I finally dragged myself reluctantly to the water for a 2000 y swim on Monday. Despite my long entry on swimming, for the first 500 y I couldn't remember anything I wrote about, so I kept thinking of Mr. Smooth.
Then I remembered the sinking exercise, so after my warm-up I did that. I'm sure the lifeguards judged me, but I had just swam 500 y successfully so I don't think they thought I was drowning. My conclusion: Yep, I really hate just chilling underwater. That whole "feeling peaceful" thing doesn't really happen to me and there was just no way I was getting my butt to stay on the floor of the pool. Needless to say, upon remembering this exercise I remembered the whole exhalation thing. Part of my workout consisted of a 4x300 so for that I worked specifically on the strong exhale thing and you know what? I felt pretty good because it relaxed me and gave me something else to focus on so I'll probably keep trying it. It makes being underwater so LOUD! haha
That being said, a few days later I told Brad about my exhaling and he was told precisely the opposite by some seasoned swimmers- that air in your lungs makes you more buoyant, it may make it easier to focus and.. oh, you know, the pros don't. AWESOME. Brad exhales into the water all at the last minute, ultimately creating that pocket of space next to him, making it easier to inhale and not gasp in water. I'm trying to find more writing on what he's talking about, but it seems that may be the more "elite" way of doing things and all this online literature is geared towards beginners. Brad did find a post from Olympian Gary Hall, Sr. on Slowtwitch about this whole topic. Here is what he said: "No matter what breathing pattern you use, keeping air in your lungs as long as possible is extremely important. The added buoyancy of the air in the lungs lifts the body in the water and reduces drag. Therefore one needs to burst exhale just before taking the next breath. In other words, don't trickle your breath out under water (except on backstroke off the wall to keep water from going up your nose). With a 2:3 pattern, so long as one is not using a super high stroke rate (mine is in the 60's...but I use a strong kick), there is time to take a good breath and exhale before taking a successive breath. No one gets a 'full' breath when swimming, nor exhales completely. There just isn't enough time for that. But getting a fresh load of oxygen in and CO2 out more often than 20 to 30 times per minute is physiologically desirable.....with the corollary that you do not slow your stroke rate too much nor drag your upper arm underneath you under water in the process. The former reduces inertia and the latter increases drag."
The contention kind of confuses me, but hey... I'll just keep trying different stuff until I'm faster, right? Right. Here is the whole thread in which people sort of hash out this issue.
In terms of the other topics: body roll is something I always think about, and generally fail at, but just keep swimming... right? I'll probably think about these core things tomorrow. I have to take things one step at a time.
Speaking of core, I have two goals for this summer: educating myself on healthy sports nutrition and incorporating strength training. So far I have lifted twice this week, and generally I'm aiming for 3x a week to start out.
I have also been working with our teams nutritionist Linda Samuels to better my diet. I'm already a pretty healthy eater, but now I'm learning the ins and outs of athletics and food. I'm also reading Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook which is surprisingly fascinating. Today I've learned all about fruits/vegetables as well as the truth about vitamins and minerals. It's a good book if you're into this sort of this thing - think about it.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
the swimming issue
I have one key thing to put in this post:
http://www.swimsmooth.com/
I hope this makes me faster. I'm going to watch it for hours.
Some other things I'm learning while reading about swimming (because it is 100% my weakest leg of a triathlon AND what makes me think I cannot continue triathlon for the rest of my life):
Exhalation
I swim with my mouth open, and that's how I exhale into the water. Whenever you are swimming, you should always be exhaling into the water except when you are inhaling to the side. Mouth or nose... doesn't matter it just needs to happen. It's also supposed to be pretty strong too - not some wimpy exhalation. All though I may think I'm doing this, after breathing most people hold their breath for 1 or 2 seconds before actually starting their exhale. It's important, however to keep exhaling because it keeps you relaxed and keeps tension to a minimum while swimming. When you hold your breath, you begin to feel a build up of CO2 which makes you desperate for air, but if you are constantly getting rid of it, you don't feel that desperation (and thus you don't tense up). Tension causes swimmers to want to lift their head and ruin their body position. Similarly, having full lungs actually screws with your body's position in the water by making your chest too buoyant and your legs sink, which is not ideal for speed because it causes drag.
