swimming

monters

hey
im just wondering if anyone could tell me how good/not good swimming is for trying to increase fitness levels and /or weightloss?

bwardrop

Swimming is pretty good for you - not trying to be smart, but if you are overweight it is a good starting point as your weight is supported in the water and you have less stress on your joints when exercising. Cycling would be good for the same reasons. Neither will burn as much calories as running, but they are excellent starting exercises.

Best of luck!!

Canis Lupus

Any exercise is good exercise

I've started triathlon training and despite a depressing start am now loving swimming. It's such a nice change from grinding away on normal gym equipment.

If at all possible look towards using the frontcrawl rather than breatstroke. Whilst bloody difficult to get right I find it's the most fulfilling however stick to what you can do best initially and try other forms of exercise as well. If you like swimming maybe look into taking lessons as well?

Reyman

Swimming would be quite good for both weight loss and fitness, but you need to push yourself. It's no good dawdling along doing the breast stroke and admiring the scenery. You need to put in fast lengths of crawl and lots of them to get anywhere.

By the way it won't make you stronger - it's more of an endurance exercise

Black Swan

Looking at a chart used to compute calories burned per hour by your weight in pounds for different types of swimming strokes (You take the number and multiply it by your weight to compute calories burned).

Backstroke 4.62
Breaststroke 4.44
Free, fast 4.26
Free, slow 3.48
Butterfly 4.68

Example: I weigh about 8.5 stone or 119 pounds, so doing a hour of breaststroke I would burn (119 x 4.44) 528.36 calories. Just an example, I would only breaststroke a fraction of an hour (which could be a fraction of this table number).

Looking at other types of exercise on this chart, swimming has one of the highest calorie burn rates.

aye

Canis Lupus wrote: »

If at all possible look towards using the frontcrawl rather than breatstroke.

Breaststroke, done at pace, is hugely tiring. it uses much more of the shoulder muscles than front crawl.
i would agree that you should start on front crawl, because you will have better technique (its the most common stroke), but i wouldnt say breaststroke is easier.

by far the hardest is butterfly, but you need very flexible lower back muscles to do it correctly.

OP it wouldnt be a bad idea to do a couple of adult classes before you start, just to get your stroke and breathing correct.

Money Shot

I was told by my swim instructor that when done correctly, the breaststroke is the most tiring. A comment that surprised me at the time, but it does have merit from my experience, excluding the butterfly though..

Canis Lupus

Hey, Reyman made my point much better in so far as breaststroking and admiring the scenery is pointless.

Oh and swimming in a lane faster than you're suited to will piss people off as well. Nothing worse than having to look out for and overtake slow breaststrokers in the medium lane etc.

aye

Money Shot wrote: »

I was told by my swim instructor that when done correctly, the breaststroke is the most tiring. A comment that surprised me at the time, but it does have merit from my experience, excluding the butterfly though..

well if you think about breaststroke, when done properly the arms go outward in a lateral fashion on the push of the stroke, then back in at the stomach and out again.
the actual way to think about it is you are making a keyhole shape with your arms.

Canis Lupus wrote: »

Oh and swimming in a lane faster than you're suited to will piss people off as well. Nothing worse than having to look out for and overtake slow breaststrokers in the medium lane etc.

yes please dont do that, nothing worse then getting the fast lane and seeing some guy who think he can swim splash his way up the pool as if he's been caught in a net in front of you :rolleyes:

hunnymonster

I've read wildly varying calorie counts for swimming from different sources and none that I actually believe. I'm always starving after a swim but don't feel like it's been a hard workout like a run or a bike.

On the point of correct lane discipline. I posted this is the swimming forum a while back and a lot of people have agreed.

This is a bit of a rant but I'm starting to get very frustrated with the behaviour of some people at my local pool.


