I know. I'm a beginner and the most obvious answer is that I just need to work on my endurance and practice. But I can swim breaststroke (my best stroke) seemingly forever without feeling the exhaustion I do after sprinting a 50 free or even slowly swimming a 100 free. I swim on my own (not with a club), but did join a group workout on Tuesday. The instructor was pleased with how my freestyle looked, so I don't think I am doing anything horribly wrong. I do think I have a weak flutter kick. All in all I do think I am going to be a sprinter, but I would still like to be able to do a slow freestyle during a workout and go farther than 100 yards. Tips?
From your posts, it seems like you really want to progress, which is a great attitude to have! The first and most important step on this journey towards improvement is to develop a solid stroke technique. Have you considered a private coach if your adult swim program is not giving you enough feedback? A stroke analysis - whether online or on-deck - would also help to at least give you an idea of where you stand with your stroke and what you need to start working on. You can even post a video here on the forum as many others have done to get some feedback from the group. I actually just wrote an article on why getting a stroke analysis is important - might be helpful for you! www.swimspire.com/.../
Good luck!
Congrats, that's great! Don't worry about the speed. That will come in time--when I'm doing a lot of swimming, I tend to improve. I'm not gifted w/ speed, but it picks up after enough yards.
So, I have happy news to report! After considering all of the great advice from you all, as well as doing other online research, I went to the pool today and swam 1000 yard freestyle without needing to stop or getting winded. I went immediately into 500 back and then 500 ***. I was floored that I was able to do that. I think the most significant changes I made were: #1 breathing - I breathed every second stroke throughout (vs. the every fourth stroke I had been doing previously), #2 my kick - I started kicking from the hips instead of knees and relaxed my kick. I read somewhere that only about 20% of the power comes from the kick, so I realized I was putting most of my energy into my kick and it was exhausting me. #3 core - I focused on tightening my core to maintain balance and help keep my feet up so that I didn't have to kick so hard. Sure, I was maintaining a snail's pace, as it took me an hour to complete the 2000 yards, but I'm OK with that. I think I have a sprinter's mentality all of the time and slowing way down is going to be helpful for me at this point when I'm still concentrating so much on technique and endurance.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this success with you. I had a horrible swim yesterday, so having such a great one today, all the while accomplishing what I did just feels great.
THANK YOU to everyone for being supportive and so helpful.
This morning, I went to the pool and used a board to work on my kick, first time all week. I was exhausted about 3/4 of the way up the lane. I had to rest a while to kick my way back. Then, I was so out of breath it was tough to do even a couple of laps. I don't recall I ever had such a tough time. I don't think it's allergies, because they're not that bad at the moment. So I don't know what's going on, but I was pretty discouraged. Now all I want is a nap.
:bed:
