Swimming for exercise, need some tips!

hiyomi

Hi everyone, I'm going to start using the swimming pool at my gym to swim for exercise tomorrow, but I really have no clue on where to start! I'm a good swimmer, but I'm not sure on what exactly to do besides laps. I'm not sure how long I should do laps for, which is the best style stroke to do, or other ways to keep my heart pumping! I haven't swam in years, so I'd say im a beginner. Can anyone give me any pointers on where to start out? Anything would really be appreciated! In case for any reason anyone needs my stats, I'm 24 years old, female, weigh 296lbs

Azdak

If you are experienced with your strokes, you can just do the front crawl. Don't be surprised/discouraged if you can't do much st first. Any time I have gone back to lap swimming, I do like 100 yd x 2, 50 yd x 3 or 4 and that's it. I'm out in 15 min. But I'm not a fan of acute muscle soreness. The next day I do a little more, and so on.

If you want to do extra, you can try walking in the pool, or join a class if you want to do more than swim laps.

Momepro

Personally Ilike to do laps and callisthenics. Adds some resistance training to several excercises, and helps several standing stretches and pushups, by taking off enough of the weight to make some exercises possible, that I can't do on land. I'll use the steps for pushups, backwards pushups, and a deep crab stance where the goal is to stay balanced as lobg as possible.

nutmegoreo

I just do laps. Partly for the exercise, but also because I can clear my head and do some good thinking. ti's a great place to get out whatever thoughts are rolling about in my skull. Time: 60-90 minutes (although I once did 120 minutes just to be able to say I did).

misshellybell

Hi, I've just started swimming again. I used to be a swimmer in school for school competitions ect but not swam since (I'm 34 now). Went on Friday and was out of breath doing one length!! But I love it and am going to keep going. I'm setting myself little targets each time. For instance I did 40 lengths yesterday but I had to stop after each length for a 30 second breather. After a week I'm aiming to be able to do a couple lengths without stopping and so on. I'm only doing breast stroke at the minute but as my fitness increases I will do more energetic strokes. Hope that helps. Good luck x x

deannalfisher

I would start with something like 500yds (if you have a 25yd pool) that is 10laps - you can break it up into smaller groups (50yd, 100yd etc); once you can do 500yd, then up it to 1000yds

I'm an endurance swimmer - so most of my workouts are a warm-up (500yds mix of drills, kick only etc); a mainset (1000-1500yds broken up into sets - so yesterday as 20x50yds with 20sec rest) and then a cool-down (2-300yds)

DancingMoosie

I have been more comfortable with breaststroke but my speed stroke is freestyle. I tend to tire more quickly with freestyle. I started with 2 laps each, alternating, but now I start with 4sets of 4 laps before switching to 2 each. Start with 10-15 min or so and build up your endurance to 30 minutes or more continuous swim.

Alidecker

I swim a couple of times a week right now. Yesterday I started with 1000 yards straight, then did some drills, then swam some other strokes to break it up...total of 2000 yards. During the week I don't have as much time so I usually do 1500 yards. Lately it has been just swimming laps without stopping to rest. I have a 1.2 mile open water swim in 3 weeks, so I am working on endurance.

Tweaking_Time

Just keep moving.

Do any and all of the following:
Side stroke, backstroke, breast stroke, free style...and if you are bold, daring and unafraid...butterfly.

I usually bang out a mile in about 40 minutes (including short breaks) and get a nice total body workout.

hiyomi

Tweaking_Time wrote: »

Just keep moving.

Do any and all of the following:
Side stroke, backstroke, breast stroke, free style...and if you are bold, daring and unafraid...butterfly.

I usually bang out a mile in about 40 minutes (including short breaks) and get a nice total body workout.

I ended up just doing this basically, I just tried to keep moving lol and damn it was tough! Sometimes I could barely make 3 quarters of a lap and had to stop to catch my breath lol I really enjoyed it and didn't want to get out of the water I'm glad I found some cardio that I absolutely love! I felt all my muscles working in the water!

lorrpb

Since you haven't swum in years, doing any stroke for any amount of time will "keep your heart pumping." I like a variety of strokes, switching every 4-8 laps (round trip). You might look into adult swim classes to work on your technique. It will also introduce you to drills you can do which translate into stroke refinement and strength/endurance. Personally, I don't do many drills, but they do help. Enjoy!

MostlyWater

It shouldn't be your only workout though. You should also lift weights.

NadNight

If you're at a reasonable fitness level then I'd suggest starting out doing a 200m warm up depending on your fitness levels and ability. Use a range of strokes at a slow, easy pace so something like two rounds of 50m front crawl, 25m backstroke, 25m breaststroke.

