We all have different preferences when in comes to fruit as some of us prefer apples while others prefer oranges. Exercising is no different as people are more likely to exercise when they are doing something they enjoy.
The weekly diary series on fitness with various hosts shall continue this week with some talk on my personal favorite form of fitness.
Swimming.
Jump with me, please
*I should note that I am not a personal trainer, or professional swimmer, just someone who likes to swim and has been doing this for along time
Swimming is movement in water, but you knew that already.
Swimming has been around forever. As long as humans could travel into the water, they have been trying to swim.
Swimming of course is limited to swimmable water, that is most often found in pools. Either community pools, or gym pools, and even these days in some schools. You can however swim in lakes, rivers and oceans.
FIRST ADVICE: USE GOGGLES. not matter where you are, or how good a swimmer you are, you life is easier when you can see where your going.
I highly recommend that you pay the money(probably more then the regular gym) to be able to use a pool.
WARNING those with long hair need a bathing cap. Pools have been known to kick you out if you don't have a bathing cap.
SECOND ADVICE: BUY a new swimsuit. Get rid of that baggy one you or that sexy bikini that you wore to the beach, invest in a well fitted bathing suit. (You can keep that other bathing suit.)
Joining a pool is generally worth the cost. It is positive to spend you money on yourself in the name of getting healthier.
Swimming makes a great additional or complimentary workout. Adding cross training to running, aerobic exercise to weight lifting and it is just plain fun.
and onto the strokes. (Not those strokes)
if you don't want to read about the front crawl, you can skip down to the dotted line. I won't be offended.
I'll begin with the most common stroke swam in American pools, the front crawl. The front crawl is also the fastest stroke, and the stroke that burns the most calories. With a little help from the wikipedia article on swimming I present to you the front crawl.
First a little history.
The front crawl was first seen in a competition held in 1844 in London, where it was swum by South American Indians, who easily defeated the British breaststroke swimmers (Breakthrough Swimming, Cecil Colwin(2002) Human Kinetics p 14).
and on to the stroke itself.
Technique
The first position for front crawl is on the breast,both arms stretched out to the front and both legs extended to the back.
The arm movement
The arm movement, while one arm is pulling/pushing, the other arm is recovering. The arm strokes also provide most of the forward movement. The move can be separated into three parts, the pull, the push, and the recovery.
From the initial position, the arm sinks slightly lower and the palm of the hand turns 45 degree with the thumb side of the palm towards the bottom. This is called catching the water and is in preparation for the pull. The pull movement follows a semicircle with the elbow higher than the hand and the hand pointing towards the body center and downward. The semicircle ends in front of the chest at the beginning of the ribcage.
The push pushes the palm backward through the water underneath the body at the beginning and at the side of the body at the end of the push.
Sometime after the beginning of the recovery of the one arm, the other arm begins its pull. The recovery moves the elbow in a semicircle in a vertical plane in the swimming direction. The lower arm and the hand are completely relaxed and hang down from the elbow close to the water surface and close to the swimmer's body. The beginning of the recovery looks similar to pulling the hand out of the back pocket of a pair of pants, with the small finger upwards. Further into the recovery phase, the hand movement has been compared to pulling up a center zip on a wetsuit. The recovering hand moves forward, with the fingers trailing downward, just above the surface of the water. In the middle of the recovery one shoulder is rotated into the air while the other is jumping backwards to avoid drag due to the large frontal area which at this specific time is not covered by the arm. To rotate the shoulder, some twist their torso while others also rotate everything down to their feet.
The leg movement
The leg movement in freestyle is called the flutter kick. The legs move alternately, with one leg kicking downward while the other leg moves upward. While the legs provide only a small part of the overall speed, they are important to stabilize the body position.
The leg in the initial position bends very slightly at the knees, and then kicks the lower leg and the foot downwards similar to kicking a football. The legs may be bent inward slightly. After the kick the straight leg moves back up. A frequent mistake of beginners is to bend the legs too much or to kick too much out of the water.
Ideally, there are 6 kicks per cycle, although it is also possible to use 8 kicks, 4 kicks or even 2 kicks.
Breathing
Normally, the face is in the water during front crawl with eyes looking at the lower part of the wall in front of the pool, with the waterline between the brow line and the hairline.
Body movement
The body rolls about its long axis with every arm stroke such that the shoulder of the recovering arm is higher than the shoulder of the pushing/pulling arm. This makes the recovery much easier and reduces the need to turn the head to breathe. As one shoulder is out of the water it reduces drag, as one shoulder falls it aids the arm catching the water, as one shoulder rises it aids the arm at end of the push to leave the water.
Side-to-side movement is kept to a minimum: one of the main functions of the leg kick is to maintain the line of the body.
Often people use flip turns when do the front crawl and others use just the wall turn.
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THE FLIP TURN
- sommersault by wall.
- push off wall.
- turn your body to the position you want and glide.
Wikipedia has great articles on Backstroke, Breast stroke, and butterfly strokes.
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And now for something slightly different
The swimming workout
The most common swimming work out is the lap swim. Swim from one of the pool to the other, or really just from one point to another. This provides you the ability to get your heart rate up and your muscles working.
About.com has some greatswimming workouts if you wish to change it up a bit and do something beside swimming laps. I'm sure there are other places online that have exercise plans for swimming.
You should start swimming with a warm up. This can be anywhere from 4 to 12 laps. These laps are generally done at a slow steady pace to get used to the water and get your form set.
The next step is to work on one part of your swimming at a time.
Part one use a kickboard to work on your kicks.
Part two use a floater between your legs to working on pullings using your arms.
Part three you can swim slower then you do normally to work on proper form and technique.
Then you should do some endurance or Speed work.
Followed by an easy cool down.
Happy swimming.
UPDATE
And for those who don't swimming laps user Lashe has some good advice.
If your gym/club/pool has classes, try it out.
If not, or if they're at times that just don't work for you, try some simple moves on your own.
(I have no background in training; these are just things I've done in the past while recovering from knee injuries to rebuild strength and fitness.)
1. Walk back and forth across the pool. Start at the shallowest part, and gradually increase depth to about mid-chest. It's simple, but the resistance makes it harder than you would think.
2. Dance while in the water.
3. Do some jumping jacks in chest-deep water.
4. Run back and forth. It will actually end up being a sort of bouncy jog; takes a lot more energy than you would expect!
5. Tread water. By changing up the types of kicks and arm motions you do, and alternating arms/legs/both, you can get quite a workout.
6. In shallower water, hold the side with one hand, and do one-legged squats. (Good when you are recovering from knee problems.)
7. Use a float board (or beach ball, noodle, what have you) to support/stabilize your upper body, throw in an occasional lap, just kicking down and back.
8. With your back to the side, arms out, holding on to the edge, use your abs to lift your legs straight out, toes pointed. Hold for a 5-10 count; repeat.
* With legs out, sweep your right leg to the side as far as you comfortably can, return to the center, and repeat with the left leg. Sweep both legs out at the same time, then bring them back together.
* With legs out, bend your knees up and bring your thighs to your chest.
Marksb has some good advice
Everyone I suggest this to says "Oh, I'm not that good!" But a Masters workout has slow lanes, medium, and fast. You can start in a slow lane and there's a coach who is trained to teach you how to swim efficiently and will help you get not only faster, but help you minimize injuries.
Go the US Masters site and have a look, then go to a local workout if there's one nearby. You'll find great, supportive people at the pool.
Go give them so mojo down thread.