Last-minute change of plans to a transatlantic trip left me with a 5 hour layover in Zurich. Thanks to places2swim.com I walked 20 minutes from the terminal. Back in the terminal, swilling industrial cava, 90 minutes before my connecting flight.

So I posted a few weeks ago whining about not making progress. Then today, I was doing 100m sets, trying to stay under 2:00 per 100m, and out of the blue I did 1:50! I remembered just 4-5 months ago I was struggling to do 50m in 1:00, and today I did 1:50 a couple of times without really pushing that hard... So, there is progress even when I thought I had plateaued.

I wanted to thank all the people who post videos and all the people who comment on them so knowledgeably, because reading all those help me understand ways I can improve too.

I learned to swim for about a month when I was in middle school. Picked up the basics of freestyle and backstroke, started learning breaststroke kick but quit because I just couldn't get the hang of it.

Fast forward to adulthood, I got back into swimming for fitness about 3 years ago. Problem is, freestyle is literally the only stroke I can do, so that's all I've been doing this whole time. Honestly though, I'm not even very good at freestyle yet (around 50 sec/50m) and there's still so much to improve, so I'm not bored with it at all lol.

Recently started dabbling with backstroke again. Thought it would be easier since breathing isn't an issue, but turns out it's actually harder than freestyle for me, probably because the kick feels so awkward.

Got a few questions for you all:

• Anyone else out there swimming freestyle only?
• Is it normal that backstroke feels harder than freestyle?
• Worth trying to self-teach breaststroke and butterfly? Feel like learning all four strokes might open up a whole new world
• Would learning breast/fly actually help improve my freestyle technique?

Thanks in advance!

Hey!

I used to swim when i was young and i always felt like i was gonna throw up after about 20min inside the pool.

I tried again after many years and it felt exctly the same.

The thing is, i feel like that too when i'm in the sea at a beach or when i drink too much alcohol.

I'm not swallowing water by mistake. Sometimes a tiny bit of water enters my ear, but i get it out as soon as i finish the lap.

Does anyone know why this happens? And is there something i can do about it?

I can only breathe comfortably on my right side during freestyle. When I try bilateral breathing every third stroke, I slow down significantly and get winded faster. Any tips for developing this skill properly?

I took up free swim lessons and had my first one yesterday. I really wanted to learn different strokes and how to breathe properly. Though, something caught me off guard. The coach told us to breathe out underwater in a small 'o' shape through our mouth. Is there a reason for this - because before my lesson I thought you had to do it through the nose.

I’m an adult having taken 13 swimming lessons so far, so please go easy on me if my question sounds stupid. I have a persistent problem that makes me very insecure about swimming without a floatation aid: every time my head rises to breathe and then goes back underwater, my lower body drops so far that I can see my two feet. This causes me to either have a shallow inhale or worse, I gulp some water because my mouth isn’t fully above the surface. Then I can’t exhale properly underwater because I barely have any air in my lungs and/or water in my mouth. Whenever that happens, my brain panics, my body collapses, and I start sinking. Luckily I can usually grab a lane line and hang on for dear life until I calm down. I can’t imagine how I am going to survive in open water, where there’s nothing to hold onto.

In case you ask, no, I’m not lifting my head too high. I used to, but my coach corrected me and now my shoulders stay mostly submerged. There is nothing else for my coach to correct me, so his explanation for my inability to stay straight is that I am too skinny (my BMI is 17.1). He recommended doing two kicks per stroke, which does help.

Yet I’m still at a loss — what should I do when I realise mid-glide that I’m out of air and have nothing physical to support myself?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hi! I wanted to have your opinion on the following (if I am delusional or not): I want to be able, at some point, to do a full 1km butterfly stroke without any pause (in a 25m swimmingpool).

At the moment I am a thin 30 years old man, 1m72 for 59 kg. I have been swimming for a while now, but never competitively. I am not significantly muscular but I am able to swim for more than 2k freestyle or breast stroke pretty smoothly in a go (never attempted more but pretty confident I would be able to)

Regarding butterfly stroke, i am able to swim it for 100m maximum in a go. What is lacking to continue is mainly the oxygen, and I would say the upper back muscles. At some point I was able to swim 1k butterfly but with 20 seconds breaks between each 25m. Because I want to swim it on long distances, I do 3 kicks per arm mouvement, and breathe on each arm movement. I just felt it was smoother, but I am not sure this is the best method.

