How did you go faster than s-l-o-w?

Welcome, Sari! I am also a fitness swimmer in my fifities. When I first got back in the pool in November of 2009 (after a 30+ year absence), I could barely swim one lap without stopping, and talk about slow! Fast-forward two months and now I can swim 2000 meters in an hour. I'm planning on competing in open water swims this summer, so I'm not worried about going fast, just far. But, thanks to my Masters coach, we are working to get me faster. To help with my speed, I do 25 meter sprints (25 fast, 25 easy, rest, 25 fast, 25 easy, repeat...). I also do lots of kicking with and without fins while using a swimmer's snorkel and kick board, which has really helped improve my kicking strength. In turn, this helps my speed. Having someone to coach you is a big help, so you're on the right track there. My best advice is just to get out there and swim, swim, swim. :) The more you swim, the better (and stronger) you'll get, and the stronger you are, the faster you'll swim. At least, that's what is happening for me. Keep us posted on your progress.

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:bliss:Thanks Debbie and Ande, great support, inspiration, and advice--I'll post my progress in a few weeks!!! headed to the pool tonight and will try the speed drill. love these emoticons. Sari

Do much shorter distances and take way more rest. All-out sprinting. Ten yards or so might be a good distance to start with, and build distance from there over several days/weeks/months. Don't use a clock, just start each repeat when you are rested. Edit: I should add that this is much more fun if you can do it while working on technique. A coach can watch you do each repeat and give you a focus for the next one. Gives you something to think about other than counting.

First, here's my slow swimming cred: Self-taught starting at age 43. At first I was about where you are, probably slower. Now, seven years later, I swim 100 yards in 1:20. I'm still pretty slow compared to most people here who post speeds. I like to think you and I are in the silent majority. :) The best advice is to get a coach. I didn't and spent a lot of time learning, then relearning. Short of that, keep the body flat in the water throughout the stroke. This reduces drag, and the easy way to swim is to reduce resistance and use less muscle. The hard way to swim is to use more muscle and do nothing about drag. Being fundamentally lazy, I prefer the former. In the pool, the most common flaw I see is bringing the head all of the way out of the water to breathe. As you'll read here countless times: When you raise your head, your hips and legs sink, and that slows you down. When you breathe, one eye should pop out of the water, the other should stay in. I practiced this by swimming with one eye shut - the eye that stays in the water. In the same vein, keep the legs and hips high. You should feel your butt crest the water with each stroke, and your heels should touch the top of the water with every kick. If your entire foot leaves the water, that's not perfect, but it's better than your feet dangling below your hips. Next, kicking. I love Ande's inspiration and I did his kicking drills for about six months. I concluded that kicking is vital to get your 100-yard time from 1:03 to 59 seconds and will renew his drills religiously once my 100 gets to 1:03. However, for the beginner to intermediate swimmer, IMHO, there are a whole bunch of faults to correct before addressing a weak kick. In fact, overkicking is a bigger problem, at least judging from the people I see. I would suggest: Kick only enough to keep your legs from sinking. The leg muscles need too much oxygen to help you efficiently before you are in tip-top shape. So when you kick, just do little ones. Make sure your feet are parallel to the water as you swim. In other words, your toes should point toward the wall you are swimming away from. This reduces drag mightily. I kick once per stroke most of the time. As my right arm passes my torso, I kick with the left. As my left arm passes my torso, I kick with my right. This is a two-beat kick (two beats per arm cycle), and others describe it differently. Suffice it to say once you find the right pattern, your body will synch into it instinctively. Finally, sprints. Jazz Hands is right: To get faster, you need to practice all out sprinting. I did that last year and blew out a shoulder. So if you incorporate sprints into your workouts, make sure you only do it once a week. By which I mean NOT TWICE A WEEK. NOT THREE TIMES. Just once. Believe me, you'll be tempted to do more - because you'll see the results and go for more. And you'll end up like I did, wincing from pain when you hug your kids, because your shoulder is injured and a nerve in your neck is pinched. So be patient and let things develop naturally. (Note: when you sprint, you will kick more frequently and harder than you normally do. It's similar to the difference in exertion between a 100-yard dash and a mile run.) Also, BEFORE you start a sprint program, get in the habit of doing dryland 'prehab' exercises. These help keep the shoulder muscles in proper condition. I say BEFORE sprinting because then you will minimize the chance of a shoulder injury. If you start sprinting, and your times start dropping, you will think you are invincible like Superman - as I did - and get hurt. A cursory search on this web site will get you some good prehab exercises. For other resources, I got a lot from the Emmett Hines articles at H2Ouston site at first. I saw a lot of good drills and technique videos on goswim.tv. And I got workouts from swimplan.com, which has its shortcomings but is the only place I've found that attempts to create workouts for people swimming 100 in over 1:30. Terry Laughlin's Total Immersion book, while not ideal for fast swimmers, is very good at teaching how to maximize your efficiency in the water. Have fun! I'm rooting for you!

Hi NotSoFast, This is great advice for swimmers like me (and you) who weren't on the high school swim team but love the water now. I have been doing sprints almost every time I swim, am finding that my feet cramp up...maybe once a week IS a better plan. Am starting to get the feel for keeping a "tight line" in the water...maybe I'm doing too much at once, I'm also trying to rotate side to side (a la Emmett Hines' advice), kick from the hips, breathe right, and reform my stroke. luckily I enjoy working on technique or this would make me insane. my feet seem to be getting tangled up, though, as I rotate my hips. And my left leg doesn't seem to actually have much of a kick. I DO have some time with a swim coach, my pool tried to start a master's program but its only me, so we work together once or twice a week. I'm also finding I need more recovery time out of the pool than I did when I was swimming laps in my 20s, which is very frustrating but that's life. So its great to connect with others who are in a similar place. Inspiring that you're down to a 1:20 100--blast down the pool!!!

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

You should feel your butt crest the water with each stroke, Seems I'm on the right track, then--I felt this a few times (not "each stroke") recently, and was wondering what's happening to my :mooning: :D

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. . . . . . . Also take a look at this site: http://www.swimsmooth.com/ Best of luck to you BabsVa has a good point about sprinting. It's probably more important to be comfortable in the water first and be in pretty good shape. You know if your ready for that more than anyone else. Swimsmooth has a lot of good stuff in it, including some suggestions on workouts. It's a little hard to navigate, so here's a link to the workouts section: swimsmooth.com/training.html I wouldn't worry about finding your 'CSS' as they call it, unless you are curious. Just start with the workouts in the left hand box, about halfway down the page. The intervals they give are only the heart of the workout. Be sure to do 5 to 10 minutes of easy-swimming warmup to get your muscles going. My speed, such as it is, only started to improve when I did structured workouts with intervals. The intervals encourage you to swim faster, then get some rest. Sometimes you swim a little faster, with a little rest/recovery. Sometimes you swim a lot faster, with a lot of rest/recovery. Eventually your time does come down. One thing that Ande, especially, recommends is to keep track of your times, and I think that's a great idea. Improvement is gradual and erratic, so it's easy to miss improvement that you've made or to fool yourself that you have improved when you have not.

So if you incorporate sprints into your workouts, make sure you only do it once a week. By which I mean NOT TWICE A WEEK. NOT THREE TIMES. Just once. Believe me, you'll be tempted to do more - because you'll see the results and go for more. And you'll end up like I did, wincing from pain when you hug your kids, because your shoulder is injured and a nerve in your neck is pinched. So be patient and let things develop naturally. This is good advice. Tolerance for sprinting varies, but you can get better on one day a week (my recent habits support this).