Swimming once a week

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Mar 2013
8:43am, 19 Mar 2013
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richmac
Depends on which of the three you feel you need to improve. If your happy with your run & bike then try to turn a run session into a swim session? As someone who has had to work very hard on my swimming I know where your coming from. Things i'd say is you have to work on cutting out the rests in the swim, took me ages to do, in the short term in my mean swimming a bit slower over a length or taking extra breaths. Next question, is it a pool swim? if so how long is the pool ? reason I ask is that the local Tri to me is in a 20M pool and is 400 M swim so thats 20 lengths. to give me a bit of endurance training I've started swimming in a 25M metre pool to force that bit extra per length & remove the temptation to have a rest. you feel knackered for your first few times but when you get back in the smaller pool it shows. But really, and it's all relevant, I've found that I've had to go from 1 swim a week to 3 to improve significantly and if you can find a coaching session that would help, if not do a bit of goggling and see if you can work out a plan of drills and things.

But welcome to fetch & good luck with it :-)
Mar 2013
9:07am, 19 Mar 2013
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7755Matt
I agree with what everyone else has said

It seems to me that to get better or faster on the bike and the run you really just need to do more of them. With swimming, so much is technique that doing more 'bad' swimming is actually detrimental.

Much better, especially if you're only on one session a week, to make it a quality session, with a coach, tri-club, masters session or swim lessons at a local pool. I watched loads of YouTube stuff, read lots and so on. I'd convinced myself my stroke was beautiful. Then I went for coaching and eventually got video'd. It's impossible to see where you're going wrong yourself.

It's taken a while, I still need breaks every now and then but I'm getting better every week, I can see a massive improvement from last years video to this years, and it feels better.

The other advice I keep getting is to slow it down. And remember to breathe!
Mar 2013
3:07pm, 21 Mar 2013
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fonch
Thanks Richmac and 7755matt for great advice. I think I'm going to try and get a few one to one sessions. I'd struggle to get to a local club regularly as I ve got a 6 month old baby. But definitely like the idea of somebody looking at my front crawl.
Mar 2013
3:40pm, 21 Mar 2013
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TRO Saracen
If you are having to stop to have a breather after every couple of lengths, then priority 1 is breathing.

You are clearly fit enough for 1 - 1:30 mins of excercise given run/cycling that you do, so when swimming you are not getting enough air in the lungs to compensate for the effort expended. Whilst you start each couple of lengths with a surplus in your lungs (after a few deep breaths at the poolside), you run a deficit that means after a couple of lengths a rest is required.

Most common cause of this (and it was for me) was trying to breathe out, and back in when out of the water. Means only half the time is spent breathing in, hence lack of oxygen.

Slow things down, breathe out continuously when underwater (humming is a good way, first 6 months of my tri swim training was accompanied by humming), then when your mouth is out of the water only job is to get air in!

Other cause can be trying to lift your entire head out of the water - that's very hard work to do and you don;t get much time to breathe. If you rotate the body then rotate the head out of the water (it will feel uncomfortably low in the water until you are used to it - you can actually take a breath while one eye is still submerged) then you get a longer, more confortable spell in which to get a good lungful in.

Once cracked, you feel like you can swim forever as you don;t run out of air and because you;re not fighting to breathe all the time you can start work on the other stuff to get the stroke better.
Mar 2013
4:37pm, 21 Mar 2013
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fonch
Thanks TRO Saracen I agree with you breathing definitely is the problem. I get to the end of a length so out of breath. Will try the humming! Away soon for 5 days where I can swim everyday so will practice swimming slower and humming.
Aug 2020
10:58pm, 14 Aug 2020
121,761 posts
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GregP
That’s a really good post TRO - thanks.

Top form today so you are. Loved the one about orcs on my Facebook page.
Aug 2020
11:20pm, 14 Aug 2020
19,285 posts
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Angus Clydesdale
Just finished a course tutored by none other than Keri-anne Payne. Breathing was the first and most important focus of stroke analysis and development.
Aug 2020
6:12am, 15 Aug 2020
121,763 posts
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GregP
Keep calm and Keri-Anne. What a legend.
Aug 2020
12:35pm, 15 Aug 2020
19,288 posts
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Angus Clydesdale
:)

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Maintained by fonch
I'm doing my first triathlon in June. It's got a 400m pool swim. Do you think swimming once a week...

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