Swimming to nowhere.

[ski diva]

Wow, did I really start this thread in 2008? Incredible. And after 6 years of lap swimming (only during the off season, though), I'm finally taking my FIRST swim lesson today. I haven't had one since I was in summer camp a million years ago, and I'm sure there are sooooo many things I could be doing a lot better. My goal is to improve my swimming efficiency. I'm really excited. Funny -- my mom said, "But don't you already know how to swim?" How many of us have gotten the same reaction when we say we're going to take a ski lesson?

 

[VickiK]

Have fun!

 

[tinymoose]

I started taking swim lessons this summer. Started at Stage 4 at the local Y, which is their Stroke Introduction class. I learned how to swim as a kid and do what are probably very inaccurate and inefficient versions of some of the strokes, so that's why I decided to start from the ground up again.

So far we've primarily worked on freestyle and breaststroke. I can already tell I'm not going to be a very good distance swimmer, just like I'm not a very good distance runner, because I have a tendency to go out too hard and fast. But we'll see what I can do! Stupid fast twitch muscles.

If I ever get to the point where my swimming technique is better, maybe I'll look into the local Master's program?

 

[KathrynC]

I have started dabbling in swimming again. I run and cycle so I have been thinking about entering a tri, but swimming is definitely a weak point and I hadn't had lessons since childhood. I only go about once a week as it is only one of my many hobbies so not improving fast...

However, I did take some lessons and it was magical. I didn't mean to, my partner paid for a block of private lessons but then had to go offshore unexpectedly so I took the ones he couldn't go to. The instructor gave me a just a couple of tweaks and everything was suddenly so much easier. The main lesson was learning to exhale under water so you aren't trying to both exhale and inhale when you breathe. Sounds obvious, but apparently holding your breath is very common and it made so much difference. With just that, I pretty much doubled the distance I could swim without stopping! She also made some tweaks to my head position and kick. That was a couple of years ago now, maybe I'll go back and get her to show me how to do tumble turns again...

 

[tinymoose]

Yeah, holding my breath is something we've been working on ridding me of. Nobody ever told me to exhale as I swim as a kid.

 

[Kimmyt]

When I was doing tris some friends convinced me to join Masters swim and it changed my swimming. I just parked myself in the slow lane and tried my darnedest. The drills were great for improving my stroke. Still can't do flip turns, but you don't need those for OWS so....

 

[tinymoose]

When I was doing tris some friends convinced me to join Masters swim and it changed my swimming. I just parked myself in the slow lane and tried my darnedest. The drills were great for improving my stroke. Still can't do flip turns, but you don't need those for OWS so....

I may ask about Masters at the Y even though I'm not done with all of the swim levels yet. I'd like to get more than 1 day of practice a week with even some minimal amount of feedback/instruction and was wondering if Masters might help there in addition to still taking the once a week Stages class. I think I could probably go to Stage 5 in fall term anyhow (need to ask coach); I'm not sure there would be too much point in repeating 4 next term given she hasn't fixed much other than my breathing (she's been happy with my form for the most part). Although, we haven't done fly, backstroke, diving, or turns yet. But I don't think diving and turns are part of Stage 4 anyhow.

I just don't want to start attending Masters before I'm ready if it could negatively impact the group.

 

[Kimmyt]

From my experience, although I am sure every Masters is difference, you will have a lot of triathletes there. There will be a few lanes of really fast swimmers who probably swam in hs and college. And then you'll have the decent triathletes in the medium speed lanes. Then usually there will be 1-2 lanes of triathletes who suck at swimming, because a lot of triathletes suck at swimming. And you can follow the workouts without impacting everyone else's workouts as long as you are in a lane with swimmers who are of similar skill level. You can just drop sets or whatever as necessary.

So definitely inquire, the masters coach will let you know if theres a place for you, let them know the distance you can swim and what your speeds are etc. (time yourself doing a fast 50, fast-moderate 100, slow speed 200 etc). I suck at butterfly and breast, but I still worked the drills for them and would try them in the sets but sometimes if it was a big butterfly day I'd just exchange for front crawl since that was more applicable to me doing tris and it never seemed to impact other people's workouts.