Small brag

kcaffee1

I usually try to keep the brags to a minimum, but this one I just had to shout out.

I've been pushing endurance swims because I know that the exercise is good, that swimming helps tone the body (when you are as far out of shape as I was, ANYTHING helps tone the body), and because I just love swimming. If I had my druthers I'd just take up permanent residence in a pool, and forget what dry land is all about most days.

Because I had heard early on, in my journey that if you wanted to keep burning the same amount of calories as you lost weight, you would have to increase the intensity of the workout, I set my sights on doubling the distance I swam in the same amount of time. I've been struggling with this, in part because I got side tracked while learning a new stroke. But, today, I managed to hit my hopes for the summer!

My swim is broken down into 2 segments, which I quite happily indulge in on days I'm not lifting - the medleys, and what I call my endurance swims. The medleys are 400 m medleys of all the racing strokes, and the endurance swims are just for back stroke, free style and breast stroke. But, I'm still pushing 400 m in each stroke. Early last week, or late the week before I noticed that I had finished the endurance section of my swim in under an hour. Curious today, despite being away from any serious exercise for over a week, I decided to see what I could do when I hit the endurance segment of my swim today.

With a form break down in free style around 325 m because my shoulder was trying to talk to me (I ignored it, and finished out the first 400, then changed strokes to give it a break), and the fact that I had already finished my medleys before starting the endurance, I STILL managed to finish 2400 m (yes, that would be 800 m in each stroke) in 64 minutes! I'm a little sore right now, but floating on air. Next step - get the medleys worked out so that I'm able to double them in an hour!

onwarddownward

Super job!!

twoaugustgirls

Well done.

fishgutzy

That is awesome.
I don't eve try the medley because of my left shoulder. Can't rotate properly for back or butterfly (not that I could ever do BF)
I'm too impatient for breast stroke.

Kudos on the speed increase.

What I love most about swimming is that I can't feel myself sweating:bigsmile:

brookielaw

Way to go!

kcaffee1

To everyone who's replied:

Thanks for your encouragement! It is wonderful to see the well wishes and other encouragement from other dedicated swimmers!

@ fishgutzy

I love the medley because it lets me hit just about every muscle in my upper body, and it ensures I don't get lazy legs. ::Grins:: I got in the bad habit of dragging my legs waaaay back when I was briefly on a community swim team. Now, I'm working on breaking the habit - and if I don't swim in medley relays, I find myself only pulling in the freestyle and back strokes. (Yeah, someone get out the willow switch, I know I deserve it. ::Grins::)

Another update for my continued push for higher personal records:

I can't quite do all three of the "easy" strokes - back stroke, breast stroke, and free style in the same day.. yet! But, this week I was able to crank out a full 1 km in both breast stroke (35 mins) and free style (25 mins) in a single session. Rolled over to start on the back stroke, but my shoulder started talking, and so I let it win, and cut the swim short then instead of risking an aggravated injury. When I figured out exactly how far I'd swum in the two strokes though, not to mention the time, I just about fainted right there in the water from excitement!

fishgutzy

I can't quite do all three of the "easy" strokes - back stroke, breast stroke, and free style in the same day.. yet!

Actually, only one of those would be "easy" base on calories burned for a fixed distance and time.
Assuming same distance, time, and weight, free style burns the least. Butterfly burns the most. Back and breast stroke are about halfway between the two.

Weight is a factor. When I get to my goal weight, I'll have to swim 7km to burn as much as I did at 250# swimming 5km.
I have to "settle" for working the other muscle groups in the weight room. :bigsmile:

kcaffee1

I'll agree with the effort going into the strokes. I'm not sure if I agree with the difference between back stroke and free style - since they use almost the same set of muscles. (But, I'm also no exercise kinesiologist, so could be talking through a smoke screen there.)

I know when I keep the "endurance" segment of my swims down to around 800 m for everything except butterfly, that I can easily get a full workout in. (Again, I'm still struggling with butterfly - I can almost make a smooth 25 m single lap, but then I have to pant for recovery a good minute before I can tackle the return stroke. Or, I wind up alternating butterfly with breast stroke which KILLS my form in the breast stroke because I'm... yup... panting and huffing on the return lap.) And, I'm getting through those 800's in about 15 mins or so, some a little faster, some a little slower. I was ecstatic when I saw the time I'd turned out for that freestyle 1000 m (20 * 50 = 1000, right?). Especially considering that came AFTER I had already worn myself out with the breast stroke 1000 m. I really want to be able to tack on the back stroke and the medley as well, but I think I'm going to have to build my shoulders up to that level a little slower than my endurance is building. ::Whines with a grin:: Why can't everything build at the same pace? That would be soooo much easier!

ElBence

Again, I'm still struggling with butterfly - I can almost make a smooth 25 m single lap, but then I have to pant for recovery a good minute before I can tackle the return stroke.

If you're having trouble with sustained laps swimming butterfly, try slowing it down. I had this problem when I started swimming again. I remembered in high school, we swam slow, but sustained butterfly laps. It feels more natural to go all out when swimming fly, and so you inherently want to move fast, but you'll find if you concentrate on form and deliberately slow down, you'll be able to swim a lot farther with a lot fewer rests. For example, here's the butterfly set I did last week: 2 x 100yds fly on the 2 minutes with 1 minute rest. 1 x 100yds fly with paddles(for strength and form) concentrating mostly on form and going slow with 1.5 minutes rest. 1 x 100yds fly kick with 30 seconds rest. 1 x 100 yds fly at a normal pace. I was never a good butterfly swimmer in high school, but since I've been back in the pool, I've made it a goal to beat my brother's best 50 freestyle in all four strokes. Doing these sorts of fly sets has helped me check fly off the list.

kcaffee1

I'll see if slowing down again helps. I THINK my biggest problem though is that my shoulders and upper body is still weak. I have to really throw my head up to clear the water long enough to actually get a breath, or else I seem to enjoy trying to drown myself about every third stroke. Working right now on getting the strength built up. The reason I sped up from the creeping I had been doing was because I was actually going so slow I was flopping, not swimming the 'fly. When I picked up the pace a little, I actually started smoothing the stroke and timings out.

ElBence

Try breathing every other stroke. Also, your upper body doesn't need to come out of the water a whole lot. You naturally want to come out high in order to breathe, but look at Phelps and try to emulate his form. His head, arms, and shoulders barely come out of the water. Your head should come out of the water as it does when doing breaststroke. Getting your head out of the water is more of a function of your core than your shoulders. Try to feel that part of the stroke there. If all else fails, try doing the stroke with one arm, breathing to the side, alternating arms and side breathing every three strokes. After three on each side, do three normal strokes. Gradually decrease your one sided strokes until you're doing butterfly all the way.