When/how to transition from "lap" swimming to workouts?

The pool's surface is made of some industrial grade, diamond based, 36 grit abrasive material, to which nothing will stick. Except human flesh, as I learned when I attempted my first go at UDK's with fins on my back for the first time, and promptly nailed the bottom of the pool!!! :bitching: Allen's idea looks really good, I will see if I can try that until I can better learn my timing and location and all of that. Hope the stripes on the bottom are teh same distance on both sides. The weird thing, which I assume has something to do with the pool's flow, is that it almost always takes me one more stroke going one way than the other. On Breaststroke advice.......I'm not quirky enough to be a *** stroker! I'm an engineer. Always was good at fly. Or maybe I should say less bad. My daughter was in the pool a couple of times at Age Group Sectionals with a girls during new national record swims (SCY - so hey, that means world record, too, by default!). 12 year old girl did a 54.00 in the 100 Fly, and a 24.39 in the 50. I have a few pictures of my daughter sharing the podium with her, which is pretty cool. OUCH! It sounds like you have had a tough go of it, between your shoulder on flip turns and scraping the bottom of the pool. :badday: Keep your sense of humor and motivation; I'm sure it will get better in the pool for you! What a cool experience for your daughter! By the way, your mom used me as a consultant on her Christmas gift. I hope she's enjoying her swim boxes! :presents2:

Congratulations on your progress, 67! You have done outstanding with your weight loss and fitness, so keep up the good work! :applaud: I'm glad to hear your waterboarding days are over, too. A nose clip is such an easy and inexpensive way to solve that problem. :agree: As for all of your other questions, I will leave it to the experts to address. I may be good at writing motivational articles ( www.swimspire.com/.../ ), but when it comes down to nuts and bolts, :dunno:

As for all of your other questions, I will leave it to the experts to address. I may be good at writing motivational articles ( www.swimspire.com/.../ ), but when it comes down to nuts and bolts, :dunno: Actually.....I'd really like to know what other people do or have done. I'm going to shoot Mark (swimdogs) an e-mail, he is absolutely fantastic. But I posted this here because I specifically want input from "muggles." So does everyone do flip turns off of every wall on free and back? Or do they take too much out of you after 50-75 per hour? Has anyone else here taken it up late in life and struggled to find out how to pace himself?

Actually.....I'd really like to know what other people do or have done. I'm going to shoot Mark (swimdogs) an e-mail, he is absolutely fantastic. But I posted this here because I specifically want input from "muggles." So does everyone do flip turns off of every wall on free and back? Or do they take too much out of you after 50-75 per hour? Has anyone else here taken it up late in life and struggled to find out how to pace himself? Well, I never do any flip turns any flip turns anymore, because I have Meniere's, and repetitive flip turns make me seasick. I'm fine for the first few, but it gets gradually worse after that. :eek: :bolt: I had plenty of struggles trying to figure out how to pace myself, so I relied on my fellow Forumites by reading all the threads and searching for pearls of wisdom. In addition, I remember Patrick Brundage ("pwb") explaining how to do a test swim to determine your pace, when he posted the high-volume workouts. That post appeared at the beginning of the year he wrote the sets. Try doing an advanced search and see if you can locate it.

