I believe that fingers together, mean you are moving more water, and see people who are much faster than me with their fingers together. I do crawl with my fingers together, however, when I was experiencing forearm/elbow pain, I purposefully kept my hands in a relaxed open finger position.
Yes, from all I’ve read about swimming technique. Keeping fingers together is old school. Good information here: http://forums.usms.org/
Fins will make your kicks slower and much more powerful ( a completely different swim than a normal swim ). I've never used fins for fitness, just for going long distances.
I have hand paddles and stopped using them because of perceived strain on my arms, shoulders, elbows.
I had to resort to Measuring distance on Google maps.When I first tried them (short training fins) last week I was 3 months out of swim shape, so I quickly abandoned them for now, because it’s very noticeable when you have them on. However once I’m back up to speed (almost there), I’ll revisit using these.
As far as the length of the pool you maybe right, none of the guards seem to know if it is yards or meters.
The image I posted might be misleading. You have to realize that your toes stick out the holes, so they are not much larger than your feet, but those you posted look interesting.
I don't know how to swim.
It's mostly about confidence, initially.
If you are used to compression trunks, the fabric flapping and drag is noticeable and annoying.
Where I live in Houston there are 3 pools within 4 miles of my house. Two of those pools offer Silver Sneakers which can be found in some Medicare secondary insurances. Yes you are paying for it, by virtue of the Secondary Insurance, but since you might want the secondary insurance anyway which covers what Medicare does not, it feels like it is free, a great value for seniors. These pools are indoors, and as far as crowding, not too bad. My primary pool has 5 lanes and is 75 meters. I think more people want to do the gym, instead of the pool and I rarely face waits to get a lane.
Swimming 2022
Any swimmers here? I know of at least one @A.Goldberg. I’m 6 years swimming, I used to run, until knees, and then I walked, until back, and I remember thinking, ok, I’m just going to get fat now. But somehow swimming came to my attention. I had not swam since the days I was preparing to go into the Navy. Really running was my thing until cruel life forced a change and swimming saved me, it saved my physically active life Is what it did.
Swimming is the old folks exercise as well as young people‘s. The oldest person in my pool is 95, bunches in the range of 60-90. Generally speaking, I can jump in the pool and work out hard without hurting myself. I imagine most people can with some caveats. If your knees are torn up there might be issues, but you will avoid impact stress on both your knees and back. I have degenerative disk disease, my back can bother me when I take the trash to the curb, but it feels fine, as I bound out of the pool after a 90 minute session.
I started about 7 years ago. I started struggling through 20 laps. During the way up I experienced both elbow and shoulder issues, for a while wore straps on my bicep and forearm but those issues went away, not sure way, perseverance? Maybe my technique got better? Honestly I’m not 100% certain, but one day when my shoulder was bothering me during a swim, I decided after to go to the weight section and see how it felt lifting light weights. Surprisingly my shoulder felt fine, and I decided I would devote more time to weights along with my swimming. This has paid off, since then no elbow or shoulder issues.
I slowly worked my way up to 70 laps (briefly), but then quickly realized that was too much and cut back to 50 laps (100 lengths of the pool). I do 6 sets of 8 laps +2 to make it 50 (2500 meters), with a variety of strokes, side, breast, and crawl (freestyle) Mixing it up. My reasoning is that I don’t want repetitive motion injury and I think the variety helps.
I have some effective flippers which I use for about 14 laps, split up throughout the 50 laps. They make a significant difference for your legs. Note not all flippers are the same, the cheap silicon, lap flippers are not as effective. Arena brand is effective and reasonably priced. I use a lap snorkel for about 14 laps when I use my flippers, this because I started coming out of the pool with a sore neck. Too much neck rotation during freestyle swimming. A better technique also helps with that. And I have some hand paddles that I use for 8 laps. The caution there is don’t overdo those, work up your arm muscles slowly or you can create shoulder issues if you go too crazy with them.
My major dissapointment is that I am doing more exercise, putting out more effort time wise, then I did when I was young, but showing less for it. I’ve built some muscle, but my weight is still 218, 58 lbs above my running prime, at 71% lean body mass. At my age of 69, calories intake counts more than burning calories. I can burn 500 calories in the pool and wipe that out with one dessert, although that still is a 500 calorie net loss, it could be 1000 calories if I could get the sugar monkey off my back, a life long addiction.
My final tip is that to keep your goggles clear of fog, instead of purchasing an anti-fog product, at the end of a swim, you can simply put a small drop of shampoo on each lense, smear it around with your finger, let it sit a few minutes, and then give them a light, short (2 second) rinse with water. Then I toss them in my net bag and let them dry until the next swim.
I remember the issues you were having and glad you got beyond them!Congratulations on your achievements! I remember when you first started this journey. Must feel good to see how far you’ve developed. It also shows it’s never too late to pick up a new skill. It really is a lifelong sport. I’m glad to see you’re less reliant on fins than you used to be.
Really the only major thing you have to worry about with prolonged swimming is shoulder issues, particularly if you have improper technique, but it’s not like other sports.
One of the biggest problem I see with people’s freestyle technique and the easiest to fix is rotating the head too far out of the water while breathing (and/or not turning their head at a perfect right angle, rather looking sideways and upwards). This makes A LOT more work for yourself moving through the water, ruins your balance in the water, etc. It can also induce neck/shoulder pain. In reality you *barely* need to lift your head or if the water. Just enough to basically move your lips in the desired direction to break the surface of the water to have just enough space to not suck in water.
I tend to go early in the morning so I’m primarily surrounded by older folks (I’m in my early 30’s, a lot of these swimmers are 50’s-70’s). I was doing some light competition a while back, which wasn’t so much competition as it was comradely. But that was still fun.
Currently I’m swimming generally about about 2.5-3 miles per day 3-5x a week so that’s going well. My wife is trying to get me run more… she just qualified for the Boston Marathon.
Interesting choices here with goggles here @Huntn and @scubachap. I’ve always gone with Speedo Vaquishers for general lap swimming and practice, which are more competition style streamlined goggles without being super uncomfortable like high end race goggles. Less drag. The goggles you guys are using certainly have more of a comfort factor but will add a bit of drag and if you’re worried about it look a little silly. If you were ever to compete, technically those goggles would not be approved. That said, I can see the benefit of having a better deal, better visibility, etc.
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