Hello everyone, I had a few questions about becoming a stronger swimmer.

I used to swim a lot when I was a child, and during the last couple of years I've rediscovered the passion, and go swimming often in the nearby Mayo River (Pools are good for training, but when it comes to recreational swimming I prefer wild water) and I thought myself a strong swimmer. But then I got proven wrong when I tried to swim in the (much wider, deeper and faster) Dan River, got to around the middle of the river and was swept a couple of hundred feet downriver until I managed to get to a tree branch. I then was forced to furiously swim against the current in between tree branches so I could grab onto them and get my strength back before making for the next one (the shallowest water there was around five feet and the banks were sheer slopes, so this was my only option) and finally getting back to the dock, exhausted and humbled.

Now, on retrospect, the water was a bit high from recent rainfall, but I still thought I should've been able to do better than that. And some people I've told about that have told me that if I wasn't a strong swimmer, I might not have gotten out of there alive. Maybe they're right...but I still want to be a stronger swimmer, and manage to at least go across the Dan and back before the end of warm weather (I'm in the South, so that'll be until around the middle of October).

So, I resolved to do this by going to the local YMCA where I used to have swimming classes as a child. I go there every day and:

-Swim 1/2 a mile, which is 32 laps by my calculations. Mostly front crawl (that's the best for building strength, right?) with a few backstrokes thrown in. I take a moment to get my breath back in between each lap (maybe 20-30 seconds) and take a couple minutes break every four laps, and around 4-5 minutes when I'm half through.

-Go down to the deep end (12 ft) and dive down to the bottom and back 20 times, taking a minute or two every five.

-Go to the weight room and work on various muscles. A guy there told me that if I'm in the weightroom every day, I should alternate muscle groups, so I make it arms and chest one day, legs and back the next. I have been careful starting out and usually just go to a few different machines and do 3 sets of 10, usually set at a hundred pounds.

-Go home and have a nice proteiny lunch.

I've been doing this for around three weeks now (but haven't been able to lately cause the pool's closed for maintenance. They open again on Tuesday though.) Already, I have noticed that the swimming keeps taking me less time, and I don't need as much recovery time between laps anymore. Also there has been a noticable bit of growth in my upper arms and calves (probably from pushing up off the bottom during my diving exercise).

Now, my questions.

First of all, is this a decent workout?

Second, will front crawl give me the strength I need for the Dan? Or shouldl I put in some other styles as well? I'm not very good at the breaststroke (odd, since I remember it being my favorite as a child) and I just cannot get the hang of the butterfly.

Third, I assume arms, legs, chest and back are the important swimming muscles? Or am I missing a group?

Sometimes I see guys in the weightroom holding this wooden pole up on their shoulders and swinging their torsoes from side to side. What's up with that? Is that something I should be doing?

And this is the main one; how much of a concern is over-working muscles? I have heard that if you work them too hard it can stunt their growth; how much is too much? I ask because we're talking about an exercise session after I've just been working all my muscle groups for about an hour...Is the three-sets-of-ten routine enough? Or could I do more?

Hi Holder,

I'm a bit of a noob here too and I'm not sure I'm all that qualified to answer you questions directly but I'll throw this out there anyway.

My goal for a hard swim workout has always been to do a mile in one session, and I've attained that on and off several times over the years. I'm not particularly athletic for the most part but I don't know too many peeps that can swim a mile and when I first started swimming for fitness in my early 20's, the mile was my goal. After several months of gradually improving my endurance, I got to the point where I could do a mile in about 36 minutes, half freestyle, half breast stroke. I'm not surprised that you're already feeling less need for resting between laps and I'm sure this will continue to improve.

I've fallen off the wagon and hopped back on several times in the last 25 years, but I'm now back to having the stamina to do a mile again (now more like 40 minutes). I still take a breath or 2 between lengths here and there but it's pretty much a non stop session once I get going.

In recent weeks, I've dialed it back to 1/2 mile or so but after the 20 minutes or so of laps, I now work on some drills to improve my efficiency and smoothness. I'm also doing some drills that I hope will assist in learning to butterfly. This is a bit less intense of a workout than the full mile but I want to become a BETTER swimmer so the endurance is less important right now. I like doing the breast in addition to free because it works different muscles and same for butterfly when I get to that point, so I DO think mixing up strokes is a good idea from that standpoint.

I've never tried to do any serious swimming in open water...all of mine has been in pools...but I'm sure more nonstop stamina will aid you greatly in that environment. As for the non swimming work, I'm just not the guy to ask. To me, if you want to be a better swimmer, SWIM!.... and perhaps a lesson or 2 to improve what you're doing (this worked WONDERS for my freestyle last winter).

Not sure if any of this was helpful but I hope you reach you goals man.

Tim

Hi Tim, nice to get a response.

Well, my routine has changed somewhat since I posted here last. First of all, I'm proud to say that a few weeks ago, I did manage to accomplish my goal of crossing the Dan.

With my training goal accomplished, I decided to go down from a half mile to a quarter mile a day. And suprisingly, I actually found this to be a better workout! I think it's because with only 16 laps instead of 32, I don't have to conserve my strength as much and can just power through it. Whatever the reason, I can feel it a lot more in my muscles when I get out of the pool than I used to.

I also stopped doing the dive-down-twenty-times routine, since I didn't really think that was doing much good, being mostly just kicking and floating.

Improvements I've noted since my last post; much faster front crawl, more stamina, and my lungs have gotten better. I can front crawl the length of the pool and only breathe once or twice. And occasionally not a single time!

