Been swimming for about 3 months (always 'swam' but never any real extended period for fitness until now). Started bilateral breathing about 2 months ago, basically natural to me now. Also began lessons about 1.5 months ago (instructor is WSI and nationally ranked member of local college team).
At beginning, 25m of crawl was killing me. Took close to 2 months to get comfortable with 50m. Can now almost do 75m comfortably (in all cases, a break of about 15-20 seconds is all I need to continue).
Based upon instructor's comments:
- definitely exhaling in water
- stroke is OK, but head position is too high out of water (not tucked down enough)
- kick is lousy-- too fast and shallow, also tend to shift to a scissor kick as I get tired
This morning during a lesson, he asked me to freestyle 6 laps and after 4 I was blown-- took a 10 second breather before starting 5th lap and all semblance of technique was gone-- same for 6th lap.
While I am making some progress, it seems that each additional (continuous) lap is taking a month-- is this normal? I am probably spending a bit too much time recovering at the wall during my workouts, but not all THAT long.
What seems to happen is I begin to have trouble breathing-- at beginning I'm nice and relaxed, nice shallow relaxed breath, slow exhale in water (was exhaling through mouth, instructor told me to switch to nose, and am doing so now). At about 50m, breathing becomes deeper and less relaxed; by 67m, am sucking in air and beginning to gasp; when I put my head back into the water, I feel like I'm holding my breath and have no air (must be what drowning feels like). At that point it's just a matter of time before I'm done-- can barely get to 100m.
Your responses will probably be to post video, and I probably will, but in the meantime, here's what's REALLY puzzling me: I've been searching the forum for similar tales of woe, and I'll often find something along the lines of: "I was unable to swim more than 50/100/?? meters; then I found out I wasn't exhaling. Once I began to exhale in the water, my continuous distance went from 100m to 1800m in one day."
Is this kind of scenario realistic? I walk 3 miles a day, and upon occasion will simply continue and do 7 or 8 miles-- there's little extra effort in going further. Is is the same here?-- should you in theory be able to just continue? I was speaking to a relative who says he swims 32 lengths per day, and could go further except for the boredom factor-- that's the way it is with walking/hiking for me, but I don't see that happening with swimming my crawl.
Thanks,
Gerald
Parents
Former Member
Gerald, I'm 'exactly' where you are. Misery loves company, so I'll join in :-). I'm planning on doing triathlons in 2009 so I've taken this 'techincal' sport up. I'm going to have to work up to open water so I'll probably start with some Sprint Tris with 400m swims in a pool
I'm quite puzzled as well. But I've been told by my swim coach to 'slow down.' I find it very hard to relax and go slow in the water. Not to make a pun but when I get 'that sinking feeling' I start to frenetically kick to right myself, and then I speed up to try to get to the wall as quickly as I can as I become hypoxic. I'm pretty beat-up after 50-75 meters. I'm an active cyclist and runner so I have a well-developed lower body. My muscular legs seem to 'drag' me down, and I overcompensate by kicking too hard and pulling my head out of the water to try to breathe.
As for Total Immersion I too have the book. and video I seriously considered taking a weekend class, now that I've been swimming for a couple of months I find that their techniques are limiting (people don't really swim that way) and their weekend classes are WAY overpriced. As you've probably figured out it's better to take that money and hire a coach who can work with you one-on-one.
One 'compensation' that I've gotten is the most people's swimming technique is not very good. I swim at Meadowbrook in Baltimore (Michael Phelps/Bob Bowman now own it) where supposedly a lot of 'elite'
Gerald, I'm 'exactly' where you are. Misery loves company, so I'll join in :-). I'm planning on doing triathlons in 2009 so I've taken this 'techincal' sport up. I'm going to have to work up to open water so I'll probably start with some Sprint Tris with 400m swims in a pool
I'm quite puzzled as well. But I've been told by my swim coach to 'slow down.' I find it very hard to relax and go slow in the water. Not to make a pun but when I get 'that sinking feeling' I start to frenetically kick to right myself, and then I speed up to try to get to the wall as quickly as I can as I become hypoxic. I'm pretty beat-up after 50-75 meters. I'm an active cyclist and runner so I have a well-developed lower body. My muscular legs seem to 'drag' me down, and I overcompensate by kicking too hard and pulling my head out of the water to try to breathe.
As for Total Immersion I too have the book. and video I seriously considered taking a weekend class, now that I've been swimming for a couple of months I find that their techniques are limiting (people don't really swim that way) and their weekend classes are WAY overpriced. As you've probably figured out it's better to take that money and hire a coach who can work with you one-on-one.
One 'compensation' that I've gotten is the most people's swimming technique is not very good. I swim at Meadowbrook in Baltimore (Michael Phelps/Bob Bowman now own it) where supposedly a lot of 'elite'
