Losing weight & getting faster?

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Former Member — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 12:40:22 GMT

Hi! Just a short update. I stopped dieting over the Holiday period and concentrated on swimming everyday I could. My weight didn't stay the same; I put on 4lb. Restarting the diet in the New Year worked straightaway though - I lost 6lb in the first week. I've followed advice and concentrated on sprinting in sets. My 25m has got down to 21 seconds (without a dive) and 50m down to 42 secs (without a tumble-turn or dive) although in theory my 25m should be quicker. 200m saw a new PB, though just a second off, so that is now 3:19. I'm finding most 200's I do are in the sub-3:25 area, so I'm expecting a new PB at that distance any day now. 400m PB came down 2 seconds to 6:56. 800m saw a big drop from 14:43 to 14:27. That was 15:05 in late November and on the 14:27 I really could have gone a lot quicker but had kept too much back and left it too late to sprint the last few lengths. I haven't swum 800m since the new PB (been concentrating on getting my core speed up) but I'm aiming to swim one later this week, with 14:15 the target. One downside of the dieting is being regularly cold and shivering even sat at my desk at work. I'm fine in the water after a few lengths, but it was a side-effect I never envisioned.

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

orca1946 — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 12:13:32 GMT

Less insulation to keep in body heat. You see the results from less lbs. so keep working on it. Your goals of swimming faster are there for you.

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Nichollsvi — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 11:12:29 GMT

As someone who dropped over 100 lbs at my highest and is looking to drop some more, best of luck! It can be done. :) I went from a 15:00 500 yard free to 11:15 in May of last year. I'm suspecting at least a 45 second drop, if not more, but I had a break period and times when I wasn't training for the 500. More like the 100 and 200 fly. :) I will say that when you look at weight you probably want to look at a few other things. Body composition: what part is fat and what isn't? When I was at my lowest weight, I did not have any where near the back, arm, shoulders, forearms, and especially trap muscles I do now. I will never see that lowest weight again and given doing some *** stroke, there is no way my upper body will ever fit in the smaller clothes. That's fine with me. Are you going to be ok changing from a mindset of weight alone to something else?

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Former Member — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 11:07:32 GMT

Congrats on your progress! And your physical ability is very impressive! * For the specific purpose of losing weight, what swimming regime should I follow? Sprints (50m-100m) or longer-distances? I swim 'sets' but I will reach a physical limit at my current weight a little quicker than I would if I was lighter. At present 4 x 200m all @'d need to start taking breaks. If you do more of a sprint-based workout, the extra calories you burn during high exertion generally don't make up for the time you spend resting. If you can manage with very short breaks, then a sprinting workout could be better, but most people will rest longer and overall burn fewer calories during their workout. However, self-motivation and enjoyment need to be part of your workout. If beating the clock provides a lot of motivation for you to keep swimming, don't lose sight of that. In the long run, you want exercise to be something you enjoy since it needs to be something you do for the rest of your life. One harder-to-quantify benefit of high exertion is that it provides more long term benefits. When you push really hard, it stimulates metabolic changes in your body to adapt. A moderate workout does not do that as much. Essentially, the hard workout stresses your body more, so your body overreacts to adapt and it gets stronger. Also, the harder the workout, the longer the post-exercise-caloric-expenditure is. You continue burning calories at a higher rate for a while after a hard workout. Even if you want to stick with moderate workouts, it's always good to mix in some intense workouts to push your body to change. You may find some benefit to basing your workout around your heart rate. That will give a much better indication of your exertion level. Use a personalized heart rate chart to determine your exertion zones. From that chart, zones 3 and 4 would probably be where you could work out continually. The other benefit to heart monitoring is that the app can estimate the calories burned based on analyzing your heart rate over your workout. The estimate is probably *not* going to be accurate for determining how many calories you actually burned, but it's useful for comparing your workouts to each other. View the calories as an indication of total effort. So if it says Monday's workout burned 800 calories and Tuesday's workout burned 1000, you can assume Tuesday's workout burned 25% more calories. You may or may not have actually burned 1000 calories, but you likely burned 25% more than whatever Monday's workout was. This type of calorie comparison will help you figure out which type of swim workout takes the most effort (and therefore burns the most calories). Keep it up and Good Luck!

