I am 74 and have taken up freestyle swimming this year, originally as part of Triathlon training (I completed 2 sprints this year), but find I love the sport of swimming in its own right. I am up to 100 meters in 3 minutes, but I still struggle with breathing as it puts me at times off track with my high elbow pull, rotation, flutter kick, etc. After swimming 100 meters I am breathing really hard and have to stop. I feel confident it will all come together as I swim more. I am convinced that to learn to swim you have to swim! I view YouTube frequently and I have many books on improving swimming technique.
Here is the issue I battle. Yesterday is just one example. A tallish thin girl, no obvious bulk in her musculature, was swimming freestyle, lap after lap, conceivably like she could swim forever I truly believe, at twice my best speed for 100 meters. As a male, I am certain I have greater muscular strength in my arms, back and legs than she, yet she can easily outdo me in her ability to swim.
What allows a swimmer to have so much endurance? She flowed in the water like she owned it, so I'm sure she has been practicing and swimming for years. Yet, I thought endurance required muscular strength in addition to good technique?
Baffled, jealous, but in great admiration of persons who swim so naturally and so beautifully.
Short shameful confession: I do most of my long sets (warmup, or a mile in the lake for example) in breaststroke. I can breaststroke for far longer than I can freestyle at this point (ironically when I was a kid I hated BS). My freestyle endurance is pretty terrible. So much of freestyle to me seems to be technique - kicking and pulling and rotary breathing and being able to take in a good breath and putting that all together.
The woman probably has better technique but better aerobic capacity as well. It doesn't matter (well, it does, but it's not the be all end all) how much muscle or bulk you have if it's not properly fueled, ie with a good oxygenated blood supply.
Short shameful confession: I do most of my long sets (warmup, or a mile in the lake for example) in breaststroke. I can breaststroke for far longer than I can freestyle at this point (ironically when I was a kid I hated BS). My freestyle endurance is pretty terrible. So much of freestyle to me seems to be technique - kicking and pulling and rotary breathing and being able to take in a good breath and putting that all together.
The woman probably has better technique but better aerobic capacity as well. It doesn't matter (well, it does, but it's not the be all end all) how much muscle or bulk you have if it's not properly fueled, ie with a good oxygenated blood supply.
