Swimming is depressing.....

My first question would have to be, "Can you float?" If you can lay flat in the water face down and float, or on your back, then you already have most of the battle one. Swimming is about relaxing and breathing. Personally, I like the breathing part.

Dont be so bummed!!!

Do you normally swim after running? if not that could be why- you may not be use to that-

Dont forget in a tri you swim FIRST!! lol

Is your stanima up to that level? Maybe after a few weeks of that it wont be so hard!!

I hear you totally. The swimming is my least favourite discipline. There I am swimming away and some "old guy" in the next lane effortlessly swims twice as fast as me. Its quite depressing. I'm seriously considering getting some swimming lessons just to give me some halfway decent technique. Perhaps thats a better idea than a wet suit. Unless of course you live in the northern third of the country when a wetsuit is essential for May time lake swim

Ian

The most depressing part about swimming to me is, FAT people can go faster becaus theyr more bouyant. So theyr you are watching what you eat, and some old fat guy pushes off the wall and just flys down the lane with hardly any effort. And if your fat on the run or bike, your slow.

After getting by for a long time on my swimming experience from school, I joined a masters squad and got some serious coaching. It made a huge difference in my endurance, enjoyment, you name it. Strongly recommended!

p.s. you should absolutely buy a wetsuit. It helps a lot.

Edited by CLLinIA 2004-04-08 3:11 PM

Yes I can float a bit. Although when I swim my back end tends to sink. I don't usually run and then swim so I was definitely tired. I've joined the local masters swim program and have gone to their swims and a few clinics. I know the technique it's just really tough to maintain the reach. To me it like running and thinking right left right left turn your body the whole time. Hopefully it will get easier. I have 6 weeks.

Ditto on the masters class and the wetsuit. I experimented with my new wetsuit in the pool last month and was amazed at how much faster I was able to swim - almost broke my nose on the turns cuz I wasn't used to coming in that fast!

RAts13, don't let it get to you (easy to say!). Seriously my swim training began in earnest March 18th with a hard to do 100+50+50+150+25x4. This past Monday I swam 1000 yards non-stop in 23 minutes. Read all you can and focus on the technique. Like others have said, you'll hit that magically point where all of a sudden it comes together and you feel like you floating on the water moving will little effort.

The swim is hard enough alone never mind doing it after a run! Don't let it beat you, stay committed and when it comes to you you'll be very happy and confident.

Don

FYI Silent - I know some FAT people who can dust many marathon runners! And I know a lot of so-called FAT swimmers who could put most athletes to shame when it comes to endurance and toughness it's not just buyoancy!The best open swimmer in the world is 180 pounds and she's swam a mile in the Anartic waters in about 39-degree weather. Don't know many skinny guys who could do that and live!It's not always size but technique is important too.Especially in swimming. It's finesse not brute force. And when you see an Ian Thorpe (who is by no means fat) slide through the water it's so beautiful it makes me want to cry. As you can tell, I'm a swimmer and I LOVE the sport!

I am a fat guy and I can swim my ass off.  Not many people at my gym can go faster and that is usually after I either biked or swim for an hour. My swimming ability is not because of my size but because of practice. My weight slows me down because of the extra drag. I am not streamlined. When the rest of the weight does come off I expect to be swimming a lot faster. My suggestion to you is before you make comments you should have your facts straight.

Thats not what i was trying to say about body fat and swimming. Im really sorry if you took it wrong. I used to be the person who used to have fat jokes made about them, and it really hurts. Again sorry for any confusion-trouble this caused. :-( this feels like a flash back

One thing you should do is push yourself in your workouts. Zoomers will not help with your total workout, I like them when I do my "kicking" part of the workout but when swimming if I use the Zoomers I become too dependent. Do you have strong legs and hips? Keep up with the swimming, once you start getting consistent with the swimming and build up your endurance it will come to you. What type of workouts are you doing? Try doing some interval workouts. I don't think being overweight or skinny really makes a difference, I think it is technique. When I was in high school we had two backstrokers that were awesome. One was skinny as a rail and the other quite chunky. They both swam almost exactly the same times in races. They had the same swim technique it was just their flip turns were a little different. Don't get discouraged. Vary your workout and you will see some improvments.

Mike

I was going to ask a swimming question with a new thread, but started reading this one, and it seems the right place to ask! I haven't noticed anything about the size of people in the lanes next to me, but I do notice everyone going faster (or so it seems). I also am amazed at those that glide so quickly and gracefully through the water. There was a man swimming next to me last week that swam so beautifully that I kept trying to peek under the water doing the breaststroke so I could get a little hint of how he was doing it. Had to stop though because I think he thought I was peeking at his Speedo! I am very comfortable in the water, but maybe I've read so many great tips and tecniques lately that I'm trying to do them all at once. Am I looking for a "masters" class? How much should I expect to pay (hello, budget!)? I've been trying to swim 3-4x per week, but stay between 2.8-3.27 min/100yds. Also one quick question: I breathe on alternating sides every three strokes, which seems fine until about the last few yards, then I feel completely out of breath, like I need to take a huge gulp of air or bust. What's up with that? Thanks for all the great info!

