My Swimming progress thread
zorbaru
Posts: 1,077 Member
Hi All,
Ive never been much of a swimmer, despite the fact that i love being in the pool.
Well, tonight im going to start swimming laps as part of my weight loss routine. im not expecting much of myself, and i will probably end up water running for 1/2 the time, but the plan is to swim, and i will be posting my times/laps etc here.
its pretty much going to be a case of how many laps i do in how much time as there are no proper timers etc at my local pool. and its only a 25m pool with a max depth of 1.6 (or 1.3) metres. However it is indoors so weather makes no difference. I will also be riding there and back when i get some night gear for my bike.
stay tuned later this evening (australia time) for the woefulness of my first attempt
Ive never been much of a swimmer, despite the fact that i love being in the pool.
Well, tonight im going to start swimming laps as part of my weight loss routine. im not expecting much of myself, and i will probably end up water running for 1/2 the time, but the plan is to swim, and i will be posting my times/laps etc here.
its pretty much going to be a case of how many laps i do in how much time as there are no proper timers etc at my local pool. and its only a 25m pool with a max depth of 1.6 (or 1.3) metres. However it is indoors so weather makes no difference. I will also be riding there and back when i get some night gear for my bike.
stay tuned later this evening (australia time) for the woefulness of my first attempt
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Holy crap, that was much harder than expected.
i started off just walking laps and got 14 forward walking and 14 backward walking in 20 minutes (25m laps that is)
then i did my first lap of swimming, got 15m in and cramped
got going again and finished the lap. dear god i thought i was going to die. in the end i think i managed 2 x 1 lap of 25m without having to stop someway through it. in total i did 8 laps freestyle 1 lap breast stroke and 1 lap back stroke. took me 25mins for 250 metres.
i give them those names because they were the strokes i was attempting, probably didnt look remotely close to them tho.
oh well, im guessing it will get easier over time.0 -
Well done. I had to smile at your second update, while I could feel the pain of your sim stopping cramp, I alo got a funny visual in my head.
Looking forward to the next update.0 -
Yes, it will get easier. Right now the awesome part is that you are trying. Well done and keep it up.0
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swimming day 2 today. and wow what an improvement over last week. the swimming centre has decided that they want to finish 15 minutes earlier so they moved the session times forward, meaning i have 15 minutes less swim time so i didnt do as much water jogging for my warm up.
first major improvement of the day was that i didnt have to stop mid lap at all this week, and no cramping! i really made the effort to pace myself to ensure i made it all the way through.
as far as distance goes, i managed to pull out a whole extra 20m compared to last time. however, it was 2 minutes until i had to be out of the pool so i decided to try and do 1 lap at full pace. i made it 20m and just couldnt go any further. still tho, after 250m i thought that was pretty good.
i also got me some goggles which helped a lot. it was a novelty being able to see where the end of the pool was and knowing how much further i had before i could stop and breath again.
next week im going to attempt a turn and see how far i can go without stopping. my guess will be about 35m ::D0 -
really good swim today. started with a 10 minutes of water jogging as warm up. then i started my swim. i was determinned to get 2x25m laps done without a rest. so i kicked it off, got to the end of the pool, did the worst butterfly turn in the history of swimming and headed back the other way. it was touch and go for a while, but i held strong and made the full 50m without stopping.
needless to say that if i was able to breath i would have been pretty chuffed about it.
after a bit of a rest i kicked off to do some 25m laps. after 3 or 4 i noticed that at the end of them i wasnt as stuffed as i was previously, and my rest time between laps was significantly lower. after doing 8 laps in 15 minutes i thought wow, im going to break my 10.5 lap record easily, time to push myself.
laps 9 and 10 were completed without a rest break. and i rekon i came out of it better than laps 1 and 2. i even semi timed myself with the counter clock on the wall. took me 1m50s to do the 50m. there were master swimmers in the lanes on the edge doing 45s for 50m so i knew where i stood from where i am now to where i would like to be in a year. i thought i would see how i did with a 25m lap and it turned out to be about 40 - 45s so i was happy with that.
came down to the end of my session and i decided to take a leaf out of my running program to make my last set my best. so i took off and did laps 15 and 16 without a rest. i didnt time them, i was just determinned to finish the night with a 50m swim.
so all up i did 16 laps which is 6 laps better than previous sessions, and included in that were 3x50m blocks.
so i was pretty happy with myself.0 -
A note regarding terms.
if the pool is 25m long, one length is 25m, 1 lap is 50m (up and back. Think of it like a track. One lap is when when you get back to the point you started from)
Very good progress. I think I made 6 laps the first time I decided to add swimming over a decade ago.
