Hey, all
Althiugh I have read the situations of some new swimmers on this board, I feel that my situation is somewhat different.
I have a decent level of conditioning, being that I am a powerlifter, who sometimes sprints, 2-3 times a week. However, I have wanted a sport for a long while that wont interfere with my spring sport of golf. I though back four years, to 5th grade when I was on a swim team, I absolutley loved it, but why I quit is beyond me.
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enough rambling! Could someone point me in the right direction? I have several good friends who are swimmers, and swim on the same team, however only one of them swims year round. I know that I could be better than them if I swam all year, commitment is no problem for me!
Stats: 5 foot 8 170lbs (Need to lose some fat, I would be much leaner at 160lbs) squat 375lbs deadlift 330lbs bench press 230lbs push press 180lbs.
-Any help is greatly appreciated.
-Danimal
Last things first. Typically, guys shave only for major competitions, such as nationals, and this goes deeper than the top 10 in the world. . And you will find many who never shave at all. It is more an issue of personal preference and suit selection.
To your first post, go ahead and join! No time like the present! The main obstacle for someone transitioning from power lifting to swimming will be gaining needed flexibility. Your coach should be able to provi9de you with some swimming focused stretching to improve your swimming. Also, keep lifting; strength is an important component to speed.
one last question,
you guys may get asked this all the time, but, how important is it to shave the body? Does it really remove alot of time from your swims? I do not in any way mean this in an anti shave way, I am just curious.
-Danimal
Don't worry about shaving the body until you are top 10 in the world. At the level you are at now it won't make that much difference. My friend Dennis Matuch had a lot of hair all over his body and he was one of the top marathon swimmers in the world.
George Park www.swimdownhill.com
in the meantime, until I can find a coach at the Y, would it be good to follow something similiar to what is demonstrated by Mo Chambers or Jeremy Kipp? My reason for asking, is that I will be heading off to my first session in alittle under an hour, and I havent yet decided how my workout should go. Maybe I should do some volume with some different strokes for now. Im not sure, what my best stroke is yet, because I havent swam in a long while.
If you are swimming alone work on distance primarily don't try to match the hard workouts until you get the feel of the water. May be good to vary the strokes see how far you can swim in one or two hours.
George
Yes, doing the posted workouts are a good start!
And as recommended by Bill Volckening of the USMS Fitness Committee; you may want to check out the "Getting Started" page in the Fitness section of the USMS web site:
www.usms.org/.../gettingstarted.shtml
north west washington state, Tacoma to be exact. I have a license, so driving places isnt out of the question. I was thinking of joining the Stadium Highschool or Wilson Highschool team, but am unsure in general about which has better coaching etc.
I guess what else I should ask, if how long are rest sets generally? If in a straight set, where you are supposed to swim something in 2:00, but you swim it in 1:45, you get a 15 second rest right?
Is this common for all types of swimming. I would think that keeping good form is quite hard while swimming at a fast interval for a long while.
BTW: Last night was firggin awesome! It felt so good to be back to the water. I swam some frestyle, back stroke, butterfly(my favorite), and *** stroke, my least favorite :) Im not sure of the ammounts of lanes swam, but it was good ammount that I got in during the time of about one hour.
Originally posted by danimal
in the meantime, until I can find a coach at the Y,
Danimal, where in Washington State are you? There are a lot of very good teams for you to chose from in Washington.
Originally posted by danimal
I guess what else I should ask, if how long are rest sets generally? If in a straight set, where you are supposed to swim something in 2:00, but you swim it in 1:45, you get a 15 second rest right?
Is this common for all types of swimming. I would think that keeping good form is quite hard while swimming at a fast interval for a long while.
BTW: Last night was firggin awesome! It felt so good to be back to the water. I swam some frestyle, back stroke, butterfly(my favorite), and *** stroke, my least favorite :) Im not sure of the ammounts of lanes swam, but it was good ammount that I got in during the time of about one hour.
If you're just getting back into swimming after a multi-year layoff, don't worry so much about times and intervals and rests. Just work at getting a feel for the water. Find what is comfortable. Work at increasing your distances (100 yards, then 150 then 200) while holding whatever amount of rest you need to be able to do the next repetition. Eventually you'll settle into whatever is "you", and THEN you can start trying to shave time, shorten rests, etc.
I believe that too many people bite off too much up front, and then either they hurt themselves or they don't find any joy in it at all and quit.
