At first I thought I liked the backstroke, but now I'm all confused about the stroke.
I started doing the stroke "not thinking about it", but now that I'm _trying_ do it right, I can't do it anymore. =)
The recovery phase is fine -- obviously, it's relatively easy. My hand is in front of me and I'm not doing anything too crazy with it.
It's the push/pull. I find it awkward to do much of anything behind my back, perhaps because of low flexibility.
During recovery, my arm stays in the vertical plane, close to my head. But once it enters the water, it tends to veer out of that plane and to the side because I can't put my arm behind my back with my palms facing my feet very easily.
Since my stroke goes out to the side a bit, it steers me off course and destabilizes me.
While writing this, I'm practicing my stroke in the air, and I just noticed that rolling into the stroke makes a HUGE difference for me.
My instructor didn't tell me to do that... I'm beginning to wonder how good she is... she's a good swimmer... effortless in the water... but she doesn't verbalize very much.
Ahh, rolling, maybe I answered my own question. My shoulders REALLY hurt when I don't roll, but when I do, it feels great. That definitely helps.
Okay, I have one more: I don't wear goggles when I swim and I find that even when I minimize the splash, I still get water in my eyes during backstroke. Should I just swim with my eyes closed, will I get used to it, or what?
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Former Member
Well I just had my first experience in a public pool during a 'fitness and rec' swim without my instructor.
HOLY CRAP, it was a whole different ball game.
There were EIGHT PEOPLE in the two lanes designated for recreation, and they were swimming LAPS. Slow laps, but laps.
That meant I had no where to just practice floats or anything like that unless I stuck very close to the sides of the pool.
I swam maybe four or five laps of backstroke myself -- not all at once -- but all of the turbulance in the water (I usually swim alone with my instructor) meant I got water in my eyes, nose, and mouth all the time.
I can do a peaceful backstroke when I'm alone with my instructor... today, I felt anything BUT peaceful today with all the other swimmers.
My first lap I went the wrong way down the lane and ran into some poor guy to whom I profusely apologized... the lifeguard subsequently told me which way to go =P
Further, since I can't really swim straight when I add in my strokes, I was primarily just kicking, which was good practice, except that it was entirely too slow, even for the "rec" lanes.
As I got more tired, it was harder to do proper kicks from a proper body position, and I got that awful feeling of kicking harder and harder and going slower and slower. That's when I decided to call it a day.
I think I need to invest in my own pool. =(
Oh well, I'll try the rec swim tomorrow...
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Former Member
Well I just had my first experience in a public pool during a 'fitness and rec' swim without my instructor.
HOLY CRAP, it was a whole different ball game.
There were EIGHT PEOPLE in the two lanes designated for recreation, and they were swimming LAPS. Slow laps, but laps.
That meant I had no where to just practice floats or anything like that unless I stuck very close to the sides of the pool.
I swam maybe four or five laps of backstroke myself -- not all at once -- but all of the turbulance in the water (I usually swim alone with my instructor) meant I got water in my eyes, nose, and mouth all the time.
I can do a peaceful backstroke when I'm alone with my instructor... today, I felt anything BUT peaceful today with all the other swimmers.
My first lap I went the wrong way down the lane and ran into some poor guy to whom I profusely apologized... the lifeguard subsequently told me which way to go =P
Further, since I can't really swim straight when I add in my strokes, I was primarily just kicking, which was good practice, except that it was entirely too slow, even for the "rec" lanes.
As I got more tired, it was harder to do proper kicks from a proper body position, and I got that awful feeling of kicking harder and harder and going slower and slower. That's when I decided to call it a day.
I think I need to invest in my own pool. =(
Oh well, I'll try the rec swim tomorrow...