Now I can swim 10km.
Keep up the work. Persistence is the key.
You are ahead of me in strokes. I can't do even a lousy butterfly. Strictly freestyle for me. Can't do back stroke because of my left shoulder.
As far as cramps, stay hydrated. G2 or MIO Fit in water while swimming will fend off cramps.0 -
A note regarding terms.
if the pool is 25m long, one length is 25m, 1 lap is 50m (up and back. Think of it like a track. One lap is when when you get back to the point you started from)
well that makes more sense now. the slow lane says "for those that do a lap slower than 60s and i did a length in 45 and thought, bloody hell, how can you do a length in 60s (thinking that was a lap).Very good progress. I think I made 6 laps the first time I decided to add swimming over a decade ago.
Now I can swim 10km.
how long did that take. if i can get to 1km in a year, then i might actually consider doing a normal short triathlon (750m swim) rather than the come and try one that is only 200m swim.
ive never been able to do butterfly. and i bet your freestyle is better than all 3 strokes i can do put together. i might set up my phone to tape myself for a laugh. might even win funniest home videos with it.Keep up the work. Persistence is the key.
You are ahead of me in strokes. I can't do even a lousy butterfly. Strictly freestyle for me. Can't do back stroke because of my left shoulder.As far as cramps, stay hydrated. G2 or MIO Fit in water while swimming will fend off cramps.
i havent had cramps since week 1, but i should really take a bottle of water with me.0 -
Very good progress. I think I made 6 laps the first time I decided to add swimming over a decade ago.
Now I can swim 10km.
how long did that take. if i can get to 1km in a year, then i might actually consider doing a normal short triathlon (750m swim) rather than the come and try one that is only 200m swim.
Getting to one mile took about a year. But I wasn't swimming much at the beginning. Stayed at 1 mile for about 10 years. Last summer I started pushing myself more and got to 2 miles within a a few weeks. Then I pushed myself to swim 5km (110 laps in a 25yd pool)
This past summer I set a goal of swimming the equivalent of the Olympic marathon swim, 10km. I worked up to it 1km at a time. Then doing 2 5km swims in one day with a few hours rest between. Then one Sunday I decide to eat a bigger breakfast and try the full 10km. took me 3 hours and 54 minutes.
Set a goal and work toward it. When that is achieve move the bar a little further.
I finally reached the point that when asked how many laps I swim, the person doesn't then ask if I mean lengths, not laps when I say 90 laps is my short swim.
BTW, my Y doesn't have designated "speed lanes." It is never so crowded that people have to swim an oval in the lane. That can really suck. Only the swim team does that.0 -
There are a lot of good Masters swim clubs that you could go to once you feel comfortable. There is a group that swims at North Adelaide Aquatic during the day that would probably suit. If you are interested, let us know which direction you live and I could suggest who you could see.
If not, enjoy your swimming. We all started off doing one lap and being buggered. It is amazing how much you improve we a bit of determination.0 -
hi,
im out north and go to parafield gardens swim school. its only 3km from my house and a soon as get the money together for a lighting kit for my bike, ill be riding there.0 -
Don't worry about your technic in getting started. I started at 300M and 9 months later I swam 1600M of freestyle. I try to be more technically sound but me breaststroke is definitely better than freestyle. It takes time but it sounds as if you want to succeed so don't get discouraged. By the way, your pool sounds about the same size as my YMCA pool. It gets the job done.0
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a good night of swimming tonight. pulled out 20 x25m lengths. of those i did 5 full laps of 50m. big improvement.
minor annoyance was the 3 girls all using flippers in the slow lane which i thought was a bit excessive since there is only 1 slow lane. plus they kept giving me the eye like i shouldnt be in there. but to hell with them, its not like i can move to the fast lane.
timed a length tonight and came in at 45s, which is 7 seconds better than my previous.
my next goal is to get 30 x 25m lengths in the 1/2 hour that im out.
i really wish i had a water proof HRM to measure my burn in that time.0 -
Great job! You are making wonderful progress. If you find a good heart rate monitor for the pool, please share it with me!0
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You are doing wonderful. Keep it up. I have enjoyed reading of your progress. We all have a right to be in the lanes don't let others bother you. Just enjoy yourself.0
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Great job! You are making wonderful progress. If you find a good heart rate monitor for the pool, please share it with me!
