All my life I hated all water sports especially swimming. However i took my toddler to lessons 5 months ago, and when I was there I saw my 12 yr old nephew and neice in their lesson. They were like fish, I thought why cant I do that? So i had a few lessons. Anyway, now I cant get enough, im down to 400m intervals at about 8 mins a set, im tumble turning , the lot 🙂
What tips can you give me to get quicker? Id like to break 30 mins for a mile. Any hints or tips that you have learnt that have really helped?

Cheers

It’s all about technique not speed really to start. Read up on the swim smooth websites, like anything so interval training. There is loads of stuff on line. Drill and technique skills to get you more streamlined and fish like in the water. 8 mins is very respectable maybe you should enter a sprint tri!???

Just try not to drink too much of the water from the pool …

Ha! I went swimming for the first time in ages last night. It’s bloody difficult I did ten lengths and was fed up of getting lapped by grannies so went back to the gym today. I just didn’t move anywhere despite trying, I’ve never really liked being out of my depth in water.

It’s all about technique not speed really to start.

I was about to say that.

For a 30 minute mile you need to get efficient as well. So again technique. You can thrash around for a few lengths but that stops being effective when you hit 32.

Breathing, remembering to kick, thinking about which bits of your stroke are best at propelling you forward, keeping you hips still (see also breathing), head position and stretch/reach on the stroke spring to mind.

Drills can be good as can someone to tell you that you swing to the left when you breath or your stroke is too long or too short.

Tails I was like that 5 months ago:) in fact couldnt do 1 length without spluttering and having to stop.

Id love to do a sprint tri, I used to be a county level runner in my early 20’s ( half mara pb of 1.16), but sadly cant run now due to reoccurring injury 🙁

If you don’t want to join a club or get more lessons, swimsmooth or total immersion books, dvds etc can be qpite useful.

Although if you’ve got to a level of happily doing 8 minute 400s and tumble turns, you might find that you improve quickest with some coaching. Cheapest way to get coaching may well be a club. I’m a member of a triathlon club – I think tri club sessions are probably better than full on swim clubs if you’re not already quite good, although it depends on what your local club is like.

I was at a similar level last year. I found it made a big difference having an experienced coach look at my technique, I could do 7 minute 400s with a similar effort level to the8 minute ones.

Also, for real fishlike swimming, outdoor swimming is where it is at, check out the outdoor swimming society on the web [with a great map of swim spots) and facebook (for people to swim with). Once you’ve experienced a swim in 3 degree water, you’ll never want to go to the pool again.

I always think about keeping the body long and smooth through the stroke, make sure you are going with the glide, easing through the water with minimum of resistance. Efficiency is all, learn to swim smoothly before you try fast. If this all sounds a bit gnomic it’s because I’m on holiday and a bit drunk. Other than that get a few lessons from a good coach.

Thinking of getting back into swimming and planning to do some early morning prior to work. Quick question on accepted swim wear. I only have big baggy shorts which are hopeless so need something with a little less drag, don’t see many wearing speedos these days but as I normally swim with my kids at the weekend that’s not too surprising.

What’s generally seen as acceptable?

You can get tight lycra swim shorts which are budgie smugglers! Have a look at http://www.swimshop.co.uk

if actually swimming as oppose to going with the kids then most things go. as you have experianced baggies are useless for swimming – hauls your arse doon into the water and creates drag.

ive got a couple of pairs that look like cycling shorts – orca tri shorts with a thin pad and a pair of speedo endurance shorts – although still functional are a rather large improvement on Yfront trunks….

Speedos are well out of fashion, but feel nice to wear – lots of water against your skin.

Jammers are the current fashion – sort of like cycling shorts without the pad. Just as fast to swim in as speedos, or possibly slightly faster.

For brand I swear by speedo personally, I find they last really well (I still wear a speedo pair of speedos which are ancient, because they just won’t wear out!). I like their goggles too (soft fit ones, about a tenner), although there are certainly more fashionable brands of goggles if you care.

I’d second joining a club, either tri or masters swimming (these can vary, my masters club would be fine for someone doing 8 min 400m).

In a public session on my own I could never really do the sets required to see much improvement.

Just a quick point, swimming always will be about technique. if you want to go long or go fast, technique, technique, technique.

Swimming trunks are what you want, no speedos, trunks.
like this.

Get a decent 121 coaching session.

I’ve been swimming front crawl for about 2 years, couldn’t manage a length before that.

