Improving swimming.

Midlife Crashes

So my question is how do I improve. I'm very slow and I don't seem to get enough time to inhale when I bring my head up so I end off running out of breath by The end of a length.

Also are there any books or videos that could help me.

lorcan122

There are tons of videos on youtube, and there are probably a few books, but the best thing for you to do is sign up for some swimming lessons, and that should help you a lot.

kris71

A-Don't bring your head up, turn/roll to the side (I presume we are talking about freestyle/front crawl)
B-Breath out into the water, you have very little time to complete breathing you don't want to waste it on breathing out if you have plenty of time to do it in face down position

Your problems with speed from what you have said this far is probably balance, try to stay more horizontal and maintain level while breathing. Could be a good few other things like poor grip on the water for example, thats why lessons are a good solution as all the above are just my speculations To answer your question one would have to see you swimming.

Main issue with learning through youtube is that you may be taking lessons from a lunatic - remember you never know whos on the other end

But the main problem is that when it comes to learning it should be a structured process with planed progression through different skills and difficulty levels, you start doing A then progress to B, C, D, etc. finding drills on youtube works great for people who are already swimming well but won't work so well for beginners.

DVD series are more structured so if you can't go to lessons I would recommend those and a lot of practice try total immersion dvds or GoSwim, swim smooth has some staff for beginners as well.

Main problem you will experience with self learning will be exactly the same as I had at the begging, I can't say what you do wrong until I'll see you, and the problem is you will never see yourself swimming (unless you organize yourself an underwater camera or mirrors)