Slower swimmers starting a set should wait to push off the wall until faster swimmers have passed

Allow swimmers doing faster strokes to go ahead

Swimmers resting or otherwise waiting at the wall should stay far to one side of the lane,

Make note of “Fast, Medium, and Slow” lane designations and choose the appropriate lane. Unless you're training for the olympics you probably shouldn't be breaststroking in the medium or fast lanes.

An overtaking swimmer should gently but distinctly touch the feet of the swimmer being overtaken. It may take two or three touches, but overtaking swimmers should not need to repeatedly slap or grab at the legs of a slower swimmer to politely make their presence known.A lead swimmer who feels a touch on the feet from an overtaking swimmer, should continue to the next wall, then stop in the corner of the lane to let faster swimmer(s) past. A single light touch may be accidental and can be ignored, but two or more distinct touches should be regarded almost universally as a request to swim through.


A lead swimmer who sees another swimmer coming up close behind as s/he turns at the wall should consider stopping and moving over immediately at that wall in order to let the faster swimmer past - rather than blocking that swimmer for an entire length to the next wall, creating a situation where toe-touching becomes necessary.

Be aware of how ‘wide’ stroke mechanics may impact adjacent swimmers. Some peoples' wild backstroke and butterfly arm strokes can hit swimmers in other lanes, as can an over-wide breaststroke kick.

Don’t ‘water-run’ or ‘aqua-jog’ in lap lanes—unless the pool is nearly empty. While both activities are valid forms of exercise that need to be respected and provisioned-for, they are inappropriate for lap lanes.

Respect the ‘toys’ of other swimmers. This should be self-explanatory to anyone who received a passing grade in kindergarten, but unfortunately it bears repeating with some adults. Simply put, no swimmer should ever swipe kickboards, fins, hand paddles, pull buoys or other 'devices' positioned at the end of a lap lane unless they first obtain the explicit permission of the person who brought it over to the side of the pool.
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aye

i agree with most of that hunnymonster.

however, "Unless you're training for the olympics you probably shouldn't be breaststroking in the medium or fast lanes."

i have many a time past out guys in medium lanes doing front crawl while i've been doing breaststroke.

tho i suppose most people do breaststroke at a relaxed pace, so in general the comment would apply.

flogen

aye wrote: »

well if you think about breaststroke, when done properly the arms go outward in a lateral fashion on the push of the stroke, then back in at the stomach and out again.
the actual way to think about it is you are making a keyhole shape with your arms.

Was just going to say that - I know my swimming technique isn't perfect (far from it) but when you actually make yourself do a full circle with your arms - rather than just pushing your arms out and pulling them straight back into your body - you begin to feel it very quickly.

I can certainly do far more frontstroke lengths without stopping than I can breast-stroke - and I can keep a decent pace up for longer with f/s too.

liamo

aye wrote: »

i have many a time past out guys in medium lanes doing front crawl while i've been doing breaststroke.

Heh. I get passed so frequently by breast-strokers in the next lanes while I'm doing my front crawl that it no longer bothers me.

The day walkers start passing me when I'm out running is the day I'll take up draughts.

iregk

Well a lot of people are convinced that breast stroke is easy and slow. This is true if you do it the way most do i.e. head constantly above water and take a relaxing stroll through it. This is also why people say they can do breast stroke for a lot longer than front crawl.

There is no easy way to do front crawl, its a hard slog. Breast stroke, if you do it properly then on your way back up, your head, shoulders and hands should come out of the water, take a breath then dive back under the water. This is very intense and will work as effectively as front crawl all be it using different muscles and more of the inside of your legs.

What you can also do is vary it up, do some sets. 6 lenghts front crawl, 6 breast, 6 back. 4 lenghts front altering arms, i.e. 1 lenght using only your right arm (left constantly stretched in front of you) and change for the next lenght and so on. Then grab the leg float (looks like an 8) and do some lenghts with arms only. Likewise grab a flat float and do legs only.

Not only will this vary your routine and keep things fresh it also helps hugely with your technique.

