How far can you swim?

[PerroneFord]

You're not supposed to glide after each stroke??? :dropmouth

I think he means to the bottom of the pool. I know that's where I would be right now if I tried gliding without my BC on.

 

[EricJ]

You're not supposed to glide after each stroke??? :dropmouth

Yes, swimmers (as oppossed to non-swimmers) glide after each stroke. This is especially important when swimming longer distances. Gliding off the wall is especially important. I notice lots of novice swimmers start their stroke immediatly after they push off the wall, hence losing all the momentum they achieved from their push off.

 

[Diver0001]

Yes, swimmers (as oppossed to non-swimmers) glide after each stroke. This is especially important when swimming longer distances. Gliding off the wall is especially important. I notice lots of novice swimmers start their stroke immediatly after they push off the wall, hence losing all the momentum they achieved from their push off.

Ah, I see. I was gliding and I suddenly got this sinking feeling (pun intended) that I was doing something wrong

You see, I taught myself how to swim when I was young. When i learned how to scuba dive I realized that, while I was able to move forward, my technique was so bad that it differed little in appearance to someone who was drowning with a howling baboon riding on their back.

I've always loved being in water and I spent a lot of time in and on water but I just never learned how to swim with proper technique when i was little. When I took my OW certification in 1985 I managed with super human effort not to die during the swimming test. In the years after that I thought I learned how to swim but it wasn't until I took my DM that I really took it seriously and got someone to show me how to swim with proper technique. A few hours of training doubled my speed and since then I've learned to swim at respectable speeds with fluent technique.

But it wasn't easy. In that sense I can really appreciate the problems people have with learning how to swim.

R..

 

[DavidHickey]

Yep I think my problem is the same as yours. I never really LEARNED how to swim, it just came about from being in the water usually in small pools. My technique has always been to hold my breath swim under water as far as I could and then surface for a breath and do it again. And for the past 20 years I would usually have fins and snorkel and mask if I was in the water. No real training on how to properly swim on top of the water. I honestly do not think I ever even tried swimming a lap until my dive classes. Was really no reason, I was usually in the water for fun, snorkeling, or just hanging out having a good time treading water and kicking around in a tiny pool. I think I might try joining a YMCA and take some lessons. Imagine that I now live on a lake and can't even do a breast stroke!!! Matter of fact I think thats what about killed me in the 200 yard swim. I got in the water and did not even have a plan on how I was going to do it since I was use to swimming under water "the only way they said you cannot do it" so I tried the breast stroke and quickly wore myself out since I had never really practiced it much over the years. But I did it!!!! Imagine it would be easier with a little practice and proper technique!!!

 

[DavidHickey]

One more quick comment, someone mentioned it being a small pool to have to do 16 lengths. It was a small pool in the dive center. I think I would have been alot better off if it was in a lake or something and they said see the finish line down there. Swim from point A to B and your done. But even though they said do not count they would do it for you, I found myself counting off every length and remember it seeming like I would never get done. I think psychologicaly one long swim may have made it easier for me then the back and forth deal. Thinking about it even physically since at each wall you had to stop turn around and lose your momentum.

 

[Scuba]

Being one of those that didn't learn proper swimming technique when young, I can certainly appreciate the difference in effort and energy required between a swimmer using proper technique and one with poor technique. When one is comfortable in the water and practiced in good technique even a relatively out of shape person can swim quite a ways. On the other hand, no matter how physically fit a poor swimmer may be, he will not go very far before tiring out. A good swimmer may swim 200 yds in 5 minutes expending X amount of energy. At the same time a poor swimmer may take twice as long or more to swim the same distance but will have spent several times the amount of energy.

In terms of determining fitness level, this is why a swim test is so subjective and unreliable as a measure of fitness when comparing swimmers of disparate skills.

The weather here can be very hot often times. The simple of act of gearing up and suiting up in a 5 to 7 mil wetsuit under the hot sun and heat, in addition to the short walk to the entrance stairs, along with any possible delays in entering the water, can quickly cause a diver some degree of dehydration. Take a diver who is not well hydrated, maybe tired, and not in the best of shape, and this alone can cause significant energy depletion that may later come into play.

 

[PerroneFord]

Being one of those that didn't learn proper swimming technique when young, I can certainly appreciate the difference in effort and energy required between a swimmer using proper technique and one with poor technique.

Before the thunder and lightning cut my pool session short tonight, I got a chance to try to new swimming trainnig gizmos. One is a modern kickboard, the other is something called a pull buoy.

If you remember back to primary school, or watching kids in a pool, they had those "boards" of styrofoam that you could swim around the pool on just kicking to your hearts content. Well, fast forward to 2005. Those lumber like boards are the bane of modern swim coaches it seems, but there is a modern iteration that promotes proper swim technique. So I bought one and tried it tonight. It has 4 hand hold positions designed to teach you to streamline yourself in the water. It's not very bouyant so if you put much weight on it, you sink! It's designed to teach you to lay flat in the water, kick properly, and stay streamlined. Worked very well, but nearly drowned myself because I still don't have my breathing rythm down yet!

Second gizmo is a pull buoy. This molded styrofoam fits between your upper thighs and immobilizes your legs in the water. This thing is going to be a Godsend for me and other poor swimmers. Essentially it floats you at your hips, like a good swimmer would do, and keeps you from sinking. It immobilizes your legs and allows you to just concentrate on swimming with good stroke technique with your upper body (where 80+% of your swimming power comes from) and you have time to work on gliding, breathing, etc. without feeling like you are about to sink like a stone.

Even though I only got a few minutes with this tool, I was able to work on my hand entry (fingers together, thumb enter first on a downangle), work on rolling my upper body as I pulled which is important to getting power from your stroke, and was able to work on trying to breathe properly which is the primary reason poor swimmers can't swim on the surface.

The Pull Bouy is about $15 and the kickboard is about $20. Here's some links to what I got if anyone is interested, but there are various kinds out there.

Zura Sprint Board
http://www.thesportsauthority.com/sm-zura-sports-sprint-board--pi-1788623.html

Pull Buoy:
http://www.thesportsauthority.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1788641&cp=1796467&parentPage=family

 

[ktrjc]

I did the swim in an olympic sized pool at college, the instructor said to keep track of you laps and when you are done get out of the pool. I was a decent swimmer and did 3/4 face down, then the last 1/4 on my back, then I was extremely tired. When I was done I was amazed to see most of the people in my class had finished prior to me. Later on in class I overhead a few people say how tired they got after swimming half of the required laps so they just quit, got out of the pool and sat down. Spoke to the instructor about this and he apologized for it happening and stated he thought college students could be trusted to complete this without cheating. I hate cheaters.

 

[barc802]

I did the swim in an olympic sized pool at college, the instructor said to keep track of you laps and when you are done get out of the pool. I was a decent swimmer and did 3/4 face down, then the last 1/4 on my back, then I was extremely tired. When I was done I was amazed to see most of the people in my class had finished prior to me. Later on in class I overhead a few people say how tired they got after swimming half of the required laps so they just quit, got out of the pool and sat down. Spoke to the instructor about this and he apologized for it happening and stated he thought college students could be trusted to complete this without cheating. I hate cheaters.

I have seen and heard of this also, I agree! It happened to me during my DM class. but then i found out that our instructor had us do double the amount of laps so the people that stopped early really passed the required laps.

 

[Rick Murchison]

I was DM for a SSI shop that told the instructors that they were not to do the swim test!

What shop?
When?
Rick