Swimming thread

who /swimming/ here? i go 54.5 in the 1fly, swim 4000-6000 yds daily. i suck at every other stroke though, im like ~57 in the 100free, 1:10+ in 1br/1bk, no times in distance free or IM

i want to, but it is expensive

Me. 45 100 free

how old are you?
43, but retired though

I used to play waterpolo, but I could never imagine having to swim laps and not hate myself.

Is it possible to learn strokes on my own from books/videos, or should I pay for some private lessons?

I used to swim ok ~15 years ago, and now I can barely manage approximations of breaststroke and backstroke

I'm a swimming noob and I only started when I broke my ankle how bad is a 15 second 25 meter freestyle?

I want to but the only nearby pool is at the Y and I’m worried people will think ima pedophile because it’s always swarming with kids

there are a lot of old people and the occasional triathlete swimming laps during free swim so you won't stick out

Don't do breaststroke.
Try a lesson, you should be able to pay for one at a time. There's a chance you can make huge improvements from one lesson so it's worth trying.

It's outstanding if you're 8 years old, but still pretty good if you're 10. There's a huge gap between competitive swimmers and weekend warriors

so youre telling me that i could shit on a bunch of 8 year olds kek

why is breaststroke bad

almost all of them!
But seriously, don't compare yourself to lifelong swimmers. Even triathletes are terrible compared to swimmers.

Example: the fastest male triathletes swim 1.5 km at the start of a tri at the same pace as the fastest female swimmers do a 10 km open water swim. It's not a direct comparison, but the open water swim is a longer event by time as well. My point is that even male olympic triathletes would have trouble beating the best female swimmers.

Some water polo players are truly fast sprinters, but they get crushed on starts and turns.

It's slow and you need goofy legs to be good at it. I don't understand why it's even a competition event, it's like if they had crabwalking in track and field

Oh thank God, this thread is what I've been needing. I desperately want to get into it, but I have no idea how to build a beginner swimming routine, and there's a lot of conflicting information on the Internet. Anyone have any suggestions or resources they personally trust?

What are you trying to get out of it?

because it gave birth to butterfly
breaststroke with dolphin kick is better for recreational swimming than frog kick

desu I don't think butterfly or backstroke should be events either

Besides the vague answer of "burn more calories while I cut and possibly improve how I look over time," I also want to build my stamina and improve my cardiovascular system without fucking up my tender joints with traditional high impact activities, like running.

how many calories does swimming one mile free burn?

17, high school swimmer but not swimming year round

there's nothing actually bad about breaststroke, though it is very technically difficult and works odd muscles that very few exercises/strokes use. freestyle will be the most efficient use of your time

I wouldn't count on it changing your appearance, but it's a good low-impact exercise. Honestly if you're not a good swimmer then you can get your heart rate up by just doing a few laps. A progression might look like:
1) do a few laps/session until too tired
2) if you can do a few laps without getting tired, get a lesson and see if you improve technique by a lot
3) once you can do ~400 yards in a session without getting exhausted, you might look for sets or workouts to do. or, you might be bored by now. It'll be diminishing returns on cardio as you get better.
Depends how good you are/how fast you go. At least a few hundred for an amateur swimmer

Experienced swimmers: what the are the expectations for a fit 20-something who has never had proper swim lessons or been on a swim team? I just started swimming for laps this week and I can barely eek out 50m Freestyle before getting really winded. I am an above average distance runner and swimming has been kicking my ass!

54 fly is pretty good if you don't swim year round! How on earth are you slower in free?

i like it because it reminds me of Veeky Forums
>everyone hates it
>it looks like a frog

See:
Basically I would expect you to never be any good. No offense, it just takes a lot of training

Well let's say I train 3-4 days/week and get a stroke evaluation from my local gym. Could I at least, with hard work and practice, maybe get as fast as your average high school boy?

I realize that freestyle is a largely technique based stroke that is perfected over years.

Thanks senpai.

I mean sure if you got lessons and did 3-4 days/week you could be okay for a high school boy, just not one that trained a lot more. Like you may be able to get as fast as OP but probably not.

Instead of comparing swimming to running or lifting where a lot of amateurs get pretty good, think of it like gymnastics... that's how much time and effort competitive swimmers put in from a young age. If you picked up gymnastics at age 25, maybe you could do a couple flips or whatever but you are never going to impress an average middle school gymnast.

OK, it's just trying not to get to a point where I feel overwhelmed and discouraged. I want to be able to get to a point where my freestyle is at least good enough that I won't get blown away in the swimming event for triathlons.

If I'm doing a 3-day full body workout with a couple days of cardio sprinkled throughout, will completely amateur shitter laps work well for the purposes of burning fat?

Just go as often as you can and try not to swim if you can barely stay afloat. It's like lifting in that you should stop when your form goes to shit

Sure, swimming is a great exercise if you suck at it. Try not to drown

Reporting in
I swim 2-2.5km, 2-3x weekly. I average 1m40s per 100m, but can sprint heaps faster.

Looking to use swimming to improve proportions (shoulders are literally too big) - what do?

I swam for 8 years.

46 100 free
21 50 free

I miss it but getting back in the pool is daunting. You get in such crazy good shape.

I can't think about getting back into it cause I know I will never be as fast as I once was and just trying to get any where close would be a huge ass time commitment.

Cool, thanks. Running/bike gets old as fuck after a while.

Yeah I never swim because I will never be as good as when I was in college. I'm too competitive to do shit that I'm getting worse at and I can't train 20 hours/week so

i think most people who start later don't realize the effort required - it's not that they can't become very fast, but they don't know how much work goes into it. my team is casual as fuck and we have 12-15h of practices a week with 3-4 "optional" dryland sessions. my teammates who are d1-bound are also swimming with club teams at night after our school practices, and swim year round traveling to meets. it's not like lifting where you can go 3x a week for 90 minutes and get pretty fucking strong, you have to be putting in like 20h a week in the pool minimum. it's also not a matter of showing up for those 20h and checking out - basically every day we have brutal sets and i'm almost always wiped out after practice. imho it requires a lot more mental fortitude and resilience than a lifting program where you'll just knock out 2-3 heavy sets and be done.

i still think someone who starts late can catch up, mostly because theyll have a leg up in the experience of learning other skills - even very fast hs swimmers i know put basically no thought into training or diet or recovery, they just get in the pool and go, so an adult can do some research and eat properly, learn form quicker, and train more efficiently to catch up. it'll be near impossible to be a d1+ caliber swimmer, but i dont think ~50 in the 100 free is impossible, just very hard.

I think you're right that it's possible but I've never heard of someone picking up swimming after college and being good. Some of the best swimmers out there only started training seriously in high school but were really good athletes otherwise so I don't think morning practice at age 8 is necessary. But it's definitively the norm

What if you're interested more in the health benefits, rather than actually being particularly impressive at it. Will you still get those health benefits, such as improved stamina and better cardiovascular function, from swimming 3x a week?

Yes. If anything, being really good at swimming makes it harder to get a workout

yeah, easily. just like you don't need to be sub-11 in the 100m to get benefits from running, training for health vs competition are two different categories

Fuck yes. That's worth it to me. Thanks m8s.

Are you me? These were my PRs back in high school

Me too!