I use swimming as my only exercise. My L) knee will need replacing and I find swimming the only sensible way for me to exercise.
I couldn't even swim one lap when I started back in the pool (after 40 years of never swimming a lap) in January.

http://swimming.about.com/od/sampleswimworkouts/a/8_week_plan.htm

This guys web pages are useful and there are many more I'm sure.

I like long distance swimming so I now freestyle (crawl) 3kms 5-6 times a week. I use fins and a snorkel. The snorkel made life easier as I was getting a stiff neck from only being able to breath on one side and the fins make me use my leg muscles more.

:flowerforyou:

I've just starting swimming again after years away from it. I used to swim competitively in high school which was about 10 years ago. Sadly I've grown to be very overweight/obese and out of shape. I joined my local gym and have been swimming laps for about 35 minutes each day. Just curious if you all had any tips for someone like me who is using swimming as their primary weight loss tool and is just getting back into it.

I'm similar to you. I swam on summer teams growing up but hadn't swum since I was a teenager (I'm 45 now). I started swimming again in April as soon as I was no longer in the "morbidly" obese category and had dropped down into the obese category. I started by swimming 25 yard sprints followed by 25 yard slow and easy. I would do that about 15 times and call it a day. After a month or so, I started adding distance swims into the mix. I would do 25 yard sprints + 25 yard slow and easy and then do 100 yard intervals for the remaining workout time. Over time, I would increase my intervals from 100 to 200 to 300, etc. Needless to say, my workouts got longer - from 30 minutes to 45 minutes, an hour, and now I swim between an hour to an hour and a half doing 500, 1000, 1750 (mile), 2500, and 3500 yard intervals (not all of them in the same workout, of course). My weight really took off between the time I started swimming and now (I started at 163 in April and am down to 120).

As you'll swim more, you'll find yourself swimming longer distances without realizing the progress you made. Keep a log of your laps or your time -- it's nice to look back and see how far you've come! I nearly always swim 40 laps (2000 yards, or 1.14 miles) whenever I get in the pool. A year ago, I was usually swimming 25 or 30 laps. Two years ago I was usually swimming 15 laps. I had not idea I'd gone up so far; swimming 40 just feels natural to me know, and I'd forgotten that I haven't been doing this forever!

You probably won't need this tip if you used to swim competitively but it's my best one! Always remember that "swimming" means as many different things as walking/running. If you're doing it for exercise, the key thing is how much effort you're putting in - it can be very easy to slip into "walking around the park smelling the flowers" type swimming where you won't actually burn very many calories - especially as you get better and better at it and doing the same thing takes less and less effort.