The biggest change though, is that now I only swim every other day. This came from the advice of a large fellow in the weightroom. He said that if I was looking to get stronger the best thing to do would be alternate days between swimming and weight training, so as to have full energy for each one (he also showed me the proper form on the lifting techniques I was attempting). And he was right, with the extra energy to spend in the weightroom, I'm doing much better (though I quit the leg exercises; my legs are quite muscular, it's my upper body that needs work).

Still can't figure out what's up with the shoulder-poles, though.

Well I'm glad to hear you're fine tuning your routine and that it's "working" for you.

Wednesday I got to work again with a swim instructor for an hour and much to my surprise, he said I'm actually WELL on the way to doing a butterfly. He had some advice for fine tuning but it was very reassuring to hear that I'm apparently on the right track.

As of today the pool is closed for some minor repairs so I will have access to the weight room until the pool re-opens late next week, so I'm planning on some work on abs and upper body stuff. I'm not generally in to weight training but I need to stick with SOMEthing while the pool's being worked on LOL.

Once it re-opens, my plan is to try to keep concentrating on form and smoothness. I get noticeably winded after about 25 lengths and I find it hard to keep my body position and timing where they should be. Hopefully with the drill work I'll be incorporating some butterfly work as a part of the lap workout but I'm still not quite "there" enough with that stroke....one length about KILLS me LOL.

Good luck on the butterfly. I've been trying it a few times lately and I think I might be able to do it soon.

I've recently started a much more vigourous regime. In sets of four, with 1-2 minutes between each set:

4 sets of alternating front crawl/backstroke.

1 set of breaststroke

1 set of sidestroke

I do this four days a week, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednsday and Sunday are weights, and Saturday is off.

Alternating front crawl and backstroke, I've found, helps me get through the set faster because I can get my breath back from the front crawl while I'm doing the backstroke. And in all, this plan gives me a better all around workout (it's doing wonders for my shoulders).

Sounds like a great routine, man! Glad you're able to get to the pool so consistantly. My problem is that I travel for a living, usually gone 2-4 days a week, so 2-3 days/week swimming is usually the max I can do. Let us know when you get the butterfly down. I'm curious if it is as much of a struggle as it has been for me.

(Sep 3, 2011 4:04pm)HolderOfTheEnd Wrote:  Hello everyone, I had a few questions about becoming a stronger swimmer.

I used to swim a lot when I was a child, and during the last couple of years I've rediscovered the passion, and go swimming often in the nearby Mayo River (Pools are good for training, but when it comes to recreational swimming I prefer wild water) and I thought myself a strong swimmer. But then I got proven wrong when I tried to swim in the (much wider, deeper and faster) Dan River, got to around the middle of the river and was swept a couple of hundred feet downriver until I managed to get to a tree branch. I then was forced to furiously swim against the current in between tree branches so I could grab onto them and get my strength back before making for the next one (the shallowest water there was around five feet and the banks were sheer slopes, so this was my only option) and finally getting back to the dock, exhausted and humbled.

Now, on retrospect, the water was a bit high from recent rainfall, but I still thought I should've been able to do better than that. And some people I've told about that have told me that if I wasn't a strong swimmer, I might not have gotten out of there alive. Maybe they're right...but I still want to be a stronger swimmer, and manage to at least go across the Dan and back before the end of warm weather (I'm in the South, so that'll be until around the middle of October).

So, I resolved to do this by going to the local YMCA where I used to have swimming classes as a child. I go there every day and:

-Swim 1/2 a mile, which is 32 laps by my calculations. Mostly front crawl (that's the best for building strength, right?) with a few backstrokes thrown in. I take a moment to get my breath back in between each lap (maybe 20-30 seconds) and take a couple minutes break every four laps, and around 4-5 minutes when I'm half through.

-Go down to the deep end (12 ft) and dive down to the bottom and back 20 times, taking a minute or two every five.

-Go to the weight room and work on various muscles. A guy there told me that if I'm in the weightroom every day, I should alternate muscle groups, so I make it arms and chest one day, legs and back the next. I have been careful starting out and usually just go to a few different machines and do 3 sets of 10, usually set at a hundred pounds.

-Go home and have a nice proteiny lunch.

I've been doing this for around three weeks now (but haven't been able to lately cause the pool's closed for maintenance. They open again on Tuesday though.) Already, I have noticed that the swimming keeps taking me less time, and I don't need as much recovery time between laps anymore. Also there has been a noticable bit of growth in my upper arms and calves (probably from pushing up off the bottom during my diving exercise).

Now, my questions.

First of all, is this a decent workout?

Second, will front crawl give me the strength I need for the Dan? Or shouldl I put in some other styles as well? I'm not very good at the breaststroke (odd, since I remember it being my favorite as a child) and I just cannot get the hang of the butterfly.

Third, I assume arms, legs, chest and back are the important swimming muscles? Or am I missing a group?

Sometimes I see guys in the weightroom holding this wooden pole up on their shoulders and swinging their torsoes from side to side. What's up with that? Is that something I should be doing?

And this is the main one; how much of a concern is over-working muscles? I have heard that if you work them too hard it can stunt their growth; how much is too much? I ask because we're talking about an exercise session after I've just been working all my muscle groups for about an hour...Is the three-sets-of-ten routine enough? Or could I do more?

Thats not even close to a really hard workout try doing 16x50yds(or 2 laps) which is the same yardage amount and it helps build muscle more quickly.diving to the bottom is not good for you it will mess with your head spend that time doing something important like weights or swim more.