Swimmers of Veeky Forums I need your help

I hear banging drunk chicks behind campus dumpsters is a good idea for swimmers.

Why do you think I wanted to get into swimming in the first place? For my health? Top kek

If you just want to do it for cardio and have no interest in improving your times, then just get in the pool and swim until you get tired.

Any tips on how to get the breathing right on freestyle? I tried going for a breath every three strokes, but it gave me a lot of trouble. I breathed out in pumps of three (1 each stroke) and didn't feel like my window for a breath was wide enough. I can only swim with proper breathing maybe 1/2 lap, then I have to have a break. Basically as far as I can dive, so I guess I'm not even really breathing. I also swallow too much air, which gives me pain in my chest. Any tips?

Freestyle. AKA the Australian Crawl.

your head needs to be paralel to the water line, as if the water was a pillow.

When breathing or when swimming? Also shouldn't it be further up when breathing? I see a lot of good swimmers lift their heads further up towards the roof, but when I try this I don't have time during the stroke.

Body positioning and proper alignment is extremely important to swim efficiently. Your spine should be plank straight with as little head movement as possible. Rotate your shoulders and hips along your spine's axis as you swim. When you rotate your body to the side, turn your head slightly to breath. Practice letting go of your breath evenly; you shouldn't exhale all at once.

As soon as you take a breath start exhaling slowly and continuously. When you go to breathe in you want to do so in a short a time as possible hence you exhale while swimming so you just have to breathe in when you rotate your body to breathe. Also what the other anons have said is all good. Swiveling around so more of your mouth is out of the water is easier but it isn't faster as you tend to over rotate when you do that.

Ultimately if you want to improve your times when swimming rather than just as a method of cardio, join a club or get coaching. It is so much harder to detect your own flaws than to get someone who knows what they are talking about to just look at your stroke and instantly see the problem.

Thanks.

Good tips
t. competitive swimmer during childhood

This brings me back memories, shame there is no nearby pool that I don't have to get out of my way to get to.

I swim with a coach 3 times a week, what type of training should i do at the gym? I'm looking mainly for some hypertrophy workouts.
I getting lazy lately and i'm gaining fat.

I would say to center around 3 different stages: warm up, HI IT, cool down
Warm up should be long and slow, HIIT should be long fast swimming with a short rest: for instance a 50 on a 1:00 interval. This should burn a lot but it's important to not waver from the interval. Dont make the mistake of doing 1:00 on 1:00 rest. No rest should be even close to that long. Finally a short cool down, going easy and focusing on form. One common problem I see is people not looking at the bottom of the pool when swimming, their head would be pointing forward. Bad bad bad.

Oops

Thanks. I had NO IDEA about the head thing.

>go to beach
>walk to shore, strip, dive
>swim like a mad motherfucker and don't stop until you hit the farthest buoy
>go back to shore
>repeat until you feel like you're going to throw up your guts
>go home, eat 4000 calories, sleep 8 hours
>repeat next day

spent 3 summers doing this as a kid, still have the gains 7 years later

When I was a kid, my parents had a pool and I would swim laps a lot. I remember I could swim all the time, I don't remember ever getting tired from swimming. The idea even seems weird to me.

Cut to an adult, I try swimming laps in my gym pool for the first time in years. Tired as fuck after 2 laps.

Swimming that regularly in fake water is terrible for your skin and hair

Get the same shit as a farmhand mate, isn't perm gainz the best?

What i did was swim 10 laps, didn't care how long it took, just made sure not to break for too long. Once i could to that in under 30 min easily, i switched to swimming as much as possible in 30 minutes. After that was easy, i started swimming 2000 yards (~40 laps). After that and a season of waterpolo i could swim pretty much forever, it was like a light job even after an hour or 2.

you know it brother

they are even better when you worked hard for them

funny thing is I didn't even know what the fuck I was doing, I just loved to swim and busting my ass with it was really satisfying

I climbed a tree in my backyard everyday as a kid. Had to do the presidential physical fitness test and found I could do pull ups non stop as a result.

Sadly those gains are long gone.

Your head shouldn't be directly facing down, you can look forward slightly without breaking form.

usually i just warm up with a slow 250 metres and then go for 500 or 1000 metres. dont care how long it takes me.

then as a cool down ill do 250 metres again.

and ill usually just alternate between freestyle and breaststroke for laps.

Is this good advice? I actually live near a beach... But will I like die doing this?

Any recommendations for someone who wants to do swimming for cardio but doesn't really know how to swim?

it's heaps good advice and it will build bravery too

but don't do it if you're not a really strong swimmer because you could get stuck in a rip and get sucked out to sea or some shit

lol nice

keep climbing man maybe they're still there hidden in your body waiting for you

don't have to die or rekt your shit in the process user just push yourself, but know your limits and respect the sea, it's always stronger than you

if you feel like absolute shit one day it's okay to do another thing or rest, just keep at it. I just did it because I loved it so much, keep that in mind

Here is a basic version of what competitive swimmers do for a practice, obviously shortened a lot.

Warm up: Easy pace.

Example:
200 Swim
200 Kick
200 Pull
200 Swim

Drill/Transition: Moderate, preparing for some faster stuff.

Example:
3x 150 50 drill/50 swim/ 50 build choice stroke on 20 seconds rest

8x 50 pace @ :45-1:00 depending on your skill. hold your pace.

Main set: The "big set of the day. This is incredibly variable but is usually the most intense set of the day be it and aerobic-high yardage focus or a short fast set with lots of rest meant to build up lactic acid.

example:

400 build by 50 (repeat twice) with 30 second rest

5x100 fast @ 1:10-1:40 (fastest interval you can make or FPI)

2x 100 kick @ 15 seconds rest

5x 75 @ FPI

2x100 kick

5x50 @ FPI

Repeat this whole set x2.

Cooldown: Self-explanatory, long, slow stretched out swimming. Called Distance per stroke or DPS

example:

200 easy DPS

Intended for Short-course yards but can be adapted for meters.