I am a little over 20 years old and just started to learn swimming. :O (!) I know I may be a little too old for this, or am I? Hmm... anyway, I am trying to learn all I can... I take adult classes every weekend, then I practise a bit at night myself, about once per week. I have been reading through some of the old threads, there are a lot to go through so I haven't completely read everything... there are a lot on the web too... But I guess a few things I want to ask are a bit hard to find... I have been practising freestyle mainly... I've been taught a bit of breast stroke, but not much... is it Ok for me to learn different styles or just to learn to swim first? The pool I practise in is about 50m I think... I am primary having trouble front crawling from one end to the other, like, I never went to the deep end, if you know what I am talking about... I was able to front crawl "the middle" one third portion of the pool, so say 50/3 = 16.7 middle part... are there any tips for improving that? Thanks.
Are you looking at competing or just swimming so that you can enjoy the water. Either way it won't matter if you learn breaststroke and freestyle at the same time as they are completey different movements and will not effect your muscle memory development. If your not practicing for competition swimming of anything, breaststroke is a lot more enjoyable, and relaxing.
At this age I doubt that I'll do any good in competitions, so it is just enjoying the water and hopefully improve my fitness... basically just want to learn to swim, so that I know how to swim. I don't know why but I've found it easier to breath when doing freestyle... I guess that's why I just practise freestyle mostly, in my own time. But again I am not able to swim all the way across the pool yet...
Hey there, good for you. I think every body should learn how to swim well. Personally I also find breaststroke easier to do as it allows you to breath constantly, but freestyle is definitely better if you have speed in mind. Don't bother with this front crawl or doggy paddle stuff, its a complete waste of time. Ounce you learn breaststroke it becomes worthless. Just use a flotation devise if you have to and focus on you kicks first and then add your arm movements later on. Proper kicking technique can really make a large difference.
Practice, practice and practice. Have fun in the pool, take some friends and just have a laugh, it'll get you feeling at ease in the water.
Hey Unity giving advice on your first post, that's very nice of ya!! Ok I thought front crawl == freestyle? From the sound of it, it seem like I was wrong... but yea I really have just started learning so I am still not used to a lot of technical terms... I'll surely look it up though. And yes Martial Dad I do find the pool quite fun, although still learning. Overall, yeh it makes sense that breast stroke should be easier, as I constantly find myself run out of breath, breaking the continuous movement in water... I think what I found easy was that for freestyle to inhale all you had to do is to turn your head as you exchange the arms, whereas in breast stroke you had to pull yourself up... or perhaps I am doing something wrong?
Come on in the water is fine New Guy! You are never too old to learn to swim. I used to be a Certified Water Safety Instructor for the American Red Cross and I have taught people from 6 years old to 60+! Usually you will be taught the Crawl/Freestyle first and from there, Back and Breast. No reason it has to be done in that order but my reasoning is that when we teach people to swim, the first thing we start teaching is to float. First on their stomach, that's why Freestyls is taught after learning to float on your front, then on your back! Martial Dad is right! Get some from mates and hit the pool just for fun and a splash around. Of all sports, I think that learning to swim is the one sport that can actually save your life. After all, the Earth is covered w/ water and there i sa good chance that you will run across some at some point in your life!
bit of the question of the topic, but I recently got told that you need to have your body at a certain tempurature to burn fat, so swimming isnt an easy way to burn fat since your body is at a cld tempurature. Is there any truth to this?
No, I have never heard anything so daft in my life. And I work in Local Government. Your body will burn more fat trying to maintain body temperature in water not less if it's in fat burning phase.
Swimming is a great I really must try to get back in the pool. I find freestyle is better for regulating breathing as when you are proficient you tend to use bilateral breathing which means you breathe every third stoke. It really helped with my asthma. It will help improve general fitness levels and stamina.
Hey new guy, Having lived by the sea my whole life I am fairly good at swimming. When swimming in the pool I find it is hard to keep front crawl going for any length of time, but breastroke I can do for much longer distances. As someone else pointed out though frontcrawl is much more efficient and speedy. I would start off doing 3 lengths breastroke to one length front crawl until you can build up some 'front crawl fitness' and move onto 1 to 1. It worked for me!
Yeh breathing every third stroke have been working much better, I used to do every forth stroke simply because my form isn't really good at all and so can only breathe to one side. Anyway, so here's an update... I guess... I am still practising free style most of the time, I have tried breast stroke but after watching a few videos, I think I was doing it wrong... anyway, I'll try that again next time... I still have difficulty to swim across the whole lane, I got how to breathe now, more or less, but still run out of breathe nevertheless, or perhaps running out of oxygen... I am not sure, but up to a certain distance I just had to stop... maybe I am not relax enough??? I don't know, any tips?? I were able to start from the deep end of the pool though... not sure if that's the right term, hope you get what I mean... and swim to a spot shallow enough that I can stop and stand there... but boy that was scary, I guess I am not used to it, but staring down the floor of the pool and try not to drown!! Other than that, there was some improvement on my kicking... hmm... it may sound funny, or perhaps completely wrong, I was told to keep my legs straight when kicking, the idea is to use the whole leg instead of just the knee... well, it turns out that I have took that literally, my legs were... completely straight at all times!!! Well, I have been watching a bit of olympics, they are swimming, so great, maybe I can learn from the "masters"!! My first impression was... they do bend their knees!!! So I was back to the pool, and another teacher told me that the knee do bend a tiny bit... after trying that, I kind of got its purpose, using my whole leg and feet in a wave like motion, really trying to create a current flowing to the back of the pool, if that makes sense? It does makes me travel further on every kick, so I guess it must have work, huh?
That's the way I built up my freestyle lengths. Once you can do 1:1 then try 2 crawl to 1 breaststroke, 3 crawl to 1 breaststroke etc. Have you tried the Total Immersion websites? http://www.totalimmersion.net/ http://www.tiswim.com.au/
Just swim across half of the pool, that is, 25m... woo hoo!! Really had to push myself to do that though... it just looks amazing how everyone just swim back and forth and they make it seem effortless!! :O I saw lots of people just 'stands' in the middle of the deep side of the pool... I am wondering how did they do that? They were not moving in any direction, just standing there... but there are no floor to stand on??
Its called 'treading water' and you use arm and leg movements to keep yourself afloat. I expect you will eventually be taught how to do it in your lessons.
Ohhh so that's what "treading water" is!! I have been reading up and never knew what people are talking about when they said "treading". Unfortunately I had my last lesson last Saturday... well not exactly the very last lesson, it is just that the next one will be in November... long time to go, and I do want to keep practising by myself or with friends in the mean time.
I don't know what freestyle is but front crawl is most definitely not worthless. This is true, but don't go for the legwork at the expense of good back position. When many people use a float, they keep their head out of the water which makes an unnatural, awkward and eventually painful crick in the neck and curve in the back. So if you use a float, relax your shoulders and concentrate on stretching out your arms and breathing as you would for a normal stroke. LMAO! BTW, I'm not one for gimmicks and I'm dubious about the 10 days but Tim Ferriss some good advice for swimming: here.
