Oh my god swimming hurts!!!

guilliano
guilliano Posts: 5,495
edited May 2010 in The bottom bracket
I went swimming before work today for about an hour and I realised pretty quickly that I am NOT swim fit! Stick me on a bike and I can happily do 70 miles. I will laugh and joke after running 3 or 4 miles (at a slow pace), but put me in a swimming pool and I am a wreck after 4 or 5 lengths! I really need to make a regular thing of it to improve my arm and core strength or I'll end up looking like a complete freak!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/guilliano/

Comments

  • Splottboy
    Splottboy Posts: 3,695
    Did you... Just add water...?
  • shockedsoshocked
    shockedsoshocked Posts: 4,021
    It's all about technique!
    "A cyclist has nothing to lose but his chain"

    PTP Runner Up 2015
  • guilliano
    guilliano Posts: 5,495
    ShockedSoShocked wrote:
    It's all about technique!

    Shut up...... swimming is hard, technique has nothing to do with it!
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/guilliano/
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    It really is all technique!

    I could barely swim a length of the crawl when I started getting stupid ideas about triathlon.

    I was soon up to 500m non stop, with no improvement in fitness, you just have to nail your technique and really concentrate on it.

    Then I realised triathlon is boring as hell and went back to cycling.
  • finchy
    finchy Posts: 6,686
    guilliano wrote:
    ShockedSoShocked wrote:
    It's all about technique!

    Shut up...... swimming is hard, technique has nothing to do with it!

    Swimming is everything to do with technique. I did a week of nothing but working on my technique using floats and I managed to get my personal best for a 25m length from 15 seconds down to 12 seconds.
  • guilliano
    guilliano Posts: 5,495
    Don't believe any of you..... I'm great and swimming is just hard!
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/guilliano/
  • Splottboy
    Splottboy Posts: 3,695
    I used to be a Lifeguard, Swimming Coach and swam for fun/fitness. Did Olympic length Triathlons too and I was easy...back then!

    Now, it IS harder, but "Good" Practice makes Perfect.

    Focus, Grasshopper, foucus...

    Become the Water...
  • Stewie Griffin
    Stewie Griffin Posts: 4,330
    guilliano wrote:
    Don't believe any of you..... I'm great and swimming is just hard!

    I'm with you, got out a pool on a sponsored swim as a teenager through boredom not being able to swim any further. Went a few years ago again, realised that I wouldn't be the man from Atlantis anymore but it was much harder than I thought it would be. Knackered my shoulders for days.
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    I try to go twice a week just so I don't end up looking like the chicken. 40 lengths non stop, so I can say I've done a kilometer. If I don't go for a couple of weeks, the next time in the pool is a struggle
  • BiggerBoat
    BiggerBoat Posts: 168
    Learning to swim properly is pretty straightforward, but swimming is totally fkn B O R I N G!
    We need a bigger boat.

    Giant OCR 4
    Trek Madone 5.2
    Ridgeback Speed (FCN 15)
  • crumbschief
    crumbschief Posts: 3,399
    Depends where you swim,around Amity Island it get's quite exciting.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,463
    I'm not the world's best swimmer but I can still jump in and swim a mile of breast stroke in an hour. However, I find swimming fast is hard and I've never managed to really manage crawl due to poor breathing technique. I also find swimming leaves me desperate for a pee (no, I'm not drinking the water!). Does get very boring though unless there's some "scenery" to make it more enjoyable.
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    I too never learnt front crawl, so my twice weekly lunchtime dips involve gruellingly inefficient breaststroke. And adult lane swimming at impington Village College doesn't seem to involve any "scenery". Quite a few clumst tw@ts who swim like harpooned whales, but no "scenery"

    I only do it because my pension's doing so badly I can't afford to die yet.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Swimmings just.....bollocks really. Cycling is much better.
  • toontra
    toontra Posts: 1,160
    I've been trying to learn how to swim for the past few months and it's bloody difficult, mainly because my lower half sinks like an anchor. I reckon it's something to do with having very muscly/non-fatty legs (and very little fat anywhere else either). I have to paddle like a maniac just to try and stay afloat.

    What really pisses me off is seeing gargantuan pensioners, barely able to walk, getting in and just lying back and floating, then dong a few lengths without getting out of breath. It's not bloody fair!

    a serious case of small cogs
  • ean
    ean Posts: 98
    I started swimming in January after a 25(ish) year break.In my teens I was a competent club swimmer. In January I could swim breaststroke marginally better then a brick and it felt wrong. Now I can do 2.5k breaststroke in 55 minutes and it feels much better. Breaststroke is all technique. I still can't string more than 5 lengths of front crawl together before needing to stop for a breather - more upper body and core strength required than technique.

    Swimming has been fun but cycling is better.
    The trees lie about the wind...
    www.wirralseafishing.co.uk
  • edhornby
    edhornby Posts: 1,780
    Pross wrote:
    I I also find swimming leaves me desperate for a pee.

    immersion diuresis - divers suffer from it too.... I agree what the others about swimming, and for that reason I wouldn't want to do a tri, it's just not enough bike riding
    "I get paid to make other people suffer on my wheel, how good is that"
    --Jens Voight

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