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Former Member — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 17:22:06 GMT

Thanks for the detailed thread avalon, and thanks for the advice all. I was wondering if anyone could speak more about pushing one's aerobic pace? That means I think doing less distance swimming and more sprints, right?

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Former Member — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 12:34:12 GMT

I am not fit nor a swimmer, but I have read that in order to gradually lose weight, you need to increase the intensity of your workout in a given period of time. So, it turns out that you need to go as fast as you can and push your self into your limits then followed by a good diet plan. In this way, you will achieve what you are aiming for. Goodluck

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

scales — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 01:32:15 GMT

Since you are primarily interested in weight loss, I would recommend trying to spend most of your workouts at an aerobic pace. Lots of aerobic swimming will increase the pace you can hold on long sets, but isn't really going to increase your top-end speed. For this, you're going to need to swim all out efforts with lots of rest. So you really need to strike some kind of balance between these two based on your priorities. Good luck! I think this is fundamentally the best general advice. You must continue to push your aerobic boundaries in order to continue reaping the immense rewards of swimming as a calorie destroyer. You cannot expect to exert the same amount of energy as you lose mass and develop stronger technique. While I was not obese by any means before, I have become far fitter and lost approx 25lbs with swimming. About four months into my new life aquatic, I became frustrated with my plateau in weight at 181 lbs, my goal being 175. I was not getting enough food on any day. My wife, a registered dietitian, performed a nutrition assessment on me based on my Masters swimming routine, and put it to me rather bluntly: "Do you want to lose weight, or do you want to swim fast?" Obviously, my answer was "Gotta go fast." She put me on a nutrition plan that many probably call "carb-cycling". Really, it's just eating much more - and obviously focusing on complex carbohydrates - for days when I need it (this includes the night before apparently, which fascinated me), and eating lightly on days I'm in the gym, while focusing on quality proteins. Now, I realize you are asking more about losing weight, but here's the thing. I fed my body appropriately, and to be honest ignored it for the holidays at times. For the first time in about a month and a half I stepped on the scale at the gym and weighed 175. I literally reached my goal without even knowing it, because I chose to feed myself for swimming rather than feed myself for weight loss. Cals in 's best for it varies. So keep that in mind if you find yourself frustrated. Dietitians are the nutrition experts, and they're happy to help you achieve your goals. I wish you continued luck on your journey, and a very sincere congratulations on your progress thus far!

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Former Member — Wed, 28 Dec 2016 16:27:26 GMT

Hi, losing weight could mean discipline with your daily activities and maintaining a healthy diet to achieve it faster.

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Camillevh1 — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 12:19:18 GMT

It sounds like you are making great progress! I am a distance freestyler at heart, even though I swim other events. I find I don't have a lot of variance in my 50/ 100 times- what happens for me to get faster is that I can hold these 50/ 100 times longer. In order for me to improve my sprint times I have to focus on technique. For distancing my strength can pull me through, but there is no wiggle room in a sprint. I know you said you work out alone, but perhaps it would benefit you to get a couple private lessons to focus on sharpening your technique. Also, if you are focusing on sprint times, I find I need A LOT of rest built into my sets. That way I can try to hold a sprint pace and nto fall apart. Good luck to you!

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

knelson — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 10:54:47 GMT

I swim, both for the love of it, but principally as an aid for weight loss. Since you are primarily interested in weight loss, I would recommend trying to spend most of your workouts at an aerobic pace. Lots of aerobic swimming will increase the pace you can hold on long sets, but isn't really going to increase your top-end speed. For this, you're going to need to swim all out efforts with lots of rest. So you really need to strike some kind of balance between these two based on your priorities. Good luck!

