[jcatron243]

Any swimmers out there? My new exercise goal is to swim laps for 30 minutes. Today I was able to do 5. I forgot how much endurance is needed for swimming. I was wondering what types of execises will help me build my strenghth and stamina for swimming.

[ShadesofGray]

I swam competitively from when I was really little to high school (stopped because of a shoulder injury). I'm just getting started back into it again too.

I would recommend just swimming as much as you can to build endurance (even if you have to take breaks!). See if you can find some sets online, or I can give you a few. They're relatively easy to make up.

Try something like this - a ladder set:
25 meters/yards
50
75
50
25

(Just in case you don't know - 25 meters=1 length of the pool (length being just down, not down and back), 50=2, etc.) Rest 10-15 seconds between each one, or more if you need it. There's no need to swim these really fast, just at a good moderate pace. As you build more endurance, you can bump the set up to make it harder. For example:

50
100
150
200
150
100
50

Also, try to work on your swimming technique, it will make your stroke much more effective so that you use less energy to swim each lap. Watch other swimmers at the pool and see how they swim. Try to lengthen out your stroke (reach as far forward as you can each time you put an arm in the water, rotating your hips a bit).

I wish I could give you more tips on swimming, but its hard to describe online, especially when I haven't seen your stroke. Please feel free to ask any questions though, I would love you help you out!

[jcatron243]

Thanks! I appreciate your suggestions and I will definately work it into my workout. I am so excited to have a new goal to work toward!

[Ilene]

I love swimming, I try to go every Sunday with my g/f... It took me well over a year to get the breathing down, but now I can do lap after lap for a good half hour...

[Mrs Snark]

If you're a relatively new swimmer I highly recommend the "Total Immersion" (also called just TI) book/DVD. I started swimming in order to be able to do triathlons and the TI system drastically and rapidly improved my stroke. I went from not being able to swim 50 yards continuously to a couple of months later easily swimming over 1 mile continuously.

The system provides great step-by-step instructions and drills.

Good luck!

[jitterfish]

Swimming is part of my regular weekly exercises and I have a best friend - a water proof mp3 player. If you are the kind of person that likes music to work out to in general, music in the pool is fantastic - I always swim more when I have it on, I will use the music to vary my stroke so I'm not just swimming at the same pace/stroke.

And while I've only been swimming less than six months, what I would suggest is just saying ok today I will swim one lap more than I did last time.

[slimmingsi]

i swim around 4 times a week. today i pushed myself to 2km which took around 75 mins. i'm not fast and i'm not a head under teh water swimmer yet. as i have no goggles. but i plod up and down

[Pink Geranium]

I am thrilled to meet other swimmers. I'm a former competitive swimmer (way long time ago, I remember nylon baggy suits, and when goggles first became available!) So I've been swimming a long time. I think the Total Immersion swimming book is just great and well worth the investment. You can also look on Masters Swimming sites for tips, workouts, etc - you don't have to be interested in competition to get good info there.

I think the interval training sets Shades of Gray submitted are a great idea. Just doing laps can get boring and also it's easy to become comfortable and in a rut, and stop progressing in your strength and endurance. Interval training also raises and lowers your heart rate, which is a good thing.

http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/swim-cgi/ Also, try this link to Swimming World Magazine for workouts - you can put in the various parameters according to your stamina and skill level and it will give you workouts submitted by readers, etc. I've tried some and it's been helpful in giving me new ideas, even if I don't follow the whole workout or do things just as they say. Maybe it's not right for you now, I don't know, but if you keep swimming it may be helpful. (I remember subscribing to this magazine as a young person and in the first issue I received they were discussing the 1968 Olympics, with Debbie Meyer on the cover. I saved it for years! Things have certainly changed!)

Good luck. Swimming is such good exercise, so nice for mental relaxation, and really rewards persistance pretty quickly, I think.

[jcatron243]

Thanks alot! I am definately going to use the suggestions here. Ive done water aerobics and swam for fun but I have never done laps as a workout. I am definately adding it into my routine probably 3 or 4 days a week depending on my work schedule (which is hard to get in any workouts on the days I work)

[JazzyNurse]

I have been swimming 3-4 days for two weeks now and love it. I do 20 laps for 40 min., nothing hardcore, breast stroke up and back stroke back. It's huge for me because my fitness level is horrible right now. Jitterfish.....where did you purchase a waterproof MP3 player? That would be so sweet, doing anything to music makes it much more enjoyable!

[slimmingsi]

just got in from the pool, my new plan is to try and crack 12km a week, we shall see how it goes

[cakses]

You guys are giving me the bug to swim now. Ahhh!!!

[cakses]

Oh I meant to add...

I was a competitive swimmer for 13 years and even when I re-started I was like whoah! I started doing 5 x 100 (4 lengths, rest for 30 sec then do it again 5 times total). After I got over that hurdle, I went up to 10. Then I got creative and made up sets. But just getting endurance is where you need to start. And breath control if you haven't mastered that. I used to teach beginner adults and that is where they seemed to lose all their stamina - they were thrashing their heads around and using up precious energy.

[jcatron243]

I swam today 30 minutes today. after the first 10 minutes I was out of breath and my body was tired but I pushed through. I did one length, rested about 10 seconds did another lenghth. By the end of my 30 minutes I was getting a good rhythm down.
Breathing is a key thing that I need to work on I was paying attention to things that I could change to help my endurance, and breathing was a big issue.

[BlueToBlue]

If you are swimming 3 or 4 times a week and you keep pushing yourself, I think you'll be surprised how quickly your endurance builds up. I swam competitively as a kid and I remember that first time back after a winter off, it was a struggle to complete just a few laps, but a few workouts later we would be up to an hour of swimming no problem. Of course, we were kids so we rebounded a little quicker back then.

That first time I swam after literally almost 20 years off, it was a doozy, but I worked up to an hour of lap swimming with really not very much rest time in between sets pretty quickly. In fact, for the first few months or so that I was swimming, I noticed a marked improvement in my endurance every time I swam. Now I seem to have leveled off a bit, probably because I only swim once a week.

I would encourage you to mix it up a bit. Do different strokes, do a few sets of intervals, do a few sets of kicking or pulling only. That helps keep it interesting and works different muscles. I invested in a pair of flippers and that has really made my swims a lot more fun and it is great for your legs and butt (and also supposed to be a better cardio workout when you are just kicking).

A couple of other things you can do to try to further improve your breath control are to try adding flip turns to your workout and to try going as long as you can without taking a breath for one lap. Try to go a little farther every time.