Swim instruction and conditioning

Ok, I can swim side stroke and breast stroke 50 to 100 meters at a time without stoping, About 500 meters total before I'm really tired, which is good conditioning. But, it makes me sick that chubby, out of shape people seem to swim so effortlessly. I'm looking for books or instructional videos to improve my swimming. I've checked all over the internet and Amazon for material. The only thing I can find is a Stew Smith.com combat swimmer stroke video. A good book I wanted to order "Swimming Made Easy" is out of print on Amazon. Anyone know of anything else? Any on topic help is appreciated.

Swimming's like any other sport or skill. When you first start out in grappling or striking, you get way tired way quick because as a beginner you're fighting through the technique. Swimming's no different. Once you learn the proper technique, it becomes way effortless, to the point where I don't even trust it for it's cardio benefits.

The main keys you want to remember are relax, and make your body as long as possible. Think of it as gliding through the water, using whatever stroke your using to provide a little momentum; as opposed to fighting the water and using the stroke to keep you up & keep you going. Once you get it down, it'll take you 2 to 5 km to even feel tired. 500m is like 5 to 10 min light warm up or jump rope.

Also, as far as the chubby people- while I hate selling out my fellow waistline-challenged brethren, fat floats. Once you master the technique of swimming, it's not that energy draining as well- unless you create some kind of interval program for it, or if you find a coach or team to work you out. But I will add that not all chubby people are necessarily out of shape.

I was captain of my swim team in high school and I; like many other swimmers I have known, haven't had an easy time staying svelte without 2 hours a day of having a taskmaster of a coach try to kill me.

FYI- I think I've got swimming made easy, I'll look at my books tonite and see if i have an extra copy. I'll post tonite with what i find.

Total Immersion by Terry Laughlin!
A friend of mine had trouble swimming a couple of lanes. I gave
her like two or three tips from this book and the next time she
swam more than ever before.
She was really surprised how apparently small changes made
things much easier.

I tire out like a mofo when swimming.  Just no swim endurance and my technique is  PROBABLY crap.  Saying that I use to be on the swim team for breast stroke but that dam guy beat me at the trials and I  had to do back stroke?! wtf?!  No wonder I came last!

Yeah I am most probably fighting throughthe water and not 'gliding' through it.  And I can't seem to get my legs and feet to SMOOTHLY kick properly I guess.  I see people do it and it looks really good.  Like their leg was made of rubber.  Mine on the other hand looks mechnical!

Koing

Yep, try http://www.totalimmersion.net/

A couple of weeks agao, I checked out their DVD, "Freestyle Made Easy", from the local library. It had a bunch of cool drills, but I could only keep it for 7 days, so not sure how much I got out of the them...

Tom

My kids both swim and dive competitively and their coach, who was an all-american at Auburn, recommended a couple of videos 'Swim Smarter, Swim Faster' and 'Swim Smarter, Swim Faster II: Starts, Turns, and Finishes' both of which are by Richard Quick and Skip Kenney the swim coaches at Stanford. I've watched them several times with and without the kids and they are well worth the $30 or so I paid for each of them. I know I've improved my technique and consequently my speed and effeciency in the water using the suggestions and drills in the videos.

People, Thanks a ton. I went to the Total Immersion website and have made my order. I greatly appreciate all who responded. I hope this helps. I will give you an update in a few months.

ttt

I was on a swim team for 10 years under USS swimming and went to the jr. olympics a few times. I would probably say part of your problem is your technique isn't correct. If possible find someone that was on a team or go somewhere and learn the technique. Using good technique will seriously help a lot and prevent shoulder injuries later on. Also try and avoid using side stroke because it's not really used much and won't give you as good of a workout as freestyle. If you get really tired while swimming backstroke is a good restful stroke for swimming. As for fat people swimming faster. Although swimming is hard swimmers generally aren't as lean as a wrestler or runner would be. I don't know the a whole hell of a lot about biology but from what I understand swimmers don't lose as much weight because you are always horizontle. THis sounds odd but from what I have read because you are horizontle you aren't able to lose as much. Generally speaking though the people who were long distance racers were usually shorter and carried a bit more fat than sprinters because sprinters hang out in the anerobic zone much more and hit their VO2 max. I know someone is going to argue with me that swimmers of olympic caliber are always in shape but you have to realize olympic caliber swimmers usually lift, jump rope, do calisthetics, and run. That part of their training routine is usually called "dry land." Also you said you get tired after 500 yards or so. To get better at swimming you need to swim. Running, lifting and all that will help you by shedding weight and making you stronger and help your cardio some, but swimming seems to work your cardio a bit different. When I started swimming I never really ran. Then I started doing some wrestling at a local club and had to run a mile for the 1st time. I though i was going to die after half a mile. I thought this was weird because I could go all out on a 500 yard swim race and still have energy afterwards. But I found that when I added running to my swimming program from then on I had even stronger cardio for swimming. So what i'm trying to say is although you may have run in the past swimming will work you a bit different than your used to and you'll have to swim as well as run to get better at swimming. You said you can do about 500 yards. Are you doing 500 yards straight? We usually started new swimmers out with 25 and 50 yard swims and they would do sets of a lot of these 25 and 50 yards swims. Kind of like boxing or sprinting on land. Boxers who are going to fight in a 10 round match (30 minutes of boxing) don't practice sparring and hitting the bags for 30 minutes without breaks. They do 3 minute rounds with a minutes rest. Partly because thats how the match works but also because they can work much harder longer. A boxer would start throwing crappy punches after awhile if he was going to go 30 minutes straight but by breaking up into rounds a boxer is always fresh and can keep throwing crisp hard punches and get a better workout. THe same goes for swimming. Don't just swim on long distance for the day and say your done. Do a few laps to warm up. Then do 10 25yard laps hard with 20-30 seconds rest between each 25 yard. Then do 5 50 yards (1-2 laps depending on if your in an olympic pool or not)with 30 seconds between each 50 yard sprint. Then do a coold down. If you can do more than do more. Eventually add in some 100 yards sprints and mabey some 200 yard sprints. Also as you get better cut your rest down to 15 seconds. also if you can have someone time you and see what your best 50 yard sprint is you can then add 20 seconds to that time and then do 10 50 yard sprints. Look at your watch and leave when the second hand reaches the 12. You then have your your best 50 yard sprint time + 20 seconds to finish your 50 yard sprint. The faster you do your 50 yards the more time you'll have to rest at the wall before your next one.

