Hi all - I have an odd post for you to ponder :)
Recently I've decided enough is enough and it's time to shift some unwanted poundage. Over the past few months through exercise and eating much better I've dropped about 15% of my original body weight, going from 207lbs to 175lbs. At the same time I've been swimming a bit and making an effort to keep on some muscle too.
I know it's a very very hard question to answer but am looking for people's estimates on what this sort of weight loss would do to your swimming time over longer distances if I was able to keep everything else static (stroke, flexibility, strengtht etc). The only difference if possible would be there would be less body weight, and hopefully a better shape for moving through the water.
I know that due to water being denser it's not as easy to say as it would be in relation to running etc, but say over a 5km open water swim, what would people guess the % improvement would be as a result of this?
Cheers
GC
Parents
Former Member
WOW! First off this was my first post on this board and I am amazed at the quantity and quality of responses. Thank you all so much for your feedback!
Just a few things of more info which people wanted and some responses to the comments:
1) Yeah I was quite overweight, but in the overweight and fit category which people mentioned. I've been doing long distance swims for the last few years, and swam the Channel in 2007. Doing the channel I was 205 lbs. Whilst this helped me with the cold and buoyancy etc, I probably could have got away with being quite a bit less. Really though, it didn't really bother me too much carrying the weight (was at about 33% body fat I think, standing @ 5'7). The reason I started loosing it was I was having some stomach pains and the doc reckoned it could have been a food intolerance. As part of isolating this (which I think I've managed to do), I had to try quite a few different diets without dairy, yeast, wheat, sugars etc. During this 4 month process I started to loose some weight and liked the feeling of being a bit lighter. So thats what triggered the weight loss.
2) I totally get what people are saying hard to maintain things constant as weight changes etc, and very hard to get a number on the increase in speed as a result of weighing less. Hard to see how it wouldn't help though, even allowing for a loss of buoyancy. Mind you I'm still probably 20-25% body fat so far from skinny :) so I should be ok.
3) The mental side of things - there is of course this too. Am a real believer in performing to how you believe you will. So is natural that if I think I'm going to be quicker, and if I "feel" better in the water then I probably will train harder and swim quicker! Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy I suppose whereby feeling better makes you swim harder, which makes you swim better, which makes you feel even better and so on.
On another note the 3rd point (the mental stuff) is sort of a hobby of mine - have done lots of research and reading up on it in the past and found it so helpful to get through some of the longer swims and also the boring winter training!!! I've compiled my notes into a document which summarises a lot of this side of things (goal setting, keeping motivated, dealing with set backs, dealing with injuries, visualisation, relaxion techniques, focusing etc) which if people are interested in I can post up on the net somewhere and point to it on a thread.
Again thanks for the comments are much appreciated!
WOW! First off this was my first post on this board and I am amazed at the quantity and quality of responses. Thank you all so much for your feedback!
Just a few things of more info which people wanted and some responses to the comments:
1) Yeah I was quite overweight, but in the overweight and fit category which people mentioned. I've been doing long distance swims for the last few years, and swam the Channel in 2007. Doing the channel I was 205 lbs. Whilst this helped me with the cold and buoyancy etc, I probably could have got away with being quite a bit less. Really though, it didn't really bother me too much carrying the weight (was at about 33% body fat I think, standing @ 5'7). The reason I started loosing it was I was having some stomach pains and the doc reckoned it could have been a food intolerance. As part of isolating this (which I think I've managed to do), I had to try quite a few different diets without dairy, yeast, wheat, sugars etc. During this 4 month process I started to loose some weight and liked the feeling of being a bit lighter. So thats what triggered the weight loss.
2) I totally get what people are saying hard to maintain things constant as weight changes etc, and very hard to get a number on the increase in speed as a result of weighing less. Hard to see how it wouldn't help though, even allowing for a loss of buoyancy. Mind you I'm still probably 20-25% body fat so far from skinny :) so I should be ok.
3) The mental side of things - there is of course this too. Am a real believer in performing to how you believe you will. So is natural that if I think I'm going to be quicker, and if I "feel" better in the water then I probably will train harder and swim quicker! Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy I suppose whereby feeling better makes you swim harder, which makes you swim better, which makes you feel even better and so on.
On another note the 3rd point (the mental stuff) is sort of a hobby of mine - have done lots of research and reading up on it in the past and found it so helpful to get through some of the longer swims and also the boring winter training!!! I've compiled my notes into a document which summarises a lot of this side of things (goal setting, keeping motivated, dealing with set backs, dealing with injuries, visualisation, relaxion techniques, focusing etc) which if people are interested in I can post up on the net somewhere and point to it on a thread.
Again thanks for the comments are much appreciated!
