Swimming - technique and stats
yirara
Posts: 9,938 Member
Yiha, a swimming group. And also one with postings in it 
I'm currently trying to improve on my swimming technique as it's really bad. I'm trying to track the time spent swimming on my gymboss iphone app, which really looks like: get into the water, prepare to swim, press Start, count to 10 and go. And at the end count the seconds again until I switch off the counter. Not ideal, but maybe I'll find a not too big waterproof stopwatch which saves multiple laps for a training session one day.
Anyway, my last breaststroke 'record' was 26.27 minutes for 1000 meters in a 25m pool. I tried everything, swimming faster, reading up on technique and trying again... and still ended up just above 26 minutes. Today I tried it again and only decided to focus on arm improvement - and ended up with 2 minutes faster, 24.27 minutes total and I noticed that I swam ever 250m at about the same speed.
I also did some 50m time tests and ended up with:
breast stroke: 73.35s (calculated from 1000m)
crawl: 86s
back crawl: 102s
dolphin: 92s
I guess it's quite obvious that my technique is really bad at all other strokes. Oh well.. it's something to work on. Someone else feel like joining in?
I'm currently trying to improve on my swimming technique as it's really bad. I'm trying to track the time spent swimming on my gymboss iphone app, which really looks like: get into the water, prepare to swim, press Start, count to 10 and go. And at the end count the seconds again until I switch off the counter. Not ideal, but maybe I'll find a not too big waterproof stopwatch which saves multiple laps for a training session one day.
Anyway, my last breaststroke 'record' was 26.27 minutes for 1000 meters in a 25m pool. I tried everything, swimming faster, reading up on technique and trying again... and still ended up just above 26 minutes. Today I tried it again and only decided to focus on arm improvement - and ended up with 2 minutes faster, 24.27 minutes total
and I noticed that I swam ever 250m at about the same speed.I also did some 50m time tests and ended up with:
breast stroke: 73.35s (calculated from 1000m)
crawl: 86s
back crawl: 102s
dolphin: 92s
I guess it's quite obvious that my technique is really bad at all other strokes. Oh well.. it's something to work on. Someone else feel like joining in?
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Replies
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too advanced/ technical for me at this stage.
i am sure some of the regulars will join in tho.
dolphin. what is that stroke? butterfly ?
good luck and enjoy.0 -
Hmm.. yes, it's probably butterfly I wonder what the difference is. Btw, I'm not seeing this as an advanced thread. I'm not good at breast stroke and thought I might just try some other strokes for a change. I cannot do any of them for more than 50 meters. So there's masses of space for improvement. 0
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Anyway, my last breaststroke 'record' was 26.27 minutes for 1000 meters in a 25m pool. I tried everything, swimming faster, reading up on technique and trying again... and still ended up just above 26 minutes. Today I tried it again and only decided to focus on arm improvement - and ended up with 2 minutes faster, 24.27 minutes total and I noticed that I swam ever 250m at about the same speed.
By my quick calculations that seems like a very brisk ie fast time for 1000 m of breastroke!!!
I'm sure as you read/YouTube on technique you will get even faster!
As for watch versus app I only just started using a stopwatch! Before that I'd just check the starting time and ending time, which worked as I was not doing interval training!
So now using cheap 100m waterproof Casio but you can get the more sophisticated watches for time, stroke, distance analysis!0 -
Thanks a lot AquaticQuests.
Yes, I certainly want to improve on my breaststroke techniques. I tried finding a swimming teacher here, but couldn't find anyone who can teach more than how to swim. So it's indeed youtube and various websites. I never realized before that breaststroke is so difficult. Well, I did when I tried to swim faster and noticed I was actually slower because everything I did acted like a break. As I can't swim fast and for a longer time (so far) with any other stroke I want to get fast with this one at least
I'm not sure I really need a watch with build-in gps, heartrate meter and all those kind of things. I'd be happy with one that I can start with a simple click, and click for laps without deleting previous lap times if I wish to do so. Like: swim 1000m, and do some test runs with other strokes over shorter intervals. Then I can get all those numbers into my spreadsheet and the total (ok, I can also calculate them together) in here for my weekly sport duration.0 -
Hiya, I'm a frontcrawler mainly but I do breaststroke for warm-up, cool-down or if I just want a look at the view! But I've noticed my breaststroke has got noticably faster without trying since I started going to the gym and doing some weight work. More muscle seems to impact the breaststroke much more than any of the other strokes.0
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Ohhh a swimming group!! I've just started going back to the gym and swimming is my preferred method of exercise currently. I used to swim competitively back in high school (10+ years ago), but have gotten grossly overweight and out of shape. My knees have arthritis and are painful, so swimming is awesome on my joints. Even just after a handful of sessions at the gym I don't feel like I'm going to completely die at the end of the laps, so that's encouraging. I hope to start lifting weights to help build muscle too, but right now I'm loving my pool time.0
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In breast swimming I'm still struggling with the leg kick, but the dolphin wave works out rather well now. I found out today that I swim faster and more relaxed if I submerge my head completely and only exhale upon coming up. Still don't manage to breathe without stretching my head forward as too much water comes into my mouth otherwise. Could it be I need to get further out of water? Or is it a simple: use a hair cap as the hairs retain too much water?0
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A lot of people have trouble with breast stroke - the coordination of the pull/breathe/kick/glide. Also - the frog or breast stroke kick uses inner thight muscles more that it does quads & hamstrings which are usually a lot more developed. Sumo squats (legs spread a little more than shoulder width) will help work inner thigh muscles. As will, of all things - the thigh master!! lol!! Using bands around the thighs & opening as well as putting a volley/soccer ball between the legs & squeezing. If you work out at a gym on machines the abducter/adducter is another good one. If your kick is off - where as you pull your legs up too hard/fast that will slow you down. People just learning the stroke sometimes even end up going backwards because they pull thier legs up too fast. I reccomend doing kicking drills and pulling drills to work the separate parts of the stroke individually then put it together. As far as breathing, with breaststroke if yuo are sprinting - most people inhale everyother stroke as thay do with butterfly. But since this is a "resting" stroke & it is not usually swum fast - breathing every stroke is mostly done. Ensuring your timing (pull/breath/kick/glide) is accurate will be key to increasing your speed as well - basically eith your arms are pulling - or your legs are kicking giving constant propulsion. If you are going for speed, your glide will be very short as you will want to start the next stoke sooner.
Hope this helps, makes sense!!
Liz0
