Swimming

I'm tempted to ask if it can be front crawl and tumble turn only!

Slevless club swims were always frustrating when nobody else tumble turned.

If nothing else, it takes a good 2 - 3 seconds off each length.

Great excuse to buy more lollipops.

Eh?

Slevless club swims were always frustrating when nobody else tumble turned.

If nothing else, it takes a good 2 - 3 seconds off each length

we actually give people a bit of gentle encouragement once they are in the 3rd of our 4 lanes at our club sessions to start tumble turns, so its less of a problem there, people end up getting a bit slower for a few weeks, but it really doesn't take log to get the hang of if youy spend 5 minutes at the end of the session practicing while everyone else packs up the lanes.

Life has got easier since peoples new years resolutions have worn off as well!

@mikec you're supposed to exhale has you go round to stop getting a nose full of water, there are lots of decent videos on youtube instructing how to do them...

gentle encouragement

A foot on the head is gentle, right?

Lollipop sticks as splints.

Y U no urban first aid?

First open water swim of the year done, 25 minutes in the jubilee at about 8 degrees.

:) best swim of the year!

https://www.strava.com/activities/275358346

Went swimming for the first time in about a decade (other than holiday splashing in the sea) at lunch - very enjoyable, though shocking just how much I've lost it.

I have to say a lot of people seem to have very different opinions to me regarding what is "slow", "medium" and "fast" and there were of course the end of lane loiterers until I cleared them, but good all the same. I might brave the outside pool next time seeing as they appear to be quite rare in central London.

Did you go? It's best when in 50m mode. I used to train in the spare 50m pool they keep in the basement, great facility!

Getting back into occasionally swimming, today did a chopped version of an old kick pyramid I used to do... felt good.

I wanted to go but it was in short mode at the times I could make it. I'm in Manchester this weekend and it looks like it's 50m on sunday night so I might go along then.
Love that there's a spare pool in the basement. There's one at Crystal Palace too but it's about 5cm shallower than my front crawl.

Ace enjoy the 50m goodness. For info depending where in Mcr you are when visiting the new GLL pool at East Mcr (near velodrome/etihad) is lovely and quietish, plus they're opening another near S.Cemetery in June which should also be just as nice.

Ooh, thanks for the tip! East Mcr is a bit of a faff without a bike (I'm in Shudehill or Longsight, depending) but I like the sound of a new pool so I'll make the trip over at some point :)

53 bus from Longsight stops right outside the pool, else a good run-swim-run session?

Been swimming in Parly Hill lido, absolutely lovely, 10 degrees now, and hilarious - the old codgers (this includes me) ploughing up and down the pool while the slvlesses stand at the side, in their wetsuits, doing warm-up exercises, desperately trying not to look like they're terrified of getting into cold water.

Fair play to the slvlss for even turning up though!

I went in again on Monday and managed about 35 minutes, unfortunately not all swimming as the only other person from a list of 6 who said they were coming was a bit on the slow side and dicked about getting in.

I've always just gone for the dive in and get the cold bit out of the way quickly approach!

There is a terrible video of me at Tooting Lido in December - my friends and I counted to three and jumped in... except I didn't, I hung back in terror on the side and then made a really pathetic, late, leap in. Ah, good times.

Vids or it didn't happen...

Yo. Given that I started this thread (hi, it's dooks), It really is high time I got back in the pool. How's Crystal Palace of an evening? Anyone else use it? How are the lanes fro crowding etc?

I'm going to wait until May/Jume before hitting Brockwell Lido in the speedos. I don't care how weedy it makes me sound but I'm just not a big fan of toughing it out in freezing lidos and carrying a wetsuit about is a ballache.

open water lakes are beginning to open up around here, Liquid Leisure in Datchet opened at the weekend, and Marlow, Bray and Heron are due to open on the 25th April....

Happy Days!

@Apone I will certainly me waiting until June before I consider ditching the wetsuit for open water swimming, and whatever KL says it's not weedy, these things should be enjoyable, so anything that is needed to make it enjoyable should be embraced...

Swim paddles arrived (Speedo BioFuse Power Paddles in both M and L sizes) but not used yet (Friday hopefully).

Happy I read the reviews beforehand, the Large versions are absolutely enormous; about the size of an A4 sheet of paper.

Will start off on the Medium sized ones for short periods and build up slowly.

^^and^^^ - jessies.

@kl lol.. knew you'd be along soon enough!

I'm back to swimming 1km twice a week and loving it, been back since January and starting to feel really swim-fit, can do the 40 lengths front crawl pretty much without a break. But I'm frustrated that I don't seem to be getting any quicker and have just watched 2 videos on youtube that completely contradicted each other in terms of rotating your torso. One said you should swim as flat as you can (although the bloke in the vid did rotate a fair bit tbh) and the other one said that swimming flat can cause all sorts of shoulder problems and your belly button should be pointing towards the side of the pool in the middle of each stroke.
Any thoughts/ advice?
The upshot of the getting faster thing is that I think I'm just going to have to, you know, swim faster, as all the videos I've watched indicate that my stroke is pretty ok.

Don't worry too much about the stroke, it helps but if you are happy with it stick with it.
The best thing is to break your swims down into short hard sessions, so do a target distance in a set time (say 200 metres in 2 minutes) then have a 30 second break and repeat until you run out of time / steam. If it takes more than your target time after a few repeats have a ten minute easy swim and get out.
You might also try one length full speed. I mean really hard, then 3 easy ones and repeat this till you can't do any more!