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I'm hoping someone can really help me here. I've been training for about 6 weeks in all disciplines and I'm beginning to become demorlised with the swimming.

I'm a decent swimmer on breast stroke, I done the 5k swimathon 1hr 35 using breast stroke only which I though was decent.

Breast stroke is useless though for tri and I've moving away from it and back onto fc. I seem to be getting worse at the front crawl as time goes by. Last was the worst.... two young girls pummeling the pool in fc and I could hardly do 50m without stopping to catch my breath.



I've done two things. I bought a float and I trap it between my legs and do the front crawl and I can go for ages. I then try and kick using the float and can do about 20m and then I have to stop. When I put the two together then its a disaster. I feel fine for the first 10m. I can feel myself, after 4 strokes when I come up for air letting my legs drop so I thought I must be raising my head to far.... tried smaller sharper breaths but then I struggle for air.

All in all when I'm doing fc I feel like at the end of 25m that I have no air in my body and that I have to stop so something is wrong.... the pool that I go to has a swimming club but only for kids.... why can't they have a club for people who can swim but want to improve on what they've got.......[X(]

Comments

  • BopomofoBopomofo Posts: 980
    By the mighty power of search, I bring you......



    http://forum.220magazine.com/tm.asp?m=11420&mpage=1&key=&#11435



    Gaterz1981 had asked a pretty much identical question waaay back in January. Wonder how's the swimming going now?



    If you have any questions after looking at that thread then fire away.

  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    Superb.... its seems that Bopomofo has nailed it on the head. Cheers for that...



    The solutions that you gave seems relative to where my problems are.... I've realised that I am kicking like mad and getting nowhere fast.



    I watched a video of some austrailan dude and has kicking was so much more fluent so it def looks like I need to some attention to my technique.....



    Cheers
  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    Was out on a swim last night, had my best swim in ages. For the first time I decided to ditch the nose plugs and when my head is in the water, instead of exhaling through the mouth I exhaled via the nose.

    It seemed to make a massive difference.



    I'm also getting someone to look at my stroke as I still have the problem of the legs sinking but I guess its just technique. Although I have been told I am kicking from the hip, don't know what this means or what its doing but it doesn't sound right....



    Happy Days!!
  • I have been told I am kicking from the hip
    mmmm... I've been told to do EXACTLY that.

    I found doing from the hip difficult until someone suggested 'imagine you're kicking from the small of your back'.

    MASSIVE difference!

    By imagining this, you can actually feel your legs lift and your body straighten out in the water.
  • NobzNobz Posts: 22
    shadowone1 wrote:


    Was out on a swim last night, had my best swim in ages. For the first time I decided to ditch the nose plugs and when my head is in the water, instead of exhaling through the mouth I exhaled via the nose.

    It seemed to make a massive difference.



    Happy Days!!



    Just thought I'd add my humble expertise here since I come from a swimming background and have have done a good few 80km training weeks in my time [:)]



    With respect to breathing out under the water one of the main issues I see people having when they try to hold their breath until just before they breathe and then try to exhale through their mouth sharply and instantly inhale as their head comes out of the water.



    There are two impacts this has, firstly you find that when you're head it out of the water you are still exhaling so you're in a rush to inhale and dont get as much air in as you could, or worse have to keep you head out longer (i.e. rotate further) which typically brings the arms across the body and makes the stroke inefficient among other things. The second impact is that your body level in the water changes as you exhale sharply, the effect is lessened with a slow steady breath out while your head is in the water. This is easier to do breathing out through the nose.



    If you don't believe me in how much your body level in the water will change with a lungful of air then go down to the deep end, stand in the water with your feet off the ground arms out sculling and breathe in and out deeply - you'll see instantly what a difference this makes - this may be the effect you were seeing shadowone1.



    I'm sure that's not the most clear of explanations but it just shows how much of a impact one small thing, such as how/when to breathe out can make in swimming, it also shows that correcting one small thing can improve your efficiency and speed in a big way.
  • NobzNobz Posts: 22
    gunforhire wrote:
    I have been told I am kicking from the hip
    mmmm... I've been told to do EXACTLY that.

    I found doing from the hip difficult until someone suggested 'imagine you're kicking from the small of your back'.

    MASSIVE difference!

    By imagining this, you can actually feel your legs lift and your body straighten out in the water.





    Kicking from the hip is definitely the right thing to be doing, mainly to keep your mind on not bending your knee and trying to kick from there, as soon as you do this you drop in the water and find you're fighting your whole body through the water rather than just your arms/head and the rest going through the gap.



    Think of your swimming streamlinging same as on a bike - then think how much more resistance water gives than air.
  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    joined a tri club last night to help with the training. The swim coach there focused on a few things.