Alright, so a few weeks in and things are going pretty well. That whole drowning while doing backstroke thing was solved with the nose clip. So much so that I can actually hold underwaters for 12-13 yards even after a 3500 yard workout. :woot: So admittedly, the first few workouts I tried I wasn't able to finish. Mark beat me up pretty badly. At any rate, that's pretty much better, now. I still have a lot of work to do. I am quite sure I'm doing some of the drills wrong. I don't know how to figure out how to pace myself, and while I am getting a lot better at doing flip turns consistently, they take too much out of me, and I can't do them for a whole workout. I think it is related to the fact that I have to breathe out while doing them. Good news is, when I started swimming laps in February, my heart rate was in the low 70's. Got down to mid 60's pretty quickly, but stayed there. I had hoped to lose about 15 pounds, most of which I did with diet changes, but I'm actually down about 25. Lost 3" in my waist. None of that has changed with the change to workouts......but my heart rate is actually down a bit. That was the one goal I hadn't been able to hit until I started doing this, I'm now in the upper 50's. So two general questions for anyone who might have followed the path that I did. First is the whole flip turn thing. Are you best served just forcing your way through it, or are you better off reverting to touch turns to get through a set. Right now, when the sets are focused on shorter events, I'll do flip turns. When longer, I'll do touch turns. Second set is how to figure out how to pace oneself? Example, I somewhat arbitrarily picked a 40 second pace to use as a baseline for my 200 free workout. And I really had a hard time hitting it. I tried slowing down my tempo, but still focused on my efficiency (long reach, slow but hard pull). I kept coming in around 36-37 seconds. Easily 3/4 of the time. I may have hit :40 once every 8 reps. Which is all well and fine.....early on. Towards the end I could feel my stroke getting sloppier. I'd still make the interval, but I just felt the stroke going away from me. Then when I went to do a test set (150 yards at pace), I crashed. I had done 16 50's at :40 or under with :20 rest (:15 on last four). And after 100 yards at 1:22, I couldn't make it any further. Was dead. Contrast that with the 500 workout. I know I can do a 500 in under 7:30, I have hit 7:15 a few times early on while lap swimming. But I still for the sake of getting through the workout (and frankly keeping track of the clock!), I went for a 7:30, or :45 pace. Kept coming in at :42, occasionally :43. That workout was fine, I'm actually writing up the intervals on the clock based on a :43 pace for the next time Mark posts that workout. I think I'll be safe with that, I did the Davis Mile today in 28:01 (or a 26:21 1650). But here is what gets me. I did 40 50's at that pace, on 4 hours of sleep, and was fine. Yet the day before working on the 200's, after having only done 16 50's, I couldn't even hold :40 for 100 yards. The one difference that may have worked in favor of the 500's is that I did all touch turns on it, and all flip turns on the workout for the 200's. Any thoughts? Am I off to think that I ought to be able to hit teh 200 more easily than I did the 500?

When I got back into the pool after a long time out, flip turns felt exhausting. For me, it was that interruption to the breathing rhythm, to have to make a breath last longer while the body did something very different from what it had done all the way down the lane. I do flip every freestyle turn in my workouts now, but it took a little while of considering that the goal but also acknowledging that I was going to have to do a mix of open and flip turns for a while before I was really ready to flip them all. I have never made backstroke flip turns a priority. I learned turns back before they were legal, so the timing of turning over and starting the flip is new territory for me. I do want to master them at some point, but other challenges have taken precedence for me so far.

Fairly new here, as I joined, made one post, and then broke my pelvis the very next day and couldn't swim for a while, but I have returned to swimming to lose weight as I am still rehabbing my pelvis and most cardio is out, after being on HS swim team over 20 years ago. I find it almost impossible to pace myself, I end up going as fast as I can and wearing myself out quickly (I'm a 200lb. out of shape 35 year old woman) or I end up so focused on slowing down my technique suffers and I still wear myself out rather quickly. I'm ignoring flipturns for right now. It just takes too much energy and is one more thing to focus on technique-wise. I've got enough on my plate just trying to build some endurance back up, slow my butt down (doesn't help my 9 year old daughter is on swim team, shares a lane with me most days, and constantly challenges me to race lol), and ensuring my technique is developing soundly after so much time away.

I have returned to swimming to lose weight as I am still rehabbing my pelvis and most cardio is out, after being on . Great for getting back in it! Alright, I'll give you my thoughts since I was not too far from where you are now. First thing is ADJUST YOUR DIET *****NOW*****! I cit way back, and renormalized what I ate before I got into the water. Lost 12 pounds with that (granted I cut WAY back) in a few weeks. Then when I started swimming, I ate more due to the calories burned. And at this point, I've lost over 25 pounds, and I'm really not trying to (almost the opppsite). But GET THE DIWT SORTED FIRST. Now, that said, for the rest of it. Just get in there and do it. I still am sorting out pacing, but I'm getting there. I bought a Garmin Swim which I don't much care for but I have a pace clock now. Once I got settled into a comfortable routine, I picked up the workouts. And I got uncomfortable, which is what I kind of need. When switched to workouts, I was a little over 160 (from 185 before I started with the diet thing). Heart rate was 66 (from 72). Now I'm under 160 (157-159 depending), but my heart rate is mid 50's, and actually under 50 if I skip a few days. I am a lot more concerned about heart rate as a measurable than anything else. And I credit following SwimDog's workouts for that. Congrats for getting back in. Diet diet diet, and make sure you do NOT get comfortable in your workouts. Others may have differing opinions, but that is what worked for me, and I think it will f0r you, too.

