be a better swimmer

Something dawned on me while practicing swimming this week: I don’t seem to be exhaling enough air before taking a breath. One thing I just started trying which preliminarily seems to be helping with taking side breaths while swimming the front crawl stroke (i.e. “freestyle”) is to breathe out through both my mouth and nose instead of with just my mouth. This way I exhale more air. Although I have gone through the exercise of simultaneously breathing out through both my mouth and nose underwater, this isn’t what I seem to be doing while actually swimming, and I didn’t really think of that before. I look forward to seeing what results I get when I try this while practicing in the coming week.

I swam four days this past week after taking a couple of weeks break from swimming (after getting a bit discouraged but finally snapping out of it). I’m still working on improving my side breathing (doing the front crawl stroke or “freestyle”). I’m happy I’m able to last longer on each breath I take which means I must be getting more air. I still have a hard time keeping up the right rhythm, but I’m beginning to feel a little more optimistic about the progress I’m making. Even if I mess up and have to stop and grab onto the side of the pool and take a breath, I do it and just keep going and trying again. If I keep up the same pace of practice as I did this week for at least a few more weeks I think I could really get somewhere. I’m also taking some time to observe other swimmers and identify what they do that makes them better and more efficient than me. That does help a little. Finally, I find I’m able to swim more in a shorter period of time. Hopefully this means I’m also getting into better shape…

There are two things I’m working on in particular at this time: taking better side breaths and improving my endurance.

Since I’ve started learning to swim, the side breathing has been something that has never come easy to me. I find I’m able to get in two good breaths but by the time I get to the third and subsequent breaths I struggle. It seems that after each breath, I sink beneath the surface a little deeper so by the thrid breath I have a hard time turning my head out of the water enough to get enough or even any air at all.

I wonder if part of my problem with the breathing is that I tire out too quickly and I get lazy about what I’m doing and just allow myself to screw up. I probably need to do a better job of pacing myself and also pushing myself past any feeling of tiredness as swimming is really not all that different than jogging in terms of intensity. I’m thinking I may need to supplement my workout with jogging or other form of cardiovascular exercise to build my lung capacity.

These are just some thoughts. I’m trying to think of how to get better…

So I can’t exactly swim correctly, but I can stay above water. That’s good enough for me!

The picture, that’s me in the pool when I didn’t take off my makeup first =]

I swam into 12 feet end of the pool tonight!!! I swallowed up my fear and just swam freestyle!!! It wasn’t perfect but there was NO DROWNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love it!

So I know I had a kickboard but diving into the deep end of the pool and looking down at 12 feet of water was terrifying. He wanted us to swim freestyle and I never did that before. So last night was spent practicing the rhythm in breathing. At the end of the evening, I knew I needed more practice…in the shallow end.

Wish me luck!!! I need to learn how to tread water. And breath while swimming. This is all going to be extra tricky because I’m just over the flu and an ex-boyfriend. I wonder which will be the worst handicap? LoL! Here’s to floating and NOT sinking!!

swimming is worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m not sure why, but I am a really slow swimmer. I have been swimming on a summer team for about 3 years and 2 yrs. in high school. A few people my age only recently started an they are much faster than me. Even people younger than me are faster. I’m guessing that just like some people are just naturally gifted in certain areas, some are naturally not. I’m hoping that there might be another reason so there is some hope for me because i really love swimming. any suggestions?

So I was swimming again. Somehow I can keep myself up for a few seconds (and I was doing good) and then I just sank, straight down. I really haven’t made any progress :(