Swimming exercise program for beginners ?

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bodhi

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I'm relatively fit - get an intense workout each week when doing sport climbing.

Would like to start swimming as a form of exercise - climbing alone doesn't do it for me anymore

thanks - appreciate it
 
Good idea, I've started swimming recently, and frankly, doggy paddling is a bit embarrassing in a public pool.
 
Just start off slowly depending on your fitness level and raise the bar every two weeks or so. You will get to a stage where you will no longer get tired and can just carry on and on an on. I reached that stage at the 1.5km mark.
 
ponder said:
Just start off slowly depending on your fitness level and raise the bar every two weeks or so. You will get to a stage where you will no longer get tired and can just carry on and on an on. I reached that stage at the 1.5km mark.
Click to expand...

Currently, I start sinking at about 600m's. :p
 
ponder said:
Just start off slowly depending on your fitness level and raise the bar every two weeks or so. You will get to a stage where you will no longer get tired and can just carry on and on an on. I reached that stage at the 1.5km mark.
Click to expand...

thanks - looking for something else to increase my fitness levels. Climbing has been good - now for the swimming
 
copacetic said:
Currently, I start sinking at about 600m's. :p
Click to expand...

Dude, I started this year just after the Duzi canoe marathon as a mate just completed that and he wanted me to go do the Midmar mile with him. I told him I would first have to see how fit I was and went for a swim 3 weeks before the Midmar. I thought I was fit but that first swim I nearly had a frigging heart attack after 250m, got out the pool huffing and puffing feeling light headed, I had to sit down for 20mins to compose myself before walking back to my car a 100m away up a hill :D Needless to say I never bothered even trying the Midmar but I should be fine if I did it now, baby steps ;)
 
ponder said:
Dude, I started this year just after the Duzi canoe marathon as a mate just completed that and he wanted me to go do the Midmar mile with him. I told him I would first have to see how fit I was and went for a swim 3 weeks before the Midmar. I thought I was fit but that first swim I nearly had a frigging heart attack after 250m, got out the pool huffing and puffing feeling light headed, I had to sit down for 20mins to compose myself before walking back to my car a 100m away up a hill :D Needless to say I never bothered even trying the Midmar but I should be fine if I did it now, baby steps ;)
Click to expand...

Suddenly, I don't feel as unfit as I thought. :p

Baby steps, as you say, that's the key.
 
ponder said:
Just start off slowly depending on your fitness level and raise the bar every two weeks or so. You will get to a stage where you will no longer get tired and can just carry on and on an on. I reached that stage at the 1.5km mark.
Click to expand...

I used to do a 20min jog at gym and then swim 1.6km for training. Takes about 35mins to do the mile, but yeah, you get to that plateau where you can just keep on going at the same pace. It wasn't intense exercising, but helped a bit. I wouldn't know where to begin for intense swimming training.
 
I do this - as a beginner - mainly for surfing fitness but still:

  • 200m - slow warmup
  • rest until you feel human again
  • 4 x 25m sprints - 40s intervals (start timer, swim, 40s up swim again...etc. 40s isn't the resting time!)
  • rest again until the human returns
  • 3 x 100m - strong and steady, 3.5min intervals
  • rest
  • 3 x 50m sprints - 1.5min intervals
  • 100/200m - slow warmdown

Then just keep adding to this every 2-3weeks until you can do virtually double everything, then make the intervals shorter.

I gym also at the moment, so I'm not swimming enough. But if I was swimming only, I'd plan on doing just straight slow/steady laps racking up the meters on alternating days, then this sprint/strength workout on the other days.
 
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My problem with swimming was the breathing. I got really out of breath doing laps which meant I had to keep stopping. I was swimming for fitness so the stopping irritated me. I wanted to keep the work rate up.

I solved it by getting one of these: http://www.swimgear.co.za/freestyle_snorkel.htm - I bought it online and they delivered in a day or two. It solves the issue of loosing your breath so you can develop a good technique and pace etc. After about 3 months I started working on the breathing and it went much better.

In hindsight I would have bought the slightly different model: http://www.swimgear.co.za/swimmers_snorkel.htm because it is easier to do butterfly and breast stroke with this one. The one I have really only works for freestyle/crawl and after a few months of training with it I was onto learning butterfly properly.

Once you get the knack you can tumble turn with the snorkel. I've seen several of the Western Province swimmer using them to train.
 
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ponder said:
Dude, I started this year just after the Duzi canoe marathon as a mate just completed that and he wanted me to go do the Midmar mile with him. I told him I would first have to see how fit I was and went for a swim 3 weeks before the Midmar. I thought I was fit but that first swim I nearly had a frigging heart attack after 250m, got out the pool huffing and puffing feeling light headed, I had to sit down for 20mins to compose myself before walking back to my car a 100m away up a hill :D Needless to say I never bothered even trying the Midmar but I should be fine if I did it now, baby steps ;)
Click to expand...

I started training 2 months before the Midmar 3 days a week and managed to complete it relatively easy.

@OP you can use this for training http://www.midmarmile.co.za/training.php
 
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