Yeah, I'm on track with the diet, that was one of the few things I COULD control when my broke pelvis had me sidelined from the large majority of my life's activities and hobbies. My heart rate is still wayyyyyy on up there (wasn't kidding when I said I was out of shape!) so I try to keep it in the fatburning range instead of the anaerobic range. That part is the hardest for me, because I guess once a sprinter always a sprinter lol? I had a really good swim yesterday, alternating lengths between backstroke and *** stroke, and managed to hit one of those really good "strides" for lack of a better word where I knew I was working, I was breathing hard, but I could just go and go and go and go. Then I get out of the pool and discover my fitbit had died and hadn't tracked my distance or time or anything lol (still saving up for a better swim tracker, having to swim with my daughter sharing a lane and constantly talking to me makes it impossible for me to mentally keep track lol).

Wow, amazing looking back at almost a year ago and how things have changed. :bliss: Holy smokes was following @SwimDogs workouts beneficial. :bow: My stroke technique certainly improved, drastically. In all of them. And my stamina. To quantify things a bit, I don't time myself too, too often, but I did his Davis Mile workout probably middle of the Summer last year, and it was a 28:50-ish result. I did it earlier this week on only about 4 hours of sleep :bed:, and I did a 23:02. That's a 41.9/50 pace. I could not have held that for much more than a 100 a year ago (I think my 100 time is a little over a minute, probably 1:02-1:03). My 200 time is a little under 2:30. I mentioned resting heart rate. When I started swimming just laps, it was about 75 (I have low blood pressure, which does give one a higher heart rate). After lap swimming, it had plateaued at about 65. Now it is around 50, but it has been as low as 44. Like my weight that I had mentioned, I blew past my goal (was 60). I'm actually starting to put on a little weight, but I believe it is muscle. I went from about 185 to around 155 (was as low as 153) to around 160. My physique is definitely more refined than it was back then. I don't drown when I swim backstroke at all. I can do fly no problem, I'm a little over 30 in the 50, but pace myself a lot more for anything longer, I want to think about a 1:10? Though my (now 13 year old) daughter I had mentioned can clean my clock.....got a 57.39 to get her futures cut at her last LSC Championship meet. :soapbox: The noodlers are getting even more bizarre. The location where I swim at where they walk in front of you has gotten even worse. There's one lady in particular. I don't really even know what she wears. Looks like matching gym shorts and tank top. Doesn't look anything like a swim suit. A few of them wear shower caps......you know, the things you used to see your grandmother wear. :cane: The worst part is that now, that one is putting stuff out, blocking the lanes AN HOUR AND A HALF BEFORE HER CLASS. After talking to soem other swimmers, I finally complained to the manager. I showed him a picture I took where she had set out all sorts of kickboards floaty dumbell thingees, noodles, etc. blocking egress from the pool. I left as he went to talk to her. Next day, surely it would improve, right? :agree: WRONG. :bitching: Same thing. :frustrated: I asked her if she would please not block the pool deck so that us swimmers could get in and out. She insisted that the steps were clear (can I get a "confused" emoji for here, please admin? Wait.....nevermind, just fix the site first, please). Now, I don't know about you, but apparently her dad had a different philosophy than mine. See, my dad always said "Son, there are many ways to get out of the pool. The steps are not one of them." Okay, he didn't really say that, but you know what I mean. Anyway, one or two posts have made me think about where I was a year ago. So a great big THANK YOU to all here who post and give feedback :bighug: Even if I don't post in a thread, I find I can often take away something. :dj_dance: That and I occasionally end up giving pointers to the triathlon swimmers there if they ask or if they talk to me. Still want to think about checking out a Masters team for a brief stint, but haven't had a chance to so far.