Later laps I tended to wait 5 second at each end but it is mainly because i want to maintain a better form.
Until now I have only been breathing on my right side so forced my self to use the left. A big difference, no where near as comfortable, efficient or easy but did get at least 8 laps in on my left. For the next few sessions I will try to alternate each lap and then move on to some kind of alternative pattern within a single lap. At the moment I breath every time my right arm exits the water and when I try alternate breathing I have to breath every stoke left and right which doesn't seem right?

Anyway, enjoying the rapid improvements so far. Although i was getting tired at the end i think I could have easily done more laps. Will try to get up to around 80 laps but concentrating on technique rather than number of laps. Once im getting a 2km swim in I will work on getting faster.
 
Hi D.P., well done for persevering with the front crawl - I reckon you'll be chuffed with yourself when you've got it properly 'cracked'. It took me about 4 months but it was worth it.
Some advice I was given while learning was to go slower to focus on technique and breathing, so you're probably doing the right thing not going for speed yet.
To do bilateral breathing you normally take a breath every third time an arm goes round instead of every two - hard to explain easily but there are loads of youtube videos out there. The swimsmooth site is worth a look too.
 
approx 7 weeks swimming now, lost 1 stone in total :-). Aim is to lose 1 more then maintain... beer belly gone forever :). Losing about 3lbs of mainly fat per week

Anyone else got a Garmin Swim wanna share Garmin connect user names so we can use connections feature ? (if you not got one of these gadgets get one, amazing bit of kit and under £80 on rainforest retailer now)

My username is Flukester
 
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