Learning to swim/improving swimming

[LittleWheelsandBig]

The University are in the process of molishing a shiny new just-under-50m pool within not-worth-getting-a-bike-out-for distance of here.  Much noise was made at the planning stage of it being Birmingham's first Olympic sized pool, but (in a turnout won't shock anyone familiar with barakta's rants) it seems that somebody forgot to allow for the thickness of the grout or something and it's fallen slightly short of the Olympic specification.  It appears that hasty re-wording of all the promotional material is cheaper than doing it properly.

I recall an instance in Australia where, less than a year after opening, one end of a council pool was rebuilt to add a few centimetres for just that reason.

[ian]

I once worked at a university where they'd built the library but forgot to account for the weight of the books. Clue: they're heavy.

I find pools below 25 metres to be a bit of exercise in turning, a couple of strokes and hey-ho, around you go. Fifty metres let's you stretch out and swim. But I agree that I'd rather have lots of widely available 25 metre pools than a few 50 metre pools with limited availability. I make an occasional trip to the Olympic pool and used Ponds Forge in Sheffalump and the Commonwealth in Edinburgh.

Kitsilano pool in Vancouver is a fabulous 140ish metres (heated salt water, but it's been pretty cold when I've been). Now that's a proper length.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

It's a while since I have swum but it seems the 33m pool is in decline and 50m pools are a rarity.

Wowbagger posted elsewhere his disappointment that he only had a 25m pool in Southend.

The twin 33m pools at Swiss Cottage are no more.

How long is your local pool?

My nearest is the Royal Commonwealth Pool, which has an Olympic-size pool, a 25 metre pool, and a 25 metre diving pit. Next nearest is Warrender which is 25 yards.

[L CC]

The pool at my gym is I think only 20m.
Sports centre 25m
The other gym has a whole 15m.

You don't need 50 metres if you're not swimming competitively. It's the difference between cycling for sport, and cycling for recreation. How many of us actually race?

[ian]

Nah, 50 metres let's you find a rhythm. Otherwise it's like having sex and changing position every 30s.

[mike]

Cambridge has at least 3 x 25m indoor pools and an amazing 90m lido which is wetsuitable from May.  And a lovely river..

I had a go in an endless pool over christmas, only about 4m x 2m but a gurt big fan at one end and a dial on the side to turn the current up or down.  Exhausting, but great fun not having to turn.  With that and a snorkel you could just get on with the swimming! 

The best bit was the mirror so you could see yourself swimming - I made some big changes to my stroke and it felt a lot more efficient when I got in the pool this week.

[hellymedic]

I enjoyed 33 metre pools more than 25m pools.
I've not done 50m pools much but  33m was nice for distance and more than 7 strokes of my glidy breaststroke.

There was a nice 33m pool at the university when I was a stude and I haunted Swiss Cottage for much of my misspent youth.

[Kim]

I once worked at a university where they'd built the library but forgot to account for the weight of the books. Clue: they're heavy.

Every university seems to have this urban legend.  Along with the one about the weight of the water, and the one about the student accommodation falling short of the minimum requirements for a prison cell^[1].  (The computer lab where they forgot to allow for the heat of the computers wasn't a myth.  Towards the end of the CRT era, every university seemed to have one of those, too.)

While I'm sure these things have all actually happened somewhere at one time or another, they're best treated with a [CITATION NEEDED] when someone shares the witty anecdote about their alma mater.


_{[1] At UKC we had a variation on this theme, with the Eliot and Rubberfood colleges being designed by the same architect as The Maze prison.  This is easily confirmed to be bollocks, as the architect was in fact ripping off a college in Pennsylvania}

[JJ]

And a lovely river..

I was a bit put off, after being pursued all the way back from Grantchester by an aggressive swan.

I had a go in an endless pool over christmas.

Where was that Mike?

Fancy swimming Newnham-Grantchester-Newnham together next summer?  River swimming is always safer two-up.

[mike]

I had a go in an endless pool over christmas.