Was stuck on 8:15 – 8:30 for 400m last year. Had a 121 video session with a good coach. Now I can do 7:30 – 7:40 per 400m for the same effort and repeat three or four times in the same session.

It’s ALL technique, and you need someone to tell you what you are doing, and how to correct your faults, and then work on them. Fix them one at a time. There’s too much going on to try to fix all faults at once.

[waves at joemarshall who I think is in the same tri club as me]

+1 for swimsmooth and +0.5 for TI

You have established a good base. Work out your CSS (go to swimsmooth for details) and start doing some intervals. Work on pacing (another SS mantra) and your 400m times will drop quite rapidly (at least at first)

Just off for a 15-20x 100 interval session on my CSS now!!

Don’t get too bogged down in technique – yes its important but you can “drown’ in the debates!! 😉

sorry +1 for 1on1 coaching

I only swim for tri’s and I’m not particularly good at it either, but as mentioned it’s all about technique at any level. Finding out your CSS pace is a good idea. Best thing to do is join a club, contrary to the above opinions I’m of the opinion that a proper swim club is usually far better than a tri club, if only for the fact that you’ll likely do all of the strokes which will vastly improve your fc and avoid injuries. Nowt wrong with proper speedos, better feel for the water and much better for long pull sets. I tend to find speedo Swedish goggles to be the best as well, super cheap and infinitely adjustable. The other thing with swimming is i find i need to do it a lot to keep the improvement ball rolling, a lot being 5/6/7 times a week with perhaps 15-20k of work per week.

Iain

Cheers all,

One thing I haven’t done yet is introduce faster paced intervals. I think I’ll start tonight.

I have a good coach already, but maybe time to explore a new one further a field. I fancy one of these weekend training / coaching camps with a full time coach.

Geologist – I just enjoyed a 20 x 100 session of intervals on CSS +2 seconds (as I am little unfit at the moment!). I had the same break (a little too long really) between each set as the length pace. I used a timing device to ensure constant timing on each length and rest. First few sets felt very easy, then it got harder and by the end, I had to concentrate hard on the technique to keep on pace. I am going to gradually improve the pacing (I second per length) over time. As this was outside my CSS, I then did 4 x 100 on a set stroke rate (faster than earlier sets). This was to make sure that I wasn’t ingraining any dead spots in the slightly slower sets.

TI has many benefits but there is a tendency for TI swimmers to overglide and introduce deadspots at the start of their stroke. Go to SS website to learn all there is to know – they are the best in the business (Paul and Adam).

Its easy! This is how you do it 😉

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax77_hHq9Dc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

just got some proper trunks, took 30 seconds off my 400 meter time, new PB yesterday of 7.15, then did 7.16, followed by 2 easy 400m each 10 seconds quicker than my previous PB!

wow – just ordered my self another 2 pair from Wiggle, Embrace the budgies 🙂 New target of sub 7 minutes by the end of summer 🙂

Breathe…
Hold your breath as long as you can (3 strokes) and exhale quickly, inhale as much air as you can as quick as you can.
Its all in the timing.
Practice in an empty pool, all pools are empty on Friday evenings.
Work on getting a nice steady rhythm and you’ll wish you could swim home.
Glide. Try and get as few strokes per length as possible, this is where breathing helps your buoyancy.
I typically get 15 strokes in per length of 25 meter pool, with tumble turns and big push I can get it down to 13.
Nice steady kick, keep your feet close to the surface.
Try and make as few bubbles as possible.
Reach, stretch as far foward as you can to start each stroke.

Most important, have fun. But it sounds like you’ve already cracked that.

^ you shouldn’t “hold your breath as long as you can”, should be steadily blowing out underwater so the lungs are just about feeling empty as you turn to breath in.

May take some practice, but will help lots.

Great stuff on the PBs.

Excuse me bigad, but holding yur breadth is a no,no IMO. Practice constant exhale an if bi-lateral breathing think, breathe, bubble, bubble, breathe,…with bubble being steady exhalation between stores. You need to exhale CO2 plus holding your breathe can hinder body position.

Sorry chaps (and chapettes) I dont mean hold it the whole length, 😯
Breathe out and in as quick as possible, kind of like a whale.
Every second or third stroke.

It’s still wrong, slow exhale not hold your breath for a couple of strokes then breathe out quickly underwater

Some reading on the subject of exhalation:

http://www.swimsmooth.com/exhalation.html

just got some proper trunks, took 30 seconds off my 400 meter time, new PB yesterday of 7.15, then did 7.16, followed by 2 easy 400m each 10 seconds quicker than my previous PB!

wow – just ordered my self another 2 pair from Wiggle, Embrace the budgies New target of sub 7 minutes by the end of summer

Swimming trunks aren’t like motors, if you add 2 more you don’t go faster… Just the one pair is needed 🙂

Aw bugger, that was my plan, back to the drawing board 😉

Breathe…
Hold your breath as long as you can (3 strokes) and exhale quickly, inhale as much air as you can as quick as you can.
Its all in the timing.
Practice in an empty pool, all pools are empty on Friday evenings.
Work on getting a nice steady rhythm and you’ll wish you could swim home.
Glide. Try and get as few strokes per length as possible, this is where breathing helps your buoyancy.
I typically get 15 strokes in per length of 25 meter pool, with tumble turns and big push I can get it down to 13.
Nice steady kick, keep your feet close to the surface.
Try and make as few bubbles as possible.
Reach, stretch as far foward as you can to start each stroke.

Out of interest, how fast do you go doing this (and are you mega tall)? I can do 15 strokes a length, but I’d be down to 8 minute 400 pace or something, whereas at 20 or so, I’d be under 7.

6’3″ with massive feet.
Try the breathing thing, you might find works.
Can’t remember times but enjoyed 3.5km open water last year
Entered for sub 50 minutes at Hampton to Kingston bridge to bridge but messed up with rescheduling and missed event.

Challenge?

What about building up distance? How best to go about that?

I’m currently swimming 16 x 50m at about 1.45 pace and wondering whether to switch to longer 100m – have stuck to 50’s so I can focus on keeping my stroke good.

I guess goal long term would be to swim a mile/1650.

Though the more I read the more confused I get – focus on technique and build endurance later vs build endurance and technique will come…

I’m looking at doing a sub 30 mile, im Just adding 50 meters weekly onto all my long distance intervals. Whilst trying to maintain my 400 pace.

Any of you lot use the garmin swim watch? Been using one since they came out and rather like it for logging my swims. Only works in the pool though.

I use the swimovate pool mate, alot cheaper and does almost the same

Yeah I use the 910XT

Don’t know if its the same for the swimovate, but the garmin gives a strokes per length of 11. Presumably that’s one arm stroke, so i’m really doing 22 strokes per 25m.

That swim smooth site is very good for reference, i modified my stroke slightly based on mr smooth and knocked 12 seconds of my 100m interval times.

6’3″ with massive feet.

Ah, that explains the short stroke counts. Have you looked at swimsmooth.com and what they say about gliding?

I am currently at a point where I’m playing with a lot of things swimming wise, I can consistently do 1:30 for 100m, but it is quite an effort so I’m trying to keep that speed but mess with my stroke to reduce the effort for longer swims, trying a 2 beat kick and a slightly higher stroke rate, which is interesting, feels good when I get the kick timing just right, terrible the rest of the time, but fits quite well with my general ability to float flat (weirdly the one thing I don’t have a problem with in swimming is my legs sinking – I can happily swim along without kicking at normal or slow pace).

Also I’m messing around building some swimming technology at the moment to support a project I’m working on – currently at a stage where I’m getting accurate (both sided) stroke counts and lap times, data on left/right balance and various other really interesting metrics. The current state of swimming technology is nice enough, but really very basic, with the exception of the crazy video analysis and pressure tracking stuff done on high level professionals in research, using many thousands of pounds of equipment and/or tons of manual operator time. I think things could be made a lot better for the average swimmer, without expensive technology or pool modifications.

Swimovate is the same, you have to double the stroke count

Also I’m messing around building some swimming technology at the moment to support a project I’m working on – currently at a stage where I’m getting accurate (both sided) stroke counts and lap times, data on left/right balance and various other really interesting metrics. The current state of swimming technology is nice enough, but really very basic, with the exception of the crazy video analysis and pressure tracking stuff done on high level professionals in research, using many thousands of pounds of equipment and/or tons of manual operator time. I think things could be made a lot better for the average swimmer, without expensive technology or pool modifications.

Do tell. I was looking at the pebble watch and its hardware isn’t too dissimilar to the garmin swim and its apparently waterproof. Fairly certain you could use the acelerometers in the pebble to duplicate the garmin swim.