I've been swimming since I was little but splashing around in the pool was the extent of it. About 2 years ago I decided to do some "real" swimming. Since then I've been swim for 1/2 hour 3-4 times a week. I took a lesson last year and learnt some drills. I practice them often.
Now I can swim but I'm slow. I can swim 1300 yards in about 1/2 hour. My fastest 50 yards is about 50 seconds. I can sustain 50 yards a minute for about 200 yards. But more alarmingly, I feel I've hit a plateau. I've been at about the same place for the last 3 months. I'd hate to think that this is as far as I'd get.
Suggestions, advice, encouragement or even reality checks are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
I took a lesson last year and learnt some drills. I practice them often.
With just the information about your age, size, and speed, my guess is that you are practicing a lot of really inefficient movements. To say it another way, my observation of people who are as slow as you are even though they are fit enough to keep going steadily for 30+ minutes is that they usually have something fundamentally wrong with the way they are trying to get through the water. Occasionally I see someone who has pretty good form but is slow because their muscles are too weak to sustain a decent stroke rate, but those people are rare. Far more numerous are the people who swim slowly because their shoulders are up while their hips are down, and their elbows rather than their hands and forearms are leading their pulls, and their feet are flexed at right angles, and their heads are wagging all around.
If I am right, then to swim faster you need some personalized instruction to improve your technique, not more swimming with the same technique. Joining a group may work, if the coach has the time and expertise to help you figure out what you need to change. Just swimming more may help you become able to continue your inefficient stroke for a longer distance and time, which might be good enough to get you through your tri, but it probably isn't going to make you faster.
BTW, the swim toy that helps most with learning these skills is the one you don't have: center-mount snorkel.
I took a lesson last year and learnt some drills. I practice them often.
With just the information about your age, size, and speed, my guess is that you are practicing a lot of really inefficient movements. To say it another way, my observation of people who are as slow as you are even though they are fit enough to keep going steadily for 30+ minutes is that they usually have something fundamentally wrong with the way they are trying to get through the water. Occasionally I see someone who has pretty good form but is slow because their muscles are too weak to sustain a decent stroke rate, but those people are rare. Far more numerous are the people who swim slowly because their shoulders are up while their hips are down, and their elbows rather than their hands and forearms are leading their pulls, and their feet are flexed at right angles, and their heads are wagging all around.
If I am right, then to swim faster you need some personalized instruction to improve your technique, not more swimming with the same technique. Joining a group may work, if the coach has the time and expertise to help you figure out what you need to change. Just swimming more may help you become able to continue your inefficient stroke for a longer distance and time, which might be good enough to get you through your tri, but it probably isn't going to make you faster.
BTW, the swim toy that helps most with learning these skills is the one you don't have: center-mount snorkel.