After that you can pick up the intensity by doing things like-

1.Find a pace that's faster than your easy swimming but not so fast you can't sustain it. Enough to feel the effort without burning you out. Then maintain that pace over varying distances. Swim 25m, 50m at that pace, rest, swim 100m, then 150, 200 etc up to whatever distance you can go, then go back down. If you're not ready to swim further distances as you're just starting out then just do 25s or 50s. In that instance I'd say aim for 6 rounds (but depends on what reaches that line between comfortable and pushing yourself).

2. 4x25, 50 or 100m front crawl (whatever you can do) gradually increasing the effort from steady on the first 50/100 to high speed on the last.

Then repeat that with backstroke and breastroke (butterfly might be a bit much at that distance if you're just starting out)


3. Do a series of swims varying in distance and intensity so like 200m easy, rest for x amount of seconds, 150 slightly faster, rest, 100m faster still, rest, 50m even faster, rest then 25m as fast as you can then do it in reverse, decreasing in intensity. You don't have to start with the 200, you could do 100 easy, 50 middle and 25 hard.

4. Use the individual medley order (fly,back,breast,free) to get variety of stroke. You can do this as 25m butterfly, 50m backstroke, 100m breastroke, 200m frontcrawl.


I don't know ability but you can adjust intensity and distance according to where you're at. You might start out at lower distances and as you get fitter do the same workouts just at longer distances to up the difficulty.

The other thing you can do is drills. Some equipment can be used but it's not totally necessary. A lot of pools will have access to kickboards and pull bouys to aid these drills but they're just to help, you can do drills without them.

Things like:

• Kick- isolate the legs muscles by using a kickboard or holding your arms in a streamline position. Do all styles of kick (frontcrawl and breaststroke is easier with a kickboard, backstroke and butterfly should be done on your back with arms streamlined
  
• Pull- the opposite of kick! You can use a pull buoy between your legs to help your legs float. This works best for front crawl and backstroke. Butterfly is enough of an arm workout with the pullbuoy! And for breastroke, ditch the pullbuoy and use a butterfly kick with breastroke arm motions (it'll feel weird to begin with but you'll find your rhythm)
  
• Single arm back, breast or fly. Quite self explanatory- just use one arm and have the other arm by your side or above your head or out in front as appropriate.
  
• Double arm backstroke
  
• There's also a drill called SKiPs which combines the above. Swim Kick Pull Swim. So say you chose to do backstroke, you could do 100m where you swim the first 25 normally, just do kick the second 25, pull the third and swim the third normally. SKiPs are really nice for variety
  

No matter what workout you choose, throw in a few short distance sprints at maximum effort working your arms and legs as hard and effectively as you can.

And obviously always cool down by doing 100-200m of easy swimming.

If you want specific workouts then you can simply google 'swimming workouts' and many will tailor to ability. I don't claim to be an expert in fitness and exercise or anything but I've been a competitive swimmer since I was 8 so if you have any swimming questions, feel free to message me

Good luck and have fun swimming!

Jonesingmucho

Great advice from everyone! And I'm so glad you had fun doing it today!

Like you, I hadn't done swimming for a long time. Sure I had frolicked in the pool and ocean and lake but that wasn't really swimming and I had my head out of water.

On my first day swimming for exercise, I had my list with how many laps to do of each stroke and I jumped into the pool with my brand new swim cap ready to conquer the world. I took off in a Phelps inpired blaze - water splashing and waves rippling.
I got to almost the middle of the pool and was totally out of juice! OMG! I was going to drown.

I doggie paddled the rest of the way then hung off the edge of the pool while sucking in huge gasps of air. There is a big sign that tells how many laps equals distance, so I pushed down and back enough to get close to a mile (17 laps!) It was stupid though! I had to roll off the bed the next morning since I hurt from my neck to my knees.

What I learned is go swimming several times a week and within two weeks you will be doing more every time you go! Your strokes get stronger, your breathing gets better and before a month is over you will swim down and back without resting!

Great job today!

earlnabby

hiyomi wrote: »

Hi everyone, I'm going to start using the swimming pool at my gym to swim for exercise tomorrow, but I really have no clue on where to start! I'm a good swimmer, but I'm not sure on what exactly to do besides laps. I'm not sure how long I should do laps for, which is the best style stroke to do, or other ways to keep my heart pumping! I haven't swam in years, so I'd say im a beginner. Can anyone give me any pointers on where to start out? Anything would really be appreciated! In case for any reason anyone needs my stats, I'm 24 years old, female, weigh 296lbs

I swim laps and take a water aerobics class. My best advice is . . . do what you can do.

I started out by swimming 1/2 mile (18 laps). Each week I added laps until now I am swimming a mile. My form still sucks and I am slow so I have set aside 75 minutes to do the laps. Yesterday I did the mile in 71 minutes. My goal is to eventually get to where I can do 1.5 miles in 90 minutes (shoulder issues so breast stroke only). Right now, I am going to swim for 75 minutes and see how many laps I can do in that time, as long as it is at least a mile.

I hope this makes sense. Basically, work on distance and speed at your own pace, but always be aware of improving your form.