If you take your time and only finish your 50 yard sprint in your best sprint time + 20 seconds then you have no rest when you finish the 50 yards and have to immediatly do your next sprint (if you have finished with 10 seconds to spare you would have had 10 seconds rest at the end). I hope this helps some. Let me know if you need any questions answered and I'll do the best I can.

Let me introduce you to the paragraph:

I was on a swim team for 10 years under USS swimming and went to the jr. olympics a few times. I would probably say part of your problem is your technique isn't correct. If possible find someone that was on a team or go somewhere and learn the technique. Using good technique will seriously help a lot and prevent shoulder injuries later on. Also try and avoid using side stroke because it's not really used much and won't give you as good of a workout as freestyle.

If you get really tired while swimming backstroke is a good restful stroke for swimming. As for fat people swimming faster. Although swimming is hard swimmers generally aren't as lean as a wrestler or runner would be. I don't know the a whole hell of a lot about biology but from what I understand swimmers don't lose as much weight because you are always horizontle. THis sounds odd but from what I have read because you are horizontle you aren't able to lose as much.

Generally speaking though the people who were long distance racers were usually shorter and carried a bit more fat than sprinters because sprinters hang out in the anerobic zone much more and hit their VO2 max. I know someone is going to argue with me that swimmers of olympic caliber are always in shape but you have to realize olympic caliber swimmers usually lift, jump rope, do calisthetics, and run. That part of their training routine is usually called "dry land." Also you said you get tired after 500 yards or so.

To get better at swimming you need to swim. Running, lifting and all that will help you by shedding weight and making you stronger and help your cardio some, but swimming seems to work your cardio a bit different. When I started swimming I never really ran. Then I started doing some wrestling at a local club and had to run a mile for the 1st time. I though i was going to die after half a mile. I thought this was weird because I could go all out on a 500 yard swim race and still have energy afterwards. But I found that when I added running to my swimming program from then on I had even stronger cardio for swimming.

So what i'm trying to say is although you may have run in the past swimming will work you a bit different than your used to and you'll have to swim as well as run to get better at swimming. You said you can do about 500 yards. Are you doing 500 yards straight? We usually started new swimmers out with 25 and 50 yard swims and they would do sets of a lot of these 25 and 50 yards swims. Kind of like boxing or sprinting on land. Boxers who are going to fight in a 10 round match (30 minutes of boxing) don't practice sparring and hitting the bags for 30 minutes without breaks. They do 3 minute rounds with a minutes rest. Partly because thats how the match works but also because they can work much harder longer. A boxer would start throwing crappy punches after awhile if he was going to go 30 minutes straight but by breaking up into rounds a boxer is always fresh and can keep throwing crisp hard punches and get a better workout. THe same goes for swimming.

Don't just swim on long distance for the day and say your done. Do a few laps to warm up. Then do 10 25yard laps hard with 20-30 seconds rest between each 25 yard. Then do 5 50 yards (1-2 laps depending on if your in an olympic pool or not)with 30 seconds between each 50 yard sprint. Then do a coold down. If you can do more than do more. Eventually add in some 100 yards sprints and mabey some 200 yard sprints. Also as you get better cut your rest down to 15 seconds. Also if you can have someone time you and see what your best 50 yard sprint is you can then add 20 seconds to that time and then do 10 50 yard sprints.

Look at your watch and leave when the second hand reaches the 12. You then have your your best 50 yard sprint time + 20 seconds to finish your 50 yard sprint. The faster you do your 50 yards the more time you'll have to rest at the wall before your next one.

just giving out info not trying to pass an english class. I do enough of that at college lol.

Frankshamrockfan, although your info is very much appreciated and yu seem to have taken a lot of time to give it out, the reasoning for the paragraph isn't grammatical. Your information is really difficult to read if not properly spaced apart and some people might even skip over it to save their eyes.

-Nick

Nice info FranckShamrock fan.

Thanks for the paragraphs bringiton

No offense meant frankshamrockfan. I thought you had written something worth reading or I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of putting it into paragraphs so that others might also benefit from it. Just something to thing about before you post good information like that again.

IF you want to get better at sidestroke, here are some tips which helped me.

Get a dive mask. The most efficient side stroke is where your head is in the water, only turning face up to breathe in. Keeping your head out of the water causes your legs to go down, creating more drag.

Once you are doing it with your head in the water, think about pinning your bottom ear to your shoulder. THis will help to bring your head down some more, which in turn will bring your legs up, making you more streamlined. Total Immersion calls it 'Pressing the Buoy'.

When doing the sidestroke underwater, bring both hands up past your head together, stroke with your top hand and kick, leaving your bottom arm(guide arm) straight out past your head, pointing at the wall you are approaching. Hold this position a little longer than you think you should, this will help you glide more and make your stroke more efficient. When you feel like you are stopping(but before you feel yourself sinking), then do your recovery stroke(bottom arm), bring your legs back up and do it again. Total Immersion is geared toward freestyle/crawl, but you can transfer a lot of the info over to sidestroke. Find someone who knows sidestroke, and get them to demo for you.