Hey, solo swimmers! :wave: Welcome to the thread for all of us who train solo. Whether you train on your own due to a lack of a Masters team in your area (or for any other reason), this is our virtual locker room. Please post training tips that you think would be helpful, or anything else you would like to share with the rest of us. Have a rant? Go ahead and vent here! :rantonoff:
I'll start with a tip:
The most frustrating thing for me training solo is not having a coach on deck to evaluate my stroke and keep me on track, so I bought a waterproof camera and enlisted the help of my husband to periodically shoot video of all four strokes. Shooting underwater video became a knee/back buster, so I bought a camera mount and attached it to PVC pipe, so my husband could stand up straight to shoot underwater video. The camera gets dunked underwater, and he twists the pipe to pan the camera as I swim by.
Today, I bought a 2-pack of 12-inch "Gear Tie" reusable rubber twist ties (available at Home Depot), so I can tie the PVC pipe to the pool ladder (located in the corner of the pool) and shoot video myself. (If I angle the camera just right and keep it on wide angle, I can video me coming and going.)
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After each video session, I upload the videos to my desktop computer and compare my stroke to my favorite Go Swim stroke videos to see what I'm doing well (or not). I also post them on the Forums for feedback.
Ok, solo swimmers, what's your tip?
One of the more interesting parts of being a solo swimmer is I have had less aches and pains than when I was on my former team. I no longer have a limited time to get in my workout vs a team's schedule. I think the most important thing is I now have greatly extended my warm ups. While it is not just swimming slow I do almost a mile of swimming, kicking, pulling and drills before I do any hard sets. I try to do almost all my "warm up" sets in an each one faster or descend mode so I don't go all out on the first swim. After that I can do almost any kind of set and I feel ready for some hard swims. Now I have to force myself to equal this amount of warm up at my meets. Takes a while but I think it's worth it.
One of the more interesting parts of being a solo swimmer is I have had less aches and pains than when I was on my former team. I no longer have a limited time to get in my workout vs a team's schedule. I think the most important thing is I now have greatly extended my warm ups. While it is not just swimming slow I do almost a mile of swimming, kicking, pulling and drills before I do any hard sets. I try to do almost all my "warm up" sets in an each one faster or descend mode so I don't go all out on the first swim. After that I can do almost any kind of set and I feel ready for some hard swims. Now I have to force myself to equal this amount of warm up at my meets. Takes a while but I think it's worth it.
