Swimmers! I suck!

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  • jessie_rose24
    jessie_rose24 Posts: 40
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    I swam my whole life from the time I was young and throughout college.

    Swimming is not easy at all, but you should start of slow and work at it until you can pick up the pace. If you can, the best way for you to increase your lung and heart health to become a stronger runner is to swim using a technique where you breathe every 3, 5, 7, and 9. Try starting out with one lap where you take a breath every three strokes, then a lap where you take a breath every 5 strokes, and so on. This will really help build your heart and lungs along with your stamina to make you go faster and longer!

    I second this, doing stroke drills and breathing drills will help build lung capacity. Learning proper stroke technique goes a LONG way to help you regulate your breathing when you are swimming. Most novice swimmers will breathe every stroke or every other stroke, therein lies their problem. Your body goes into a hypoxic state, it would be like hyperventilating while you are running, not gonna work that well and of course you will get tired easily.

    I would like to add that underwater swimming and lap kicking (just kicking with a kickboard) both reall help you focus not so much on your stroke technique but how you are breathing in the pool. Start off with short submurged swims, (usually breast stroke is best, or streamline with a dolphin kick) stand catch your breath then submurge and go a little farther, work up to the full length of the pool and when you are really good you can go for more than one lap underwater... talk about lung capacity. Using the kickboard for lap kicking, with your arms completely extended in a superman position puts your head in the right position to kick while focusing with on expelling all the air completely out of the lungs, then rolling the head (only the head) to the side and taking another breath and carrying on like that.

    I also agree with the poster that mentioned US Masters Swimming, you don't have to compete but they have great coaches that have tons of experience teaching athletes and normal people alike to swim more efficiently.
  • MaitreyeeMAYHEM
    MaitreyeeMAYHEM Posts: 559 Member
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    I can swim but not every well. I'm a lot better in the shallow end. lol I can swim, doggy paddle and sink. lol
  • wallj135
    wallj135 Posts: 12 Member
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    When you're doing frontcrawl/freestyle definitely try breathing after every 3 strokes so you alternate sides and make sure that you are slowly letting the air out while your head is under water. Then when you take a breath again you won't waste time breathing out and have to rush to breathe in again. Make sure you keep a steady rhythm and it should help with your breathing :)
  • wildcata77
    wildcata77 Posts: 660
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    I grew up swimming like a fish, and taught swim lessons in my early 20's, but even I get out of breath easily, esp. swimming freestyle!

    I just mix up my laps so I don't get too out of breath to stop. I start with freestyle, do 1-2 laps until my lungs are ready to quit, and then switch to backstroke or breastroke (where I can breathe more frequently) for a few laps. My routine now is about a 4-6 lap warmup, 8-10 laps of a good cardio workout, and 3-4 cool down laps.

    I'm totally pimping my stupid blog for the second time on this site today, but I actually wrote a post about this EXACT thing when I started swimming for exercise again last fall:

    http://bottlebrunette.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/so-about-the-swimming-of-the-english-channel/

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