The great fish moved silently through the night water....

[BigPiney]

Is this a common problem for novices?: When swimming freestyle it's next to impossible for me to keep my legs close to anything that resembles parallel to the surface. Is it just a matter of practice, practice, practice? or can someone here recommend a certain repetitive drill I can do to help overcome this?

This may help, I jsut skimmed it: http://triathlonresource.com/index_files/Page641.htm

[scottie]

This may help, I jsut skimmed it: http://triathlonresource.com/index_files/Page641.htm

Great info, thanks for posting it BigPiney.

[BigPiney]

Great info, thanks for posting it BigPiney.

It mentions it when talking about entry, but I like to try and extend my arm as far possible with I push my hand out in front of me. Kind of hard to explain but it opens up the angle in my shoulder and helps in the whole rotation of the body that it talks about. When working on my stroke I like to feel like I am reaching out as far as I can and exagerate it befroe beggining my pull. It shlould cause you to roll easily past 45 degrees.

[pelagius]

Three of the four are swimming year round. The fourth is turning three this year and has one year to go before we can put her on the team. Only two are competing right now, my 15 yo son and my 7 yo. daughter. My almost 5 y.o. will start competing this November if he wants to.

How much time do you and your wife have to spend at the pool?

[Eddie]

I'm a relatively new swimmer - unless you count screwing around at the pool or lake as swimming. I used to until I started swimming and noticed the difference.

I would second the advice to look into the master's club or some instruction. I ended up with a gal that teaches private swim lessons for $10 for a 45 minute lesson. Yes, she was cheap - and it was a good start for me.

I started with board shorts. What a pain. I have jammers but also a suit with as few pockets as possible. The suit might get bubbles in the hot tub, but I haven't noticed any in the pool. Jammers are great when you want to get going - with the suit you can actually feel the drag in the water. But the downside to jammers is they seem to wear out fairly quick. Mine are nearing the end of their life after 3 months.

I would suggest that when you begin you start slowly and go easy. 20 minutes might be too long the first few times. I felt I was drinking half the pool when I first started out - and had to learn the stroke while gaining some endurance before I could put even a quarter mile in. Focus on technic first and don't worry about speed or how long you've been. When you've drunk enough water or you are tired enough that your technic is gone, it's time to quite for the day. For me it was very helpful to hold a floaty thing between my thighs to begin with so that I could concentrate on my arms and breathing without sinking.

You want to plane on the water as much as you can when swimming. If your hips are sinking in the water, then lower your head and it raises your hips. You kind of have to swim along while raising and lowering your head a little to find where the right position is to keep your body as horizontal as possible in the water.

I've only been swimming a little over 3 months, but swimming a mile is fairly simple anymore (not fast, mind you, but I can finish it and not feel like I'm done for the rest of the day.)

I try to swim at least once a week still just to keep up what I started as I don't want to begin all over again. But I mostly just swim free-style. I'll probably mix in a little breaststroke, but don't see much use for the other strokes.

[SteelBlue]

How much time do you and your wife have to spend at the pool?

I drop my son off at 5:30 a.m. and she picks him up at 7. Then in the p.m. he has practice from 3-5, the girl has practice from 4:30-5:30 and the little guy has 45 min. 3 times per week. It's not uncommon for us to spend an hour or two a day on the pool deck. But I really enjoy watching my kids work out for some reason so I'm usually happy to be there. When it's 110+ outside we find ways to go home in between drop offs and pick ups.

[SteelBlue]

But the downside to jammers is they seem to wear out fairly quick. Mine are nearing the end of their life after 3 months.

A little tip I've learned: buy chlorine remover (for fish tanks) from the pet section at Wal Mart or the likes. Each time you get home from your swim, rinse your jammers and then put them in a bucket of water to which you've added the correct amount of chlorine drops. It should help them last quite a bit longer.

[RobinFinderson]

I had worked swimming into my fitness routine a couple of years ago, but have since abandoned it when I realized I wasn't getting to the YMCA enough to justify the substantial monthly fee.