I bought a Polar FT4 about two and a half weeks ago. It quickly has become an essential part of my workouts, and I wear it when biking, walking, lifting. I've worn it in the pool three times, and it seems to do a fine job of measuring my heart rate. Some people warned that HRMs don't do well in chlorinated water, but I haven't found that to be the case.
I have only caveat about it, which concerns the strap you wear around your chest. When I push off the wall, the strap briefly loses contact with your chest as the water surges over your body. That's not really a problem per se, except that I get kind of worried it will flip over or get twisted when it settles back down and thus not work properly (i.e., the electrodes not pressed against your skin). So when I do turns now, I tend to put a hand over the strap, just for a second. I also find myself checking the watch during the lap once or twice to make sure it's still recording my heart rate. All of this is pretty insignificant, but it probably isn't good for my form. (But I'm not a competitive swimmer -- I just do it for fun and for exercise.)
The only time it's sort of a "problem" is when I do the butterfly (which I don't do much, because it really kicks my butt). I think the motion tends to pull the strap away from my chest. I'll finish the lap and glance at the watch and will read 128 and then leap up to 150. So I might be undercounting my heart rate during the stroke.
There are two possible solutions. One is just to really tighten up the strap. I mean really tight. I haven't tried that yet. The other is to move the main part of the strap (with the electrodes) to a different part of my body. I tried moving it to the side, under my left armpit, today. I figured it would still be close to my heart, right? That worked at home the other day, but in the pool I got no signal. Then I moved it onto my back. That seemed to work fine, as the strap on the back stays on my skin during turns. I may stick with that in the future. I'm still playing around.
This presumably is a problem with all HRMs, since I think all (or nearly all?) of them use chest straps. It wouldn't be a problem if the strap had stabilizing shoulder straps, like a bra -- but then guys like me would be very unlikely to wear it.
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well, due to an injury to my foot (caused by my own stupidity) its been 2 weeks since i last swam. tonight i managed 17 lengths (25m) in 25 minutes. not too bad really, especially considering i rode my bike to the pool, only 2.7km but still was a work out before hitting the water.
hopefully i wont miss any more weeks for a while.0 -
I am about to try one possible solution to the flipping transmitter. I order a couple Tri tops from Amazon. Theory being that the top will hold the transmitter flat and not get flipped because it is now under a "shirt."Great job! You are making wonderful progress. If you find a good heart rate monitor for the pool, please share it with me!
I have only caveat about it, which concerns the strap you wear around your chest. When I push off the wall, the strap briefly loses contact with your chest as the water surges over your body. That's not really a problem per se, except that I get kind of worried it will flip over or get twisted when it settles back down and thus not work properly (i.e., the electrodes not pressed against your skin). So when I do turns now, I tend to put a hand over the strap, just for a second. I also find myself checking the watch during the lap once or twice to make sure it's still recording my heart rate. All of this is pretty insignificant, but it probably isn't good for my form. (But I'm not a competitive swimmer -- I just do it for fun and for exercise.)
I'll report back the results of this experiment.
I, too, am interested in what an HRM calculates and how high I can get my heart rate on my pseudo sprint laps. (pseudo because I don't swim fast enough to qualify as actual sprints)0 -
The Tri top arrived last night. Used it today. Definitely made it easier to use the HRM while swimming. Still had to hold it during push off but it stayed in place much better than without the shirt. I would dare wear this shirt a couple years ago. Besides, I don't think they make one big enough for that size. 0
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had a really good swim last night. gone was the need to take a break after a 25m length. everything i did was in 50m lap sets.
except once when i was starting length 15 i thought ill see if i can do 3 lengths (75m) without stopping. ended up doing 4 lengths (100m) without stopping.
all up i did 22 lengths for 550m which is a new record. i also did it in 3min less than i had previously done 500m. so was really happy.0 -
really happy with last night. did 4 sets of 100m and 5 sets of 50m for a total of 650m in 32 minutes.
unfortunately i wont be ableo swim next week as im having a small procedure done, the kind a male has to prevent more kids0 -
really happy with last night. did 4 sets of 100m and 5 sets of 50m for a total of 650m in 32 minutes.
unfortunately i wont be able swim next week as im having a small procedure done, the kind a male has to prevent more kids
Been there, done that. Back in '97. Like walking around with tennis balls for a few days.
Congrats on upping your endurance. One lap at a time. Just keep thinking "one more lap." Before long you'll finish a 1500M.
I found that once I got beyond 1500, adding distance was a lot easier. I also had to start using water with an electrolyte replacement added. MIO Fit and G2 are my preferred. Helps prevent calf and foot cramps.0
