Swimming

I have used nose clips in the past for the same reason. I kept losing or breaking them and decided to learn to not get water in my nose.
As I do tumble turns and front crawl it took some practice and now I don’t suffer with it at all. The trick is to always breathe out through your nose when your face is in the water. It’s second nature now but it took a lot of conscious effort for a few sessions.

My current favourite place.

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You could try using a neti pot to rinse your sinuses

Thanks. Was a nose clip helpful when you did use them? I might give them a try for a bit as I only really get to swim once a week, max.

Just looked that up. Interesting, does it work for you?

They certainly keep water out of your nose but it means all your breathing is through your mouth, which is what I had to unlearn to ultimately fix the problem. The speedo wire nose clip was the best by miles if you are going to get one.

Help needed on freestyle kicking. I’ve started swimming again after years of not being in a pool (but decades ago I swam 4-5 times a week). I do 80-100 lengths, freestyle, non stop of a 25m pool, and tend to be the fastest person in the pool, so I’m not a complete numpty.

However, if you give me a float and ask me to kick, I make basically no progress. A single length is a struggle. My “kick only” is so massively at odds with my full stroke. I’m (relatively) skinny and make progress with a long reach and being smooth in the water - it’s not like I have massively powerful shoulders that can power me through.

I can’t translate any of the stuff written about kicking into actual practise (start at hip, not too deep, blah blah)

Thoughts? I’m thinking I need to find a coach type person just to have a look. I don’t get how I can be reasonably competent generally, but just totally and completely useless in kicking.

I’m much the same. I used to swim a 6 beat kick and probably still would if I was racing short distances but now do a 2 beat kick and it adds next to nothing to my speed. It does keep my hips up, and encourages me to point my toes, so it does improve my speed even if it adds very little propulsion. I can’t be bothered with kick drills but that would be the solution.
There’s a woman who swims in the same pool as me and her kick is so powerful when she goes by you can see the turbulence from her feet. She does 8 lengths to my six and I swear it’s down to her kick.

Yep - I think what I do really helps with positioning and streamlining, and also body rotation when breathing. I’ve tried swimming with a float between my thighs, and not kicking, and it’s super hard work.

I can’t be bothered with kick drills but that would be the solution

Not for me - as drills assume you can actually make forward progress, and just want to improve on that!

I found that using fins really helped me find a better kicking technique.

Go to a club session?

Masters swimming usually has a coach attached and is,like cycling, viewed as odd but appears to be welcoming.

May be of interest, just received an email stating :
Wandsworth Council and Places Leisure have announced that the newly refurbished Tooting Bec Lido will reopen on Monday 18 December 2023.

Ooo, exciting!

£45 for a single swim is a bit silly but I've got a day of leave to use up and it's tempting...

I'd like to improve my technique. I can swim for a couple of miles but I'm fairly sure my stroke is rubbish. Anyone happen to have any recommendations for some sort of coaching? Either City or Barnet.

I went along to a trial with Copthall Masters once but they are all way better than me and I think I want something with a lower ratio to start with.

I'd probably just start with a private lesson at your local pool (if they offer any form of swimming lessons). Let them know your level (e.g. "I'm happy to do 40+ minute long swims at xx:xx/100m and am looking for advice on improving technique") just so they don't assign you someone who thinks you're an adult wanting to learn to swim from scratch.

Most swimming teachers are perfectly capable of giving someone advice after watching them swim up/down a few lengths. A 30 minute private lesson will be easily enough to get an initial analysis, try you out on some drills to correct a few things or focus on a few parts, and then leave you with a list of things to try in your next trips to the pool.

My last private lesson the instructor said he could give me a list of 50 things (of diminishing importance) that could help me but best to take the top 5 and focus on those for a good block of time and then come back when I was confident I'd made good progress on all of them.

(Mine were things like:

• Longer glide and better hand position for the catch
  
• Bilateral breathing - I tend to breathe every 4 strokes so I was favouring breathing to one side which meant I was crabbing slightly which creates more drag
  
• Ditch the pull buoy - learn to use my legs gently for distance swims
  
• Kick drills to build up technique and strength in the legs rather than just dragging them through the water with a pull buoy
  
• Using paddles to build up shoulder strength
  
  

I still - 4 years since that lesson - haven't got all of those things sorted.)

2024 Swim Serpentine date announced as Sep 14th 2024

Should really go to the pool, last visit was in October.

I've been hassling the Serpentine club for literally years to get membership, and I rarely get a response, and when I do they just say they're not accepting anyone. Any tips?

Does anyone here remember the Bronze / Silver / Gold / Honours swimming awards from way back (as in the 80s)?

I was just looking at the Swim England criteria, and I'm sure they've changed since the then - the Honours distance, for example, is 500m, whereas my vague memory is that it used to be measured in the 000s.

Yes my recollection is 1600 for bronze

I remember getting my 1500 badge… it was in a pool shorter than 25m so I have no idea how I kept count for that many lengths!

Those swim England awards look more like gymnastics than swimming!

I remember them sown onto my trunks, but can't remember the distance progressions...

13 and a bit weeks until Swim Serpentine.

First time in the pool today since October 2023. Did a whopping 400m before my shoulders were empty (this is usual for me, I should be back to 3km swims within a month or so).

10, 25, 50, 100, 400, 800, 1500 iirc 10 was a seal and 1500 a stingray.

Anyway, a relay team did the first-ever swim from Eastbourne to Dieppe this week, 39 hours. This is a monstrous swim, 3-4 Channel equivalent. Given that people have already done 3-way Channel swims, could this mean we'll see a first solo challenger for this route, now it's been proven possible?

I'm sure Diane Nyad would come out of retirement for it ;)
Have we talked about that film in here yet? I'm glad to see such an epic swimming achievement documented with a nice Netflix budget. Even though I found the green screen swimming shots a bit jarring and the story was obviously jazzed up for NETFLIX DRAMA, it was a really good watch.