So how do you learn how to exhale correctly? This cool sinking exercise that I'll probably do in the near future at make everyone at the gym pool judge me so hard core (it's about 2/3 of the way down the page).
Body Roll/Rotation
This is something that I know is supposed to happen and it happens when I breathe, but isn't really being well executed when I just swim. I always try to rotate and feel super weird, probably because my hips are rotating, but not my torso. Doing this correctly allows you to use larger muscles for power and elongates your stroke. The fun thing about body roll, is that you rarely see too much and, in fact, you want as much as possible while still keeping a nice rhythm to your stroke.
My question, is how best to practice this. The answer: kicking on your side. The problem: this makes me drown. Why? Because I'm an awful swimmer. Ah, what a conundrum. But a little fix is, while swimming, thinking about pushing your chest forward and your shoulder's back. I'm going to try that first and see what happens. That being said, I'm sure I'll also give this swimming on my side thing a second chance.
Using your core
Things to think about while you're swimming (while I'm swimming... you know, whatever)
1) Stretch through your core. Think about an elastic from your rib cage to pelvis and keep it taut while swimming.
2) Tighten your butt muscles. Don't get crazy now (no squeezing the hell out of your glutes)... but apparently it helps your kicking technique too!
3) Keep good posture! Remember that thing about chest out, shoulders back? Yeah do it. Stomach in. Shoulders back. Chest out.
Those are my words of wisdom/research for the day. I stole a book from my mom called The Fit Swimmer. It will be my next endeavor today.
http://www.swimsmooth.com/
I hope this makes me faster. I'm going to watch it for hours.
Some other things I'm learning while reading about swimming (because it is 100% my weakest leg of a triathlon AND what makes me think I cannot continue triathlon for the rest of my life):
Exhalation
I swim with my mouth open, and that's how I exhale into the water. Whenever you are swimming, you should always be exhaling into the water except when you are inhaling to the side. Mouth or nose... doesn't matter it just needs to happen. It's also supposed to be pretty strong too - not some wimpy exhalation. All though I may think I'm doing this, after breathing most people hold their breath for 1 or 2 seconds before actually starting their exhale. It's important, however to keep exhaling because it keeps you relaxed and keeps tension to a minimum while swimming. When you hold your breath, you begin to feel a build up of CO2 which makes you desperate for air, but if you are constantly getting rid of it, you don't feel that desperation (and thus you don't tense up). Tension causes swimmers to want to lift their head and ruin their body position. Similarly, having full lungs actually screws with your body's position in the water by making your chest too buoyant and your legs sink, which is not ideal for speed because it causes drag.
So how do you learn how to exhale correctly? This cool sinking exercise that I'll probably do in the near future at make everyone at the gym pool judge me so hard core (it's about 2/3 of the way down the page).
Body Roll/Rotation
This is something that I know is supposed to happen and it happens when I breathe, but isn't really being well executed when I just swim. I always try to rotate and feel super weird, probably because my hips are rotating, but not my torso. Doing this correctly allows you to use larger muscles for power and elongates your stroke. The fun thing about body roll, is that you rarely see too much and, in fact, you want as much as possible while still keeping a nice rhythm to your stroke.
My question, is how best to practice this. The answer: kicking on your side. The problem: this makes me drown. Why? Because I'm an awful swimmer. Ah, what a conundrum. But a little fix is, while swimming, thinking about pushing your chest forward and your shoulder's back. I'm going to try that first and see what happens. That being said, I'm sure I'll also give this swimming on my side thing a second chance.
Using your core
Things to think about while you're swimming (while I'm swimming... you know, whatever)
1) Stretch through your core. Think about an elastic from your rib cage to pelvis and keep it taut while swimming.
2) Tighten your butt muscles. Don't get crazy now (no squeezing the hell out of your glutes)... but apparently it helps your kicking technique too!
3) Keep good posture! Remember that thing about chest out, shoulders back? Yeah do it. Stomach in. Shoulders back. Chest out.
Those are my words of wisdom/research for the day. I stole a book from my mom called The Fit Swimmer. It will be my next endeavor today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)