Swimming lessons

[jonhall]

I am capable of getting from point a to point b, and can even do it at a decent pace, but not efficiently, and being exhausted in the water is not ideal.

Work on the freestyle (or front crawl) stroke with rhythmic breathing. Getting air will help with the exhaustion. I would start by learning to breath on one side, every arm cycle - the nice thing is you don't have to be in water to practice as you can do it as a dry land drill. As you get better you can try breathing every 2 arm cycles or bilaterally as mentioned earlier.

Two benefits of the freestyle with rhythmic breathing for diving are 1) after getting a breath as your head is turned to the side, once you put your head back in the water you begin to exhale - just like diving: breathe in, don't hold it, breathe out; and 2) your practicing the flutter kick at the same time - can only strengthen your kick while diving.

 

[TMHeimer]

Breathing was another problem I had with the DM course 400m timed test. I didn't get help with the detailed instructions explained in the last couple of posts, but managed to get my breathing to a point where I didn't breathe too often or not often enough. Form and breathing are things that get very rusty when you don't actually swim for 39 years.

 

[Neilwood]

I personally wouldn't worry excessively about prefecting swimming strokes in relation to diving - you will be a safer diver if you can swim though. The majority of surface swimming techniques use the arms to provide a HUGE amount of the forward momentum. Doing that in fins is a waste of effort though. You want all legs and no hands

One thing to bear in mind with fins is to remember that you get quite a lot of momentum from them - use it to the maximum. Don't just continiously kick but instead use some of the momentum and glide. A good kick followed by a glide can gain a surprising amount of distance while at the same time meaning that you use less gas. A good adage that keeps coming up is "slow is smooth, smooth is fast".

The amount of people that think I can get there quicker by simply kicking quicker is astounding to the extent that the additional kicks are simply churning water with little noticable additional benefit.

Getting some video of your kick will help you understand what might be going wrong and what to do to improve it. A surprising amouont of people bicycle kick (where you can see the feet effectively spinning around an "axle") and it is notoriously inefficient.

 

[jonhall]

I didn't get help with the detailed instructions explained in the last couple of posts, but managed to get my breathing to a point where I didn't breathe too often or not often enough.

My son did a sprint triathlon a few years after graduating from college. The first leg is a swim and when I knew he was doing this, I felt guilty and worried. We have had a swimming pool since he was born, my wife and I were both teachers and water safety instructors, and I coached swim teams at all age levels, so naturally he was going to be able to swim, BUT we never specifically taught him the proper freestyle technique/ with rhythmic breathing. I guess I figured he would learn in PE classes. So that day of the triathlon I had never been so focused on watching anyone in my life from the time he entered the water until the time he exited. He's still alive(!) and learned the proper technique for the freestyle by the next weekend in our pool. He's petty good now. I have a 4 year old granddaughter now who WILL become a good swimmer. She loves the water and is picking up different skills every time she is at our house. Have also introduced a snorkel and mask.

I personally wouldn't worry excessively about prefecting swimming strokes in relation to diving - you will be a safer diver if you can swim though.

Agree with both parts of this. Know quite a few (older) people who are not great swimmers but are pretty good divers. I'm a strong believer that someone who can swim and swim well (has mastered different strokes), will have more confidence and be more comfortable in the water when diving.

 

[Pearlman]

Time your stroke to your breath, not the other way around.

Once you get that working, you'll likely find that if you breathe on every stroke and go fast, you'll hyperventilate. And if you breathe on the same side on every other stroke, you'll start running out of breath as you tire and/or speed up a bit. That's how you end up breathing "on three", alternating left and right: it just usually works out to be the best breathing rhythm for most people.

Yes I introspected on my failures in the last pool session and came to the exact same conclusion and realization! Good to hear confirmation... Thank you!

P

 

[Storker]

Yes, flutter kicks. My experience is there is no difference swimming with or without fins, except with fins you go a lot faster.

IME it's the same thing for breaststroke vs frog kicks.

So if you've learned swimming doing the breaststroke the frog kick may actually be at least as easy as the flutter kick.

 

[annasea]

Time your stroke to your breath, not the other way around.

Once you get that working, you'll likely find that if you breathe on every stroke and go fast, you'll hyperventilate. And if you breathe on the same side on every other stroke, you'll start running out of breath as you tire and/or speed up a bit. That's how you end up breathing "on three", alternating left and right: it just usually works out to be the best breathing rhythm for most people.

I learned this way originally, on 3, and wound up getting extremely anxious because of too much time between breaths. Suffice to say, I couldn't even swim a full lap, as I'd have to stop by the time I got to the opposite end of the pool, hold on and reset myself. Decades later, I took swimming lessons again where the focus was on relaxing, being streamlined, and breathing on 1 side for the first length, then the other for the 2nd length. For the first time ever, I was able to swim a lap! Mind you, I haven't done so since, but I accomplished my goal...

 

[Storker]

A good technique when swimming freestyle is to learn to inhale "bilaterally", alternating turning your head left when right arm is extended forward, then to the right when left arm is extended

Allow me to disagree. It's very easy to start cheating and lift your face up/forwards if you breathe on every half stroke, and your technique goes to heck.

When I was taught freestyle (crawl), I was told to breathe on every third half stroke. Still breathing "bilaterally", but forcing me to keep my head down and breathe to the side instead of forwards.

 

[Sbiriguda]

As far as I understand, in recreational diving the main concern is air consumption. And going slow, not fast. The first thing to do would be to avoid or reduce flutter kicking and use scuba frog kicking (which is different from ‘normal’ frog kicking). Flutter kicking is more powerful and gives you more speed, but this is not what you need. Good swimmers have an advantage in diving, but mostly it doesn’t come from power, but more from confidence in water and correct and efficient breathing. Even in strong currents, where training in swimming could be an advantage, the idea in diving is always to avoid fighting the currents because they are stronger than you and will quickly empty your tank... so you just grab a rock or try to go out of the currents, or let them bring you somewhere and then shoot your DSMB

 

[dmaziuk]

I learned this way originally, on 3, and wound up getting extremely anxious because of too much time between breaths. Suffice to say, I couldn't even swim a full lap, as I'd have to stop by the time I got to the opposite end of the pool, hold on and reset myself. Decades later, I took swimming lessons again where the focus was on relaxing, being streamlined, and breathing on 1 side for the first length, then the other for the 2nd length. For the first time ever, I was able to swim a lap! Mind you, I haven't done so since, but I accomplished my goal...

Like I said, "best rhythm for most people". Every once in a while I see someone in the pool breathing on one side only and doing more laps than I ever could.