I know this is a very newbie question, and there is ample info in swim books/sites about this, but I'd love to hear from REAL SWIMMERS like you, thank you very much.
What works for you?
Lately I've been doing a series of 200m to 25m swims, usually totalling 800m, as a warmup.
Example: 2x200m + 2x100m + 2x50m + 4x25m, starting very easy, ending at "fast" pace.
In the future I hope to incorporate drills into the warmup, but I don't have a clue yet. :)
Getting to know the pool: This is the part of warm-up that rarely gets mentioned and is as important as your body getting ready. Use your warm-up to get to know the walls (slippery or grippy), the targets on the bottom and ends because not all pools are the same and a missed turns is the pitts, checking out the ceiling and flags if you are doing back or IM, if you are outdoors the sun can play a role as well. And, not all lanes are the same, so try to swim a bit in the lanes you will race in (if the meet is pre-seeded).
this x1000
I try to choose the lane I am swimming in the most, or the lane I am swimming my best event in. I do this even at pools I have been swimming at for years (or been practicing in for years).
WOW! I must be the really lazy one! For meets 3-400 free and 100 of all 4 strokes .
I wouldn't say that. Different strokes for different folks. If someone posted that they just jump in and do a 50 freestyle, 25 smooth 25 fast and that's it, but it works for them and they swim the speed/times/way they want to swim, then who's to say they are wrong. The key thing is whatever works for YOU. That's why I added the caveat about my own warm-up. It works great for me, but maybe not for someone else, especially a drop dead sprinter.
It's also why I use variations of warm-ups I use in practice. That's where I figure out what works, so it works there, I know it should work for me at a meet.
Getting to know the pool: This is the part of warm-up that rarely gets mentioned and is as important as your body getting ready. Use your warm-up to get to know the walls (slippery or grippy), the targets on the bottom and ends because not all pools are the same and a missed turns is the pitts, checking out the ceiling and flags if you are doing back or IM, if you are outdoors the sun can play a role as well. And, not all lanes are the same, so try to swim a bit in the lanes you will race in (if the meet is pre-seeded).
this x1000
I try to choose the lane I am swimming in the most, or the lane I am swimming my best event in. I do this even at pools I have been swimming at for years (or been practicing in for years).
WOW! I must be the really lazy one! For meets 3-400 free and 100 of all 4 strokes .
I wouldn't say that. Different strokes for different folks. If someone posted that they just jump in and do a 50 freestyle, 25 smooth 25 fast and that's it, but it works for them and they swim the speed/times/way they want to swim, then who's to say they are wrong. The key thing is whatever works for YOU. That's why I added the caveat about my own warm-up. It works great for me, but maybe not for someone else, especially a drop dead sprinter.
It's also why I use variations of warm-ups I use in practice. That's where I figure out what works, so it works there, I know it should work for me at a meet.
