Lots of questions

GreenNetha1

Hey, I am a huge fan of swimming but have never formally been taught any strokes or anything. I love getting up early and to the Y pool when it opens at 6am and I'll swim laps, but I know my form is embarrassingly horrible. I try different strokes and I just feel lost. I can get myself up and down the lane plenty of times, but I know that I could be doing it more efficiently than I am now. So, I am coming to all of you swimmers to get some guidance.
1. Without formal education or private swim lessons, how can I ensure that I am performing strokes correctly? I watch plenty of videos on youtube, but I can't watch the videos at the Y on my phone because I don't want water damage and I have no signal and trying to remember what I watched hours or days ago is not very successful.
2. When you breathe during strokes, do you exhale constantly while swimming or just when you put your head up to catch a breath? I have such a hard time putting my face in the water and breathing. I am swimming with good effort and I am huffing and puffing and to put my face in the water leaves me feeling like i'm going to drown.
3. When you use flippers and you kick from the hips, how do you keep them in the water? Mine always go up and flop around like a duck.
4. Any other tips/advice would be greatly appreciated because I hate feeling like an elephant in the china shop while swimming laps.

Kida_Adeylne

1. Choose one thing to work on at a time. I'd suggest start with the kick (mostly because every slow person I see while swimming could improve almost instantly by kicking from the hips instead of the knees), then work on arms. Use the flutter boards, and pull-buoys if they have them. Look up different drills (one arm, catch-up).

2.Yes, you breath out in the water, otherwise you lose momentum while breathing. Go much slower so you're not huffing and puffing and try to breathe every third stroke. Begin practising your breathing technique with a kicking drill so you don’t have to worry about timing your inhale with your arm strokes.
-Using a kick board, holding it at the bottom out in front of you, swim forwards with your face in the water and count for six seconds, slowly blowing out all of the air in your lungs as per the first exercise.
-On the count of six, lift your head to the side, pulling your arm down in a stroke. (as you would in a normal front crawl) and take one sharp intake of breath until your lungs feel completely full, and recover the arm to the board..
-Once your lungs are full, lower your face back into the water and blow out the air slowly and steadily whilst counting to six.
Repeat this exercise for the duration of the length. Swim as many lengths as you feel appropriate until you feel comfortable with your breathing.

3. Kick smaller. Most of the kick should be down into the water, not above it.

4. As long as you're not swimming double arm backstroke with frog kick and flippers in the fast lane (yes, someone does this at my pool) no one really cares what you're doing. Just go at your own pace, and keep practicing. The more you swim, the better you'll get at it and soon you'll feel like a fish. Swimming is great, so have fun with it!

EmmaSlan

I'd absolutely second what Kida said above. Swimming lessons can be invaluable though so it maybe worth considering them; group lessons are often cheaper than private lessons so maybe that is a possibility.

On the breathing front it really is vital to get it nailed down to swim efficiently and kickboard drills are fantastic but if you have a real fear or issue, you can practice even without moving. Stand in the shallow end and bend at the waist and simply breathe out with your face in the water then turn your head to one side and breathe in. Then repeat alternating sides.

Once you are comfortable with that, you can progress to holding onto the edge of the pool with your body face down and do the same drill there. It is important to note that you should breathe in through your mouth because your mouth can filter any water you *may* take in whereas your nose can't.

With regard to strokes, there are loads and loads of drills to be found online. As said above, pick just one thing to focus on each session. Once you have nailed down a drill, try another. After a while you can start to combine them in different ways.

The only other tip I'd have for now is to try and have some fun in the water. Practice things like sculling, mushroom floats, floating in general, surface dives. Get comfortable in the water and with how your body moves and reacts in the water.

AquaticQuests

Yep if you never had lessons I'd say look for someone who can give you some classes!
Best to get the basics right so you don't build up on an incorrect foundation!
Have fun - swimming is great!

Macstraw

The advice you've gotten here already is right on the money, especially AQ's point about having the correct foundation upon which to build. What's good about getting the basics right is that you'll have a feel for the right way & will be able to tell what's wrong when you don't feel right in the water.....

stephenrhinton

Best advice i got when learning to keep my head down in the crawl was to start out by thinking of the breath as a 'pause' in the stroke instead of trying to do it all at once. As you get comfortable the pause gets shorter and shorter, and before you know it becomes part of the routine.

rosebarnalice

Another good tip is when your face is in the water, be looking in front of you-- not straight down. A lot of people look straight down or tuck their chin way down--which pulls the neck and spine out of alignment, and can then make your hips tip either up or down and mess with your kick.

Try this exercise I used when I taught adult swimming: Without kicking and using your arms only for forward momentum: swim with the water line hitting right at your eyebrows; then slowly lower your head until the water line is in the middle of your forehead, then right at your hairline. As you do this, pay attention to where your hips are in relation to your spine. Do you feel like your butt is trying to stick up out of the water above your spine line? Do you feel like your legs are sinking below your spine like you're on your way to standing up? As you move your head position up and down, try to find the "sweet spot" where your spine feels completely neutral and your hips are neither dragging or sinking.

juliet3455

Great info from everyone, especially @Kida_Adeylne about breaking it down to work on one thing at a time ( isolation training ) and @rosebarnalice about finding that sweet spot for the position of your head. Ultimately it's about your center of mass/gravity. The best example of how it effects your body position in the water is if you lift your head straight up out of the water to breath you move that point back toward your heels which causes your feet, legs and hips to drop deep below the surface. So when swimming you want to get your head position right to get a balance/neutral body position.
@GreenNetha1 Don't forget to post your swims in the "did you swim today" as a way of helping you keep motivated.

fishgutzy

The Y has adult swim classes to help with technique.
Ditto on the other advice given.