For swimming laps, here are a few things that I enjoyed:

A cap. I have longer hair than most men, and it would get kind of stringy if I didn't shampoo it every day, and it would get dry and frizzy if I did shampoo it every day. So the cap was essential for me, just to protect my hair from all of that chlorine. If you are swapping out your hair every month (regular trips to the barber, or beautician in your (DDD's) case, then this may not matter).

A speedo. Screw modesty. Swimming laps is about exercise, and you don't want any extra cloth hanging around your loins when you are swimming laps. Speedos are awesome, and there are plenty of cuts that look good (ie. they are not banana hammocks in leopard print). Speedos hold up. No need to give them special baths or anything like that. I have owned the same speedo now for about six years.

Flippers. I use the short stiff style flippers often used for body surfing. If you aren't training to improve your natural stroke, flippers simply rock for exercise swimming. I love the feeling of moving through the water like a dolphin. This may not be cool, but it is very fun, and the exercise factor is the same (you just cover more distance in the same time).


Faith and I are thinking of rejoining the YMCA, to work some strength training in on our rest days from running. If we do it, I will definitely be hitting the pool again with speedo, cap and flippers.

[TripletDaddy]

A little tip I've learned: buy chlorine remover (for fish tanks) from the pet section at Wal Mart or the likes. Each time you get home from your swim, rinse your jammers and then put them in a bucket of water to which you've added the correct amount of chlorine drops. It should help them last quite a bit longer.

what a coincidence. this is what surfers do with their wetsuits after every session. You have to rinse it out or else the salt will eat it away, so you give your suit the hose for awhile, soaking it with fresh water. Although I never use chlorine, you can buy wetsuit shampoo to really give it a good cleanse. I only have one wetsuit right now that looks like poo. All the others look fine because I am religious about rinsing after each use. Incidentally, the one that looks like poo is the one that I had dedicated to lending out.....no surprise that it has received the worst wear. Also, it is a Hurley and I am not the biggest fan of Hurley suits.

[Katy Lied]

Most of the advice here is pretty good, my 2 cents on goggles:

If you buy your goggles from a sporting goods store, they will either have sample gogs hanging on the wall to try, or the goggles come in boxes and you can take them out and try them on. I'd just buy the cheapest ones that you feel comfortable in. Dont get the old school foam ringed ones; the foam wears out pretty quickly. The others either have soft vinyl, or they're hard and designed to sit right on your eye socket. Gently place the goggles on your eyes (in the store) and look down, and see if the suction will keep at least one side in place. (Its common for the other side to fall away if the goggles are dry). If you go for the hard gogs that sit on your eye socket be aware that if you wear them for extended periods you will look oddly bugeyed when you get out of the water, due to the compression.

If you want to work on cycling and swimming at the same time, I recommend getting a pair of old school duck fins (the long body surfing kind, not the short training "zoomers" fins) and a kick board. Then start kicking workouts. If you have one of those kiddie foam kick boards, you have to kick extra hard into the wall if you want to do a flip turn, but you can do it. Or you can buy one of those triangle low profile kickboards that makes flip turns with fins extra easy to do. After a while you should be able to work your way up to doing 50s on the minute. (You should be able to come in somewhere between :30 and :40, leaving you with :20 rest on each interval). There is nothing like a hard kicking workout to shred your quads. Kick freestyle for calves and quads, and kick butterfly for quads and hammies. Backstroke only for changeup and to rest.

[Eddie]

A little tip I've learned: buy chlorine remover (for fish tanks) from the pet section at Wal Mart or the likes. Each time you get home from your swim, rinse your jammers and then put them in a bucket of water to which you've added the correct amount of chlorine drops. It should help them last quite a bit longer.

I usually rinse my jammer once in the shower at the pool - just holding it in the water, letting it soak up the water and then wringing it out several times - then put it in the suit spinner they have to get the water out - then wrinse it again in the sink - and then another run through the spinner. So I think I usually do a fair job of getting the chlorine out. But the fish drops are probably a good idea do include in the routine.

And I'm sure it didn't help that I picked up one of the cheaper suits online to begin with - I didn't want to put any more money into one than was necessary until I decided how much I liked it. Not to mention the fact that when I've done block workouts I've worn the suit while running and biking as well.

[kp05]

swim equipment

I really like Aqua Sphere goggles; they seal!

I also like speedo briefs; they fit me great!