I haven't seen a dedicated thread to swimming, so I thought I'd start one. I'm a late bloomer, so I'm still learning and trying to improve, and thought this would be a good place to share techniques, workouts, gear, etc - anything swimming related.
A bit of my story. I grew up taking swimming lessons, and learned all the basic strokes. But I always found it odd that I couldn't do a length or two of front crawl without being totally winded. I wasn't in bad shape, but when I heard people swimming 40 lengths or more, it blew my mind.
About 7 or 8 years ago, I stumbled on a blog where a guy described the exact same thing. He went from 2 to 40 lengths in 10 days by using a system called "total immersion". I just checked, and the original blog post is still available
here, though it looks like he's becoming a bit of an internet personality.
I took just a few of the techniques, and the next time I went to a pool, I was able to swim 15 lengths right off the bat. What was more amazing was that I was tired, but not completely winded at the end. Also, when I stopped, I found I was actually sweating, like a real workout. I don't think I ever broke a sweat after going swimming before.
Briefly, the things I started trying to do were:
- I'm out of breath after doing 1 or 2 lengths because I wasn't taking in enough oxygen when I breath, and because I used my legs too much. Legs use up a lot of oxygen because they have so many large muscles. To counter act this, I now just do a quick flutter kick on each stroke instead of kicking continuously. I also focus on breathing out all my air when my head is in the water, so I can get a good breath when I breathe.
- Focus on aerodynamics. Keep the body as long as possible in the water to be more aerodynamic. This involves stretching your arm forward and actually twisting your body a bit to achieve a long body. The idea was if you stand facing a wall and stretch an arm up, you can actually reach a little higher if you twist your body slightly. This is the form I try to hold.
- Focus on gliding. You don't have to churn your arms/legs to swim. Hold your aerodynamic shape on each stroke to glide. This saves energy, and maximizes the thrust of each stroke.
- Get speedos. It was tough to wear the first few times, but they really do improve your ability to glide through the water. Goggles are also a must, though I was able to forego the swim cap since my head is shaved.
By doing these things, I started doing 40 lengths in about 23-24 minutes within a month, going twice a week. As my fitness improved, I got down to around 22 minutes.
I wasn't very regular - we swam on and off for a few years, but then realized I hadn't really swum for over a year. My wife and I just started again this past fall, and we have been fairly regular, going a couple mornings a week. I got inspired by watching this video on arm angle.
I tried implementing this, focusing on my arm angle during the pull. I noticed a couple things. First, I can feel my lats working, so I know I'm engaging those larger muscles. Second, my time dropped almost 2 minutes over 40 lengths, to around 20:20. My goal is to hopefully break 20 minutes in the next 1-2 months.
A couple questions I have. First, is it worth it to learn to breath on both sides, so that you are doing 3 strokes between breaths? Breathing on my left side still feels very foreign, and I feel like my body is in the wrong position during and after I breathe. I can see you would be faster breathing every three strokes since you are in a good gliding position longer, but is that sustainable over longer distances?
Second, any tips on doing a proper flip turn? I still just touch the end, then push off, but I figure being able to flip turn would save time on each length. I've tried practicing a few times, but it's pretty hard for me. Very easy to get disoriented and I often end up really low in the water.