Where was that Mike?

Fancy swimming Newnham-Grantchester-Newnham together next summer?  River swimming is always safer two-up.

Yes to the river, definitely!

The pool was a private one down near Henley, so not much use for round here. There used to be one in Hauxton 15-20 years ago, I think it's gone now..

[ian]

I once worked at a university where they'd built the library but forgot to account for the weight of the books. Clue: they're heavy.

Every university seems to have this urban legend.  Along with the one about the weight of the water, and the one about the student accommodation falling short of the minimum requirements for a prison cell^[1].  (The computer lab where they forgot to allow for the heat of the computers wasn't a myth.  Towards the end of the CRT era, every university seemed to have one of those, too.)

While I'm sure these things have all actually happened somewhere at one time or another, they're best treated with a [CITATION NEEDED] when someone shares the witty anecdote about their alma mater.


_{[1] At UKC we had a variation on this theme, with the Eliot and Rubberfood colleges being designed by the same architect as The Maze prison.  This is easily confirmed to be bollocks, as the architect was in fact ripping off a college in Pennsylvania}

I fear this may be the source of the legend. I still think they're exchanging lawyers over the issue. The building allegedly shed bricks but that might be actual lie, but everyone knew someone who knew someone who had been hit on the head with a brick. It was engulfed in scaffolding and enough safety fences to keep out the Mongol Hoard, but the US does feature litigation as a competitive sport, and parents don't pay $20k a year to have their kids dodge falling bricks, even if it does build character and resilience.

[barakta]

That sounds much like the clusterfuck which is my new office building, no one knows who built what...

[essexian]

Any breaststroke swimmers out there who can give me some tips/information please.

I am attempting to learn to swim it this stroke correctly but am really, really struggling to get the whip kick correct. My coach has told/shown me what to do, as have videos on Youtube. However, whenever I try it, it seems to generate no power at all. Indeed, I hardly seem to move when using and float and thus, without any arm strokes.

So, just out of interest, as a percentage of overall power/forward movement comes from your arms and how much from your legs? If its next to nothing from your legs, then I won’t worry. If, as seems from Youtube it is quite a bit, then I need to seriously practice more!

Thanks in advance.

[Dibdib]

Any breaststroke swimmers out there who can give me some tips/information please.

I am attempting to learn to swim it this stroke correctly but am really, really struggling to get the whip kick correct. My coach has told/shown me what to do, as have videos on Youtube. However, whenever I try it, it seems to generate no power at all. Indeed, I hardly seem to move when using and float and thus, without any arm strokes.

So, just out of interest, as a percentage of overall power/forward movement comes from your arms and how much from your legs? If its next to nothing from your legs, then I won’t worry. If, as seems from Youtube it is quite a bit, then I need to seriously practice more!

Thanks in advance.

I was getting quite a lot of power from a whip kick (probably 30-40% legs, 60-70% arms) but then doing so has knackered my knee, so ymmv.

Trying a more knee-friendly frog kick and pushing back with the soles of my feet more than whipping my feet inwards was noticably less effective.

[Wowbagger]

I can't help with breast stroke technique I'm afraid, even though breast stroke is the  only one I do. I don't push my face into the water and noticed this morning when I came out of the pool that my neck ached a bit.

I have found that 4 lengths take me about 5 minutes. I did another 650 metres (26 lengths) this morning. I am expecting to speed up a bit, as I lose weight, on the simple basis that a floating body (mine) displaces its own weight (120kg) in water. The same effort used to displace 110kg, for example, would presumably move it a bit further. I quite fancy half an hour's swimming 3 times a week. I signed up for the year this morning. Next Wednesday my swimming pal starts a new job for 6 weeks - he will be doing something for TfL to do with cycle lanes - so I will be going on my own for a while. I will probably go twice next week, on Tues and Weds, and will probably go a fair bit earlier. I understand that the pool opens at 7 am. We have been getting there around 9.