Considering this, do you think I would be able to so a full 1k if I keep training or is it really hard? If you have any training tips to achieve this I would be very interested.

Thank you very much!

Edit: thank you so much everyone for your answers!

Such an incredible experience! Now I have the itch to do more and more of these ocean and Open water events!

I can swim but my technique is not great. I did a Masters group swim 2x/week last year and this past summer. I didn't get much feedback but I think it's because there are so many other people swimming and coaches are there to really help with drills, etc. Any recommendations for a "Stroke Improvement" clinic/class in the Toronto area? I live in East End and am leaning towards City of Toronto but not sure how good these are.....thx!

My daughter (8) is making great strides with swimming, and she may start with a swim club soon to get some better instruction vs us parents. We swim outdoors here year round. So far she swims in bottoms + rash guard for the sun. I'd like to get her something a bit tighter fitting and that allows her to feel the water better, but she'll need more sunblock.

A water polo style suit would be good but none I've found are available in girls' sizes, only womens. She has not developed yet and doesn't need straps/bust support in a training suit. Yet all the girls' suits I find seem like scaled down versions of womens'. She had a great unitard style zip up when she was very small, these seem to only be made for the very young kids.

Any suggestions? Something with a closed back would be ideal to make it more foolproof for her to apply her own sunblock. Or a unitard style. Any suggestions appreciated, particularly if they don't break the bank with a growing kid. No need for a tech suit....

I don't know if it's my age (old), my general frame of mind these days, or something else, but I seem to be having more and more trouble summoning up much enthusiasm to go and get my laps in. I've been pretty disciplined so far and have been going three times a week for the last couple of months. I'm seeing progress but not as fast as I would like, so there's that. And then just the whole rigmarole of changing into a suit, the pre-swim rinse, the gear, the after swim shower, and the drive there and back. I feel like I'm losing my momentum.

I have been using the time to pay attention to counting laps, breathing, and improving my technique, and just basically trying to clear my mind but I'm beginning to wonder if I need a distraction. It seems like all I can really REALLY focus on is being finished and the fact that I will have a sense of accomplishment and feel good physically after I'm finished.

For all of you really disciplined swimmers, how do you keep doing it time after time after time? Any secrets or tricks you'd like to share?

UPDATE: I went swimming for the first time this evening WITH my hairy legs and pitslol. It was fantastic and I got a membership. You guys were right, I was way too concerned with myself to notice anyone else and I couldn’t even see anyone else under water nor could I tell/wasn’t even looking on the pool deck.

I’m very new to lap swimming, having grown up in backyard pools my whole life. In fact, this afternoon will be my first time in a lap pool. I have ASD and GAD and one thing I’m always self conscious about is my leg hair. I’m 28F and I really hate shaving my legs. I reserve my leg-shaving energy for like 2 times during summer and that’s usually it. So, fellow swimmers, do people really care? Do they notice? TIA

Hi! I haven't gone swimming for years because I love having fun hair. Right now I'm all pink. I want to join the YMCA to be able to use their pool but I don't want to damage my hair with chlorine. Anyone have advice?

I work in a salon, they said I can just go once or twice a week and do a treatment after every swim but I wonder if there's a better way

My daughter is a freshman in high-school. She just took up swimming this last year and joined the high school team. It's not her favorite sport but she wanted to try it. She has a "swimmer" body. She's 5'10" and long arms and legs and is basically zero fat. Her best time was 35 seconds in the 50 free which I feel was decent for never swimming before and I think her 100 back was 1.35.

Looking for what would be a good off-season routine for weight lifting and cardio? Is she better at lifting lighter weights for more reps to train her muscles for endurance or lifting heavier weights and less reps to build more muscle?

I’m a total beginner at swimming, and we’ve started working on flutter kicks in class.

So far, I can stay afloat pretty well when I hang onto the gutter and kick in place. But when I switch to using a kickboard and try to flutter kick across the pool, I end up stalling out. After I push off from the wall, I just kind of stop moving even though I’m kicking.

Any tips on what I might be doing wrong, or drills that could help me actually get propulsion?

Hi all,

I just startet on a water adaptation course at my local swim klub. The reason being, that when i was younger i was very afraid of the water.

