Swimming...................

[Violent-J]

Gonna go swimming tonight I think, just solo on my tod to do some proper lengths, haven't swam for ages and I'm getting a bit bored of my usual training down the gym. Now the thing is, I used to be a good swimmer back in the day, used to go lessons every night for about 3 years but I went a couple months ago and I'm about as graceful as Johhny Vegas. Only thing I can do is front stroke and I travel at about half the speed of the general fitness swimmers yet I splash water for a diameter of about 10 metres.

Will I be looked down on by the regulars for swimming lengths and holding them up? Will the life guards actually tell me to only stay in the shallow end because although I have great cardio it looks like I'm fighting for my life. Any advice?

 

[Gilly]

My only advice would be to make sure you're splashing as little as possible. I was in the same boat as you, I swam in the nationals and I represented Leeds when I was younger, but once I lost a bit of interest it fell apart and I stopped going.

I hadn't been for years and when I tried I found it had all gone, but after a couple of visits the technique and stuff came back.

Work on your technique and everything else follows, and no, no-one cares what speed you're moving at Splash as little as possible and try to make sure what you're doing is right. You'll find you pick up speed pretty well from that.

 

[Violent-J]

ASFSDJFNSDFKSDFMKSDF

ARRGHHH Just gettin my kit together, can't find swimming shorts. Mum? Seen my swimming shorts? Oh yeah I thrown them away because I thought you said they were too small.

Gonna have to go buy some tommorow now but I don't even know if I'll want to go tommorow night, I just sometimes get the crave to swim.

 

[shadowscotland]

as gilly said technique, technique, technique.

and may I surgest a little warm up first, and maybe a streach of three to finish - swimming and the gym can use different muscle groups.

 

[Alex_L]

I recently got back into swimming after about a 5 year break. At first I was pretty terrible, but after about 4 sessions my stroke technique was on the way to getting back to vaguely near what it used to be. Worst thing I found was that all the stamina i used to have had evaporated, although its starting to come back slowly, now i'm back swimming 4 times a week. I've found concentrating on technique has been the best way of easing back into it, rather than trying to swim at the sort of pace i used to. I reason the speed will come back as my strength and stamina start to build.

 

[Berger]

Concentrate on technique rather than going for anything else, get the technique and your 90% of the way there, if you have the technique you will outswim 95% of the people who go to the gym.

Make sure you have a good hand entry position when doing crawl, thats what will cause most splash. As for kicking, keep your legs just under the water, breaking the surface uses up effort and doesnt get you anywhere, but dont let them drop too low as you make it hard for yourself then.

If you want to be decent, ditch the shorts, unless they are really tight ones made for swimming, be a frenchman and buy some speedos, shorts just add drag and will come off if you push off too hard.

Ive started swimming again after not touching the water for 2 years (was doing up to 7 sessions a week at one point, even went abroad with England Schools team), first time back felt really funny but ive been doing it a few weeks now and im getting back into it. The technique is there, just lacking in fitness now, im dead after 1500-2000m of fairly hard swimming, used to do double that, plus im not even going to attempt the fly yet!

Im about 2-3 seconds or so off what i used to do for 50's without a dive, which im expecting to be just final touches of my technique (would need my dad to point little things out now really) and that extra bit of stamina, for when it really starts burning in the last 10-15m.

 

[Violent-J]

Concentrate on technique rather than going for anything else, get the technique and your 90% of the way there, if you have the technique you will outswim 95% of the people who go to the gym.

Make sure you have a good hand entry position when doing crawl, thats what will cause most splash. As for kicking, keep your legs just under the water, breaking the surface uses up effort and doesnt get you anywhere, but dont let them drop too low as you make it hard for yourself then.

If you want to be decent, ditch the shorts, unless they are really tight ones made for swimming, be a frenchman and buy some speedos, shorts just add drag and will come off if you push off too hard.

Ive started swimming again after not touching the water for 2 years (was doing up to 7 sessions a week at one point, even went abroad with England Schools team), first time back felt really funny but ive been doing it a few weeks now and im getting back into it. The technique is there, just lacking in fitness now, im dead after 1500-2000m of fairly hard swimming, used to do double that, plus im not even going to attempt the fly yet!

Im about 2-3 seconds or so off what i used to do for 50's without a dive, which im expecting to be just final touches of my technique (would need my dad to point little things out now really) and that extra bit of stamina, for when it really starts burning in the last 10-15m.

1500 - 2000m?

3 lengths at the swimming pool I go to is 100m. I usually do about 30 lengths so 1km and I'm pretty nackerd by then, could probably do a lot more if I had good technique I spose.

Yeah thanks for all the replies.

I think I'll stick to swimming shorts because I do every so often do a bit of novelty swimming ie. going to another swimming pool with flumes and rapids etc. to pull girls and I can't be wearing speedos for that.

I usually just try and swim as fast as I can which is why I splash so much, so when I go tonight I'll just concentrate on technique and no doubt move at about 0.5 metres a second but as has been said I'm sure speed will eventually come as technique improves.

One thing though I have a question on.

When doing front crawl, I often see people putting their head underwater for a couple of seconds then come up for air and go under again. Is that what I should be doing for speed?

I've got these speedo swimming goggles:
http://www.oldschoolpvp.net/hosted/images/ocuk/Image(337).jpg

There pretty decent and water tight but I just don't like putting my face underwater because the goggles can steam up and water goes up my nose and ****.

 

[Berger]

Basically if you can find some videos of swimming on google videos or something (just nipping out the door), you can see that the head is under the water, but tilted slightly forwards, then usually every 2, 3 or 4 strokes tilted slightly to the side for a breath while the arm is coming over.

Try to stretch your stroke out infront of you getting a good reach and then a pull under the water. Its quite hard to put into words exactly how it should be done, im sure they will be some diagrams out there.

For the goggles misting up, just give them a wipe, shouldnt happen too often, i believe you can get solution to stop them misting but i dont bother.