Oh, and a small footnote: although Southend's swimming pool is a perfectly ordinary sub-standard 25m job, the diving pool is of olympic standard. The National Diving Cup was being held there this weekend and lots of fish-like people were doing noisy things on the diving boards. For some reason the pool staff/cup organisers didn't want the riff raff watching this happen and there were large barriers up between the two pools.

[ian]

Any breaststroke swimmers out there who can give me some tips/information please.

I am attempting to learn to swim it this stroke correctly but am really, really struggling to get the whip kick correct. My coach has told/shown me what to do, as have videos on Youtube. However, whenever I try it, it seems to generate no power at all. Indeed, I hardly seem to move when using and float and thus, without any arm strokes.

So, just out of interest, as a percentage of overall power/forward movement comes from your arms and how much from your legs? If its next to nothing from your legs, then I won’t worry. If, as seems from Youtube it is quite a bit, then I need to seriously practice more!

Thanks in advance.

I'm not professionally trained (but I have been swimming fifty-a-day for over a decade now) and generally I find a majority of the power comes from my upper body stroke, so I wouldn't worry overly provided you are moving through the water and nothing hurts. Strength will build over time.

[Wowbagger]

30 lengths this morning, so 750 metres. I think I detected that I was doing about 5 lengths in 6 minutes this morning, so that is a bit faster than 4 in 5. I spent a little over 35 minutes in the water.

My pal is off to That London for 6 weeks' work starting tomorrow. His job is with TfL promoting the "cycle superhighways"!

[essexian]

Thanks for the advice. I am going swimming to the "Over 50's" session this afternoon so I will keep trying the drills Coach Carol has shown me.

Lets hope today's swim is better than Sundays.... I managed to forget to take my towel, floats and pull buoy so had go and buy some stuff from the local ASDA...doh! Thankfully, I had put my shorts on before I left home, otherwise there would have been quite a sight in the pool in Stafford. 

[Tigerrr]

I have found my swimming has improved hugely by the use of hand paddles and a swim snorkel. Because the breathing can now be disconnected from the stroke it is much easier to go faster and longer, like hours, while the paddles increase stroke power. It is a shame that public pools don't appear to allow them. Apparently the paddles can hurt other swimmers and if you are dead it is hard to tell with a snorkel.
I would quite like to swim the Thames from Lechlade to Reading - but only if the water is warm enough. In the meantime I am going to try some sea swimming off the Costa Blanca this spring.

[Wowbagger]

My 32 lengths took me 38 minutes this morning, so that's a slight speed increase, I think.

[essexian]

Nose clips...anyone use them (when swimming of course!)

I ask as I seem to be breathing in half a pool full of water whilst trying to learn how to breathe whilst doing front crawl.

Any suggestions/ comments etc gratefully received.

[ian]

I use a nose clip, otherwise my nasal lining gets irritated and snuffly. You get used to them pretty quick, though obviously it's a bit like swimming with a blocked nose at first.

Use the Speedo competition ones (with the metal bridge), they're easier to adjust, more comfortable, and work. The plastic ones are horrible.

[Wowbagger]

40 lengths this morning - 1km. Just under 53 minutes.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

First butterfly lesson for ages this morning. He's pleased with my kick, my timing still goes awry but I'm aware of it and can correct it. Now we just need to sort my arms out and then put it all together!

[essexian]

Many thanks Ian for the excellent suggestion: I made a purchase of the suggested item which worked well during my lunchtime swim. Its rather pleasing that my nose doesn't feel sorer than a sore thing at the moment and my lungs aren't full of water. So, that's a considerable improvement.

Also an improvement...and no laughing at the back, I managed my first 50m non stop swim today and did it in 1 min 40. Now before I started having coaching, I was able to swim a couple of hundred metres without stopping so I suppose I have gone backwards to a degree. However, my previous time for 50m would be well over 2 minutes, so doing the full breaststroke is considerably quicker than my previous effort.

Sadly my attempts at front crawl are still funner than something really funny. 

Finally, swimming with gout in my middle toe is rather painful.