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

orca1946 — Sat, 10 Dec 2016 12:30:31 GMT

Avalon - good for you in getting more healthy. As I am a big guy also - yes less body to push/pull thru the water , you will get faster to a point. Keep going with what seems to work for . Let us know how you are doing.

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Former Member — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 15:37:53 GMT

Thanks Bobinator and Swimosaur. My work hours don't accommodate for Masters club session attendance, so although I get to swim regularly I'm invariably swimming in early morning sessions or dinnertimes. I'm going to follow that advice and concentrate just on swimming sets. Even if I manage to just crack the 3:00 barrier for my 200, unless I improve my basic speed, that'll be it; I'll not go any quicker unless I can improve my 50m and 100m times and have that reflected in the longer distances. All great fun though; as I didn't swim freestyle until after I turned 50, I'm always hitting a new PB.The Good point, 3:00 is possible. I swam a masters 200 meter freestyle at 3:15 at age 46 which is probably in the 2:50's yards similar to a 200 yard I did at 13 years old. I was never much of a freestyler

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Former Member — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 12:19:24 GMT

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Swimosaur — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 11:39:17 GMT

Swimosaur wrote, * Can I expect performance to continue improving as I continue to lose more weight? ... Yes, for the simple reason that you're lugging less inert mass through the water. avalon222 wrote, ... my fastest speed during a length isn't necessarily improving, but as the weight drops I'm getting to that 'terminal' speed a lot earlier during the length than previously ... Newton's Second Law: F = m*a; Force = mass times acceleration. You're exerting constant force. As mass goes down, acceleration goes up. :) To improve terminal velocity, work primarily to improve efficiency = avoid water resistance. "Strokes per length" is an easy, readily accessible efficiency metric. Count your strokes!

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Former Member — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 08:33:00 GMT

Hi! Sorry for the delay in replying. Keep getting 'Your submission could not be processed because a security token was missing. '. Thanks for the kind words. On Saturday I managed to knock 4 seconds off my 400m PB. What I'm finding, for all but the 50m, is that my fastest speed during a length isn't necessarily improving, but as the weight drops I'm getting to that 'terminal' speed a lot earlier during the length than previously. So basically I'm able to accelerate to that speed a lot quicker and it's that acceleration which is contributing the faster times. I have to work on my overall speed though. The fastest I can swim 25m is 17.2 secs, but I've never been able to string two-or-more such lengths together. For the longer distances I'm trying to discipline myself to swim regular-paced lengths; for Saturday I set the Finis to its stopwatch function at 26 secs and swam 16 x 26 secs with an all-out last length to gain the extra second (so 415 seconds). This week it will be set to 25 secs, which if I can keep-up will return a 400 secs 400m. I don't think I'll be achieve that quite yet. As I swam 400m at 26 secs/length though, I should be able to certainly swim 200m at 24 secs/length (3:12). One more second and that cracks 3 minutes, but to go any quicker my overall speed, notably in the 50m/100m has to improve. Like lots of us, I'm off for the Xmas/New Year period, and aiming to hit the pool every day its open!

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Bobinator — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 01:39:03 GMT

Congratulations for choosing a path to great health Avalon222! It sounds like you're doing many things right and having lots of success. The only thing I'd add is that interval based workouts opposed to lap swimming workouts tend to give you a smaller waist line and a better calorie burn. Based on your success I'd guess you are already doing this and I'd encourage you to continue. If you are not on a master's swim team I would encourage you to join one. It's much easier to swim with intensity when you're with a group than as a solo. Have fun, enter a meet, make swimming an important part of your lifestyle and your weight loss will be attainable and long lasting.

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Elaine Krugman — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 02:06:06 GMT

Congratulations on your weight loss and time drops, Avalon222; and, welcome to the forums! :welcome: I agree with Swimosaur and really don't have anything to add to the discussion other than my support of your efforts. Keep up the great work!! :cheerleader:

RE: Losing weight & getting faster?

Swimosaur — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 02:25:23 GMT

My 2 cents ... * For the specific purpose of losing weight ... Any program where ( calories out > calories in ) will lose weight. Any program where ( calories out