Khannie

Great post hunnymonster. Never knew that (though I rarely swim when it's slow / med / fast lane time at my pool). I'd say this kind of etiquette thing should be posted up at pools. I hate figuring out etiquette the hard (and embarassing) way.

iregk

What annoys me is people who ignore the direction of the lane dispite the sign at both ends of the lane showing them clockwise or anti clock rotation. At times I have purposfully stuck to the proper direction knowing I was going to swim into the chap going against it just to put the point across.

hunnymonster

that's a new one on me but these days nothing surprises me.

It was like swimming with a learner driver in my pool last night. One guy had 4 of us backed up behind him but just wouldn't let us past. I repeatedly cut my lap short but he was so slow it only took 2 lengths to get back behind him.

Canis Lupus

This regularly happens in my pool. I went in yesterday and there were alot of new faces and I wouldn't have been surprised to see people trying to swim across rather than length ways. One old fell stood in the middle of the pool for most of my time in there. Everyone else seemed to be having a free for all.

I know I shouldn't laugh but there is one very large lady who is so large it looks like she has trouble stay submerged rather than staying afloat and she breaststrokes at an excruciatingly slow pace and somehow manages to hog an entire lane. She's so slow even the slow swimmers go into the medium lane leaving her to her own lane and clogging the pool up with swimmers.

I can't be too mean. It's cool to see her try at least and I'm not in any way an expert swimmer myself.

Sonderval

Ahhh, swimming. My personal fitness nemesis

Best I can manage on the front crawl is about 5 x 25m lengths before I am spent. Have a co-worker who is an excellent swimmer who has been refining my technique (I've been told by a few swimmers that its quite good), but I still can't hammer out any significant distance. I can fairly belt it down the pool though.

I want to do a triathlon this year, having done a few marathons and 10km runs over the past 5 years. Running is not a problem, nor is cycling. Its the idea of swimming 750m that terrifies me - I can hardly make 250m without drinking half the pool

And its not like I'm not fit - I am a heavy weights lifter, have run 10km in 40 mins and marathons in under 4 hours. I just can't seem to make a breakthrough on the swimming.

Anyone here have any tips or routines they've used successfully to enhance their swimming distance/endurance?

Canis Lupus

As a noob who started training for 750m on Feb 21st I was stuck on 2-4 lengths of the pool until I think 3ish weeks ago and I was getting seriously depressed. Then I had a clicky moment where I managed 5 lengths without getting wrecked but time constraints meant I had to leave the pool. I went back later that night and did sets of 10. It was like a revelation and now I can do 750m at will although not massively fast

Tips?

Stop tearing up and down the pool for a start. The harder you work the more you need to breathe and you can't breathe very often when your face is in the water as you may have noticed. Work on the distance not the speed at this stage.

Stop fighting the water! The idea is to think skinny and slip through the water, not windmill and brute force yourself through it.

Possibly use your legs a little less. When I was thinking speed the legs were going like the clappers and I was wearing myself out in no time.

Finally, breathe every three strokes and if you find yourself losing O2 grab a few breaths in succession every 2 strokes.

I'll reiterate: Take it slowly, take deep breaths oh and relax and try to float on the water. The higher up and more horizontal you are the better. Keep your head well in the water as well. A high head drops your hips and feet and increases drag.


Keep at it! You'll get that moment when it all comes together.

hunnymonster

have a look at the swimming forum for advice. I've found Killgore trout particularly excellent. at giving explainations.

most of the swimming we see on the TV is belly out stuff. Have you ever seen a pro swimmer climb out of the pool after a race? No, because they are so f***ed from the effort of the swim. Open water (triathlon) swimming is another ball game. You've got to stay aerobic to complete the distance and this means swimming smooth.

some useful tips from Dave scott
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vbPNfwcHaQ

but if you want to look at good technique, then look at soemthing like Bill Kirby in this clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dJs0ToB_z4
Look at how relaxed and smooth he is, this is 30 -32 strokes per length and 1:10 per 100m



For fun I always like this clif advert which shows the reality of an open water swim start!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3S0wu4Zbfk