Hi Fellow Master's Swimmers!
I'm a fairly new swimmer and started to regularly swim since the March of this year. I've been slowly working on improving my freestyle technique and my endurance. I have to say that I have seen slow improvements in my technique. focusing mainly on my balance -- keeping my head down and engaging my core to keep me balanced. I'm working on my breathing but I still have some breathlessness after swimming 25 yards. At the beginning of my swimming adventure, I was sucking air after completing a length. Today, I am winded, but not as much. Nonetheless, I still have some breathlessness. My endurance has improved as I was able to swim 200 yards total, but now swim to 600-700 yards. And my rest intervals after each length have shortened to seconds. So, I am happy about the improvements. However, I am having this mental/psychological block of continually swim with no rest. I know I can do it and I have the endurance, but I just have this barrier or maybe a fear of continually swim. What am I afraid of? And I'm not sure how to break through this mental barrier. Any suggestions?
I am currently swimming 2-3 times a week. Each session is about a hour and about 600-700 yards. Most of my workout is drills on improving my balance mixed with drills to improve my pull/catch, rotations. And kicking drills too. I did take a few private lessons and was fortunate to find a great Master's team that was able to practice with and the coach has been great with giving me guidance on my technical improvement.
Anyway, I've enjoyed my swimming adventure. I actually like working out and look forward to my swimming workouts!
Cheers!
:wave:
Just wanted to say hello and throw out a few ideas of things to think about. You're obviously more experienced than me so these may be things you're already doing. Breathlessness has just been one of my biggest issues so far, and so it's something I've been trying to work to correct. I've been swimming since June, only once or twice a week, and am finally to where I can swim freestyle 100 yds at a time without feeling like I'm going to die.
1) Make sure you're not holding your breath, even a little. Sometimes I exhale, but not fully. Or I exhale and then hold a bit and then realize I'm holding and exhale more. I'm currently working on slow, full exhales through my nose, not mouth, and I do notice when I do it correctly, I don't get as winded.
2) Breathe more often. I find I can swim farther if I breath every other in freestyle vs. every third stroke. All of my other strokes I breathe every stroke right now and often feel less winded with those than I am with freestyle.
3) Kick less with your legs. At least where I am now, the harder I kick my legs, especially in something like freestyle, the more I get winded. My arms seem to have more mileage in them.
4) Pace yourself. I'm not particularly good at this so I really have to focus on this.
Feel free to ignore if none apply to you, and anyone else feel free to correct me on anything that is just bad advice! :)
:wave:
Just wanted to say hello and throw out a few ideas of things to think about. You're obviously more experienced than me so these may be things you're already doing. Breathlessness has just been one of my biggest issues so far, and so it's something I've been trying to work to correct. I've been swimming since June, only once or twice a week, and am finally to where I can swim freestyle 100 yds at a time without feeling like I'm going to die.
1) Make sure you're not holding your breath, even a little. Sometimes I exhale, but not fully. Or I exhale and then hold a bit and then realize I'm holding and exhale more. I'm currently working on slow, full exhales through my nose, not mouth, and I do notice when I do it correctly, I don't get as winded.
2) Breathe more often. I find I can swim farther if I breath every other in freestyle vs. every third stroke. All of my other strokes I breathe every stroke right now and often feel less winded with those than I am with freestyle.
3) Kick less with your legs. At least where I am now, the harder I kick my legs, especially in something like freestyle, the more I get winded. My arms seem to have more mileage in them.
4) Pace yourself. I'm not particularly good at this so I really have to focus on this.
Feel free to ignore if none apply to you, and anyone else feel free to correct me on anything that is just bad advice! :)