    [ol][*]I'm going to fast and tiring very quickly rather than working on technique

    [*]my head was too high and he showed me where its supposed to be

    [*]Breathing....omg what a difference point 2 can make to breathing.[/ol]

    All in all I had a very good session and was totally amazed at how 3 small things ( which on my own would not have been able to sort) made such a big impact. I went back into the pool this afternoon and I did feel the difference.



    This brings me to another point. my local pool is and indoor 4 lane 25m pool. The water is generally quite tepid and not at all cold and the chlorine is quite high. I went to another pool where the tri club and the water was colder, not as chlorinated and I can honestly say that compared to my local pool the tri club pool was better for swimming..... anyone else had similar experiences???





  • BritspinBritspin Posts: 1,655
    Oh yes. It is a fact that pool temps over the last 20+ years have slowly crept up..this isn't just a 'it was better in my day' thing it is true. More people 'leisure swim' in a warm pool, as they are not moving so fast as (hopefully) you & I will be they do not get hot, more money in the till.

    However the swimmers hate it as the pool becomes more soupy to swim in.

    It generally is up to the pool manager so have a lobby session with & see how far you get..I think I know the answer to this.

    However, in these environmentally aware times it would be a fair point to bring up the enegy savings in dropping the pool temp by a degree or 2, also the chemicals have a optimum working efficiency range of temp, so as temp goes up, the disinfection rate drops as well as the survival time of nasties increasing..bacteria I believe loves warm & wet (beware the spa bath..if you ever want to enjoy one, never watch a filter being cleaned out), so a drop of temp might lose some leisure swimmers (but clear some lanes for faster swimmers), but save heating energy & chemical costs & may gain some swimmers to offset the loss of slowies...well you can try.
  • It's very easy to become a bit demoralised with progress in swimming, but you seem to be tackling it the right way by getting some proper instruction. Swimming is so heavily technique based that unless you get the basics right you will always be struggling. Constantly looking for time improvements that don't appear as you try harder used to really wind me up. It's not a discipline like running or cycling where as you get fitter, you put more effort in and get quicker. I often end up with slower laps of the pool when I go 100%. Keep working on technique and come back in a few weeks to check improvements in time.



    From your original post it sounded to me like a balance issue, not a kicking issue, and getting your head down should help sort that. Kicking for me should be slow and almost lazy, it hopefully stabilizes the body during the roll and adds a little bit of forward momentum, but not much. I prefer almost not to kick at all, but can only really get away with that in a wetsuit, but the coach at my swim class thinks we should all kick a bit more (to keep blood flow around the legs so they stay fresh for the bike leg), so it's something I am working on.



    Breathing again is balanced based and it's something I need to work on, I keep lifting my head when breathing to the left. At the moment, I'm slowing everything down so I can work on technique. When I have that pinned i'll see what time differences the improvements have made.



    We sometimes get a cooler pool in the Swim class by asking the pool to turn the heating off, but usually its a bit warm. I find training hard in warm water to be particularly difficult as I just heat up and can't cool down. I always make sure I have a drink to hand to replace fluids.



    To be honest, it doesn't really matter, most people prefer the water a bit warmer, and if that gets more people swimming, that's a good thing (apart from it just doesn't seem like it when they're in my way)

  • nivaghnivagh Posts: 595
    How does the amount of air in your lungs affect your profile in the water? I tend more towards the "hold your breath through most of the stroke before breathing out hard and in fast" school of swimming, at least at present, because I'm a sinker, with my lungs empty or full, which is a bit of a bummer!

    If my lungs are full, won't I be higher in the water and incurring less drag?

    Nobz wrote:
    ORIGINAL: shadowone1



    Was out on a swim last night, had my best swim in ages. For the first time I decided to ditch the nose plugs and when my head is in the water, instead of exhaling through the mouth I exhaled via the nose.

    It seemed to make a massive difference.



    Happy Days!!



    Just thought I'd add my humble expertise here since I come from a swimming background and have have done a good few 80km training weeks in my time [:)]



    With respect to breathing out under the water one of the main issues I see people having when they try to hold their breath until just before they breathe and then try to exhale through their mouth sharply and instantly inhale as their head comes out of the water.



    There are two impacts this has, firstly you find that when you're head it out of the water you are still exhaling so you're in a rush to inhale and dont get as much air in as you could, or worse have to keep you head out longer (i.e. rotate further) which typically brings the arms across the body and makes the stroke inefficient among other things. The second impact is that your body level in the water changes as you exhale sharply, the effect is lessened with a slow steady breath out while your head is in the water. This is easier to do breathing out through the nose.



    If you don't believe me in how much your body level in the water will change with a lungful of air then go down to the deep end, stand in the water with your feet off the ground arms out sculling and breathe in and out deeply - you'll see instantly what a difference this makes - this may be the effect you were seeing shadowone1.



    I'm sure that's not the most clear of explanations but it just shows how much of a impact one small thing, such as how/when to breathe out can make in swimming, it also shows that correcting one small thing can improve your efficiency and speed in a big way.

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