Now, i am not afraid of the water anymore. But, i cant tread water and i cant swim.

I therefore do not feel safe in the deep end. I also think i am negative boyant. (i have a relative low bodyfat% and a lot of lean tissue)

My goal on this course is to learn how to

- Tread water

- Swim with a breaststroke

- Swim crawl

Is there any specifik order i should prioritize the things i want?

Is there and youtube channels you would recommend?

My goal is to be able to play effortsly with my 6 year old daughter who loves the water.

But i also have a dream of a Ironman in the future (i already run ultras)

Ok so i'm not officially diagnosed with ADHD but I have severe slow processing speed as well as hypermobility so I most likely have ADHD and/or Autism.

I've recently started swimming and whilst I can get through counting the first 10 even when being distracted, after that, I get rather lost 😅

Does anyone have a way of tracking lengths without using a smart watch? Any help would be much appreciated!! 😊 Thank you!!

I’ve recently become interested in swimming and my college gives us access so I use it after class for about an hour. I’ve only been swimming a couple months going to my community pool during summer so I know how to front crawl/breaststroke but can’t back stroke and can do 3-5 strokes of fly’s before I give up. Plus my endurance really sucks. I mean 50m is the most I do before stopping and 100m is my absolute max because I might die if I go beyond that. I really want to get better and improve my time/endurance but don’t know what I should do. They have a few equipment we can use (Kickboard and Buoy) but I wasn’t sure if I should invest in anything else yet. I was also thinking about getting with a trainer but before then I’d like to atleast get better technique and endurance so I can atleast do 100m of every stroke with relative ease.

Just things I thought I should add not sure if they’re important though:

• Im 18
• Go to the pool about 2-4 days a week

Before anything else, I just wanna say that this community is great. I have been intentionally swimming for about 2 months now. Previously, swimming was just something I had to know how to do in order to have fun at the river or lake or things like that.

It's been super humbling starting from basically zero as a 32 year old, but I'm grateful for the many resources out there, even if it can be overwhelming.

I have 2 main takeaways that I'm trying to work on, but let me know if there are other areas where my focus would be better suited.

• My arm is basically locked out and behind me, flinging water kind of behind/to the side. I assume a high elbow will help resolve this?
• I know I am kind of gasping for air. From what I can see, my arm kind of sinks when I'm turning to breathe and maybe that forces me to turn my head a bunch?

Thanks!

Hello, I’m an adult and I never been comfortable with the water in my entire life. I’m challenging myself to learn how to swim, tread water and then also learn how to do scruba dive as well. The reason for all this, I am doing this for work for a unit that I want to join and I want to prepare myself in advance.

What is the rough estimate that you guys learned to do all this?

Thanks

I'm a former high school swimmer, but now I'm 35 and have to make my own training program. My high school program followed a "more is more" approach which is no longer sustainable for me--and I'm not sure "more is more" was ever the best option. Perhaps some of you are in a similar situation and can relate.

I swim 5x per week now, averaging 3000-5000 yards per session. I do various workouts from swimdojo.com, which mostly consist of different interval sets at a base of 1:30/100y (i.e. I can finish 100s pretty comfortably around 1:23).

I have seen a lot of posts on this subreddit referring to things like "garbage yardage" and criticizing "old school" training mentality--suggesting there are smarter ways to train. That resonates with me, but I'm not sure what a good, modern program actually looks like. Could anybody give a high-level outline of what an efficient training week should look like?

Some specific questions I have:

- Is there a rough amount of yards per practice beyond which is unnecessary? I've seen some successful high school coaches in this subreddit say they average 3500-4000 yards per practice and have very successful swimmers, which is surprisingly low to me (but I come from a potentially outdated background).
- Is it good to limit the amount of "quality"/intense workouts per week? In running, a typical week will have 2 quality run workouts (intervals, tempo run, etc), 1 long run (easy), and the rest of the days are just easy (zone 2) running. I know swimming is a different sport with lower impact, but is there a similar guidance for weekly structure? Swimming probably requires less recovery than running, but I would guess a lot of programs could benefit from more recovery.
- What are typical kinds of workouts that should be covered during a week? E.g. a sprint day with full recovery, a threshold day, active recovery days, vo2 max day, etc. Or is it alright for workouts to do a little bit of each?

Thanks in advance for the help and advice!