My coach at the masters said he recommends breathing every 2nd stroke, especially for men. Some women have more lung capacity and can get away with every third. Heck most of the time I fall back into breathing every stroke.

The swimming program I joined is $60 per month. I wasn't going to do it but they had a special giving me 2 1/2 months for $60 which will get me thru May and my 5/23 sprint.

It's a combination of technique, and muscle-memory. Those people that seem to do it so effortlessly have spent hours in the pool. Their muscles are used to pulling through the water, they've become accustomed to their breathing, and their overall technique has been honed and polished by coaches. For someone like me, I enjoy stopping to watch them. (I don't use anything to 'improve' my stroke, except goggles and ear plugs - I believe in training as you'll compete.)

When I first jumped in the pool to seriously swim a few weeks ago, I kept my head up, flailed my arms and legs, and could manage to make it to the end of the pool. I've watched several swim team members, did some research, and I try to emulate the techniques that I see. Now, I keep my head down, rotate my trunk to breathe, my hands enter the water in line and above my shoulders, I extend my arm fully into the water, use a measured, even stroke, and I feel that I'm getting better. I can do 25yds in about 30 seconds. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have the aerobic capacity for maintaining that speed beyond 50yds, but my technique is much better than before. Now that I've got my technique down, I can start to back off on the speed a little, so that I can work on my endurance.

The moral of the story: practice, practice practice! Work for that good technique, and don't worry about speed (yet). The wetsuit won't improve technique, just water-dynamics. A lot of the others have used the Total Immersion method to improve their swimming, you might want to look into it. Also, a Master's Swim program, or even just a swim coach for a few one-on-ones. You could ask the water-aerobics coach (after a class) to offer suggestions on your technique.

Again- check out total immersion- if you can be a LITTLE patient- the methodolgy is to get you BALANCED in the water which is what makes those "other people" make it look so splashless and effortless. It's using your core instaed of thrashing the water to death. ....

Ditto on Total Immersion. I'm spending alot of time doing the drills, and at first I didn't think it was doing any good, but today, something clicked, and I actually began to feel relaxed and balanced in the water. True, the feeling only lasted for 1 length of the pool, and then I started thrashing around again, but at least I know that if I keep practicing, then maybe I'll be able to maintain that feeling of buoyancy and smoothness in the water. And keep practicing, practicing, practicing. When I first started swim training in jan (took a few private lessons), I could barely swim 1 length without stopping. By alternating freestyle and breaststroking, I can actually go 400m now, and I did it today in 9:45, a new record for me!
Question: does anybody have any comments on how to avoid foot cramps when practicing kicking with the zoomers?

good job on the new best for you!

Big or small does not matter; it's all about technique and breathing. I learned to swim before I could walk (truly) but still joined a masters program some twenty years ago to learn proper technique. At first I thought that it was a trudge and simply no fun at all but when it started coming together and I could actually slip through the water with ease I understood why the long hours of training. I am much larger these days (fat) but the technique is still there, albeit a bit rusty, and although I do not "slice" through the water quite as quickly, I can still swim with relative ease. DO join a masters program or get a coach and you will see some results in a very short time. Just keep training and enjoy the swim.

My only suggestion on the swimming (from someone who only started two months ago) is to give it time and work on technique and the distance will come. When I started two months ago I celebrated the first time I was able to swim 25meters and back (50m) to me that felt like a ton of work at the time. It was so frustrating to me reading all the logs of people who were in the 1000's+ and I was doing about 400 in an outing. Now after two months practice and reading what I could find on Total Immersion (without spending a dime on it, Sorry Terry its just not in the budget right now) Im able to swim 2000+ any time I go out. Of course I dont because there are times when I'm just doing drills or whatever. But I think the real keys are Technique and Patience.

Edited by soupaman 2004-04-09 12:59 PM

Well, I love the swimming part of this whole enterprise, but obviously that's irrelevant to your situation. One thing I notice when I swim is how beginners sometimes fight with the water. It will win. The breakthrough seems to be when they decide to let the water help them. Nothing has changed but their mind. Then their strokes improve, etc.... And the same is true for experienced swimmers, too. When I'm tired and my strokes have deteriorated and I getting less and less efficient, I'm fighting with the water rather than letting it hold me up. Actually my first clue is that I become a loud swimmer. My kick is splashing all over and my breathing is loud.... Then I do a length on my back and just think about the water as a big giant bed holding me up.

Now if I could only think of a parallel visualization for running.

Andrea

Thanks Silent. Didn't mean to come on so strong. But as a big girl swimmng is the only sport that I can do better than most. It's my safe haven so to speak. And instead of people recognizing my good technique and my hard work they belittle that by saying, "Oh, she's fat and more buoyant that's why she swims faster." That's like saying, "Oh, he's skinny so that's why he runs faster." People are faster because of their hard work not their physical appearance. But it's all good. We still love you!

Sorry press the button twice.

Edited by infosteward 2004-04-09 3:26 PM