I'm new to US Masters Swimming and am a fitness swimmer trying to get faster and build endurance. Anyone who's ever swam (swum?) in a meet should stop reading right now. Because my fastest 50 is about 53 seconds and it takes me about an hour to swim an 1,800. I'm 53 years old, working hard on technique (I have a friend who's a swim coach, and am using Emmett Hine's book "Fitness Swimming", plus a training snorkel at times. I can't wear fins because my feet cramp.). I do some 50s on 1:15 with the pace clock almost every time I swim now and seem to be a little faster. Learning a lot and it feels great. Will begin strength-training this week, too.
So, do you have any advice for a fitness swimmer--what helps with speed?
thanks!!!
Sari
Parents
Former Member
Sari
I started swimming in my late 40's, so can relate to where you are. There is some good advice here, though I say be wary about sprinting at this stage. There will indeed come a point where swimming fast will only happen if you ... swim fast. But, in my experience, what was first needed was a stage of physiological adaptations to swimming. When I pushed that too far and attempted either large increases in volume or 'sprinting' (which I write in quotation marks because it was not fast enough to really be called such) I got nothing but frustrated and injured. I needed to gain upper body muscle, work on stretching my very stiff ankles, etc etc etc and learn timing and technique. It's taken a lot of time and patience (swimming with fins helps a lot). Fortunately I enjoyed all of it once I relieved myself of unrealistic expectations, and I am now steadily dropping my times (though they won't be mentioned here on this website) and look forward to many more years of swimming improvements.
Notsofast had some great suggestions. Also take a look at this site: http://www.swimsmooth.com/
Best of luck to you
Sari
I started swimming in my late 40's, so can relate to where you are. There is some good advice here, though I say be wary about sprinting at this stage. There will indeed come a point where swimming fast will only happen if you ... swim fast. But, in my experience, what was first needed was a stage of physiological adaptations to swimming. When I pushed that too far and attempted either large increases in volume or 'sprinting' (which I write in quotation marks because it was not fast enough to really be called such) I got nothing but frustrated and injured. I needed to gain upper body muscle, work on stretching my very stiff ankles, etc etc etc and learn timing and technique. It's taken a lot of time and patience (swimming with fins helps a lot). Fortunately I enjoyed all of it once I relieved myself of unrealistic expectations, and I am now steadily dropping my times (though they won't be mentioned here on this website) and look forward to many more years of swimming improvements.
Notsofast had some great suggestions. Also take a look at this site: http://www.swimsmooth.com/
Best of luck to you
