Me: a '94 Ferrari F-40 with the engine of a Honda Civic
Former Member
Go to the question in bold to skip all the preamble and get to the point, if you're that kind of person.
So I have been swimming for half a year now. Tomorrow is my 21st birthday. 21 on the 21st. Naturally, I'm looking back at my progress with swimming so far. I've come a long way. In January I was around 207 pounds when I first jumped into the pool with a team, now I'm 175. Then, I was about 6'1. Now, I average about 6'2.5. Has all that swimming been stretching me out? I guess. But I've also been meticulously sleeping without a pillow and avoiding all the bad foods (notably soda and candy). Or maybe that's all irrelevant and I'm just having one last growth spurt. Or it's a combination of both. Who knows.
Anyway, destroying things (like fat and by extension, weight) has been easy enough in its own way. Destroying is naturally easier than creating. It's creating that's the real tricky part, and over the last few weeks I've been realizing that while my body is plenty glad to oblige my weight-loss mindset, it's much more stubborn when it comes to building HEART and LUNG CAPACITY. And it is those two things which I pretty much want most right now. They are my... *cough*heart's*cough* desire. See what I did there? I'm so bad. Anyway, beyond all technique development, those two things are what I want most. I know I (most likely) have the foundations for powerhouse heart and lungs. My father, in the military, when he got a knee injury while running, did underwater stuff in a 150-meter long pool (low impact and all that). They had him in full gear carrying his rifle. He was supposed to jump up when he needed a breath but then something happened (I forget what) that forced him to walk the entire length of the pool underwater for three minutes until he finally reached the ladder (stars and all). Maybe the drill sergeant on deck lied to him about being able to jump up. Anyway. And my mother, when pregnant with me (who swam three days a week when she was pregnant with me btw) once went for a swim in Turtle Bay off Oahu, and suddenly found she could swim for the longest time without breathing. A metaphysical experience, she called it. Anyway. So I've got potentially a very big jumpy funhouse, but it's nowhere near inflated to full genetic allowance, you know what I mean? Before 2009, I was sedentary for six and a half years. Literally sitting on my butt in front of a computer like I am now.
So besides just continuing swimming and swimming without relent (and I must admit, after my team's season ended in April, I had a lax period for about two months- stupid me), what else can I do to speed up the development of the efficiency of the heart and the capacity of the lungs? I have been working on deeper, longer breathing, for starters. I've already noticed a difference there.
Right now, I'm what I described in the title. :bitching:
