Regular Swimming

ems_12

Hi all!

I am taking up swimming, and hope to be doing it fairly regularly.

First of all, what sort of lengths should I be doing in order to tone up a bit/improve a bit of fitness? I am a relatively 'good' swimmer, and used to do 40 or 50 lengths, 3xbreast stroke+2xfront crawl in sets of 5 or 10 lengths followed by a minute break. I can't remember how long this took me but I would spend less than an hour in the pool, including showering/changing. I'm hoping to work back up to this - sound reasonable? Should I do different/more?

Next question - hair and skin! If I go in the pool regularly, my hair suffers and my skin gets v. dry. What products do all you regular swimmers use?!

Thanks in advance, any advice welcome

Killgore Trout

Tough call on what you should be doing. Even if you got one session a week for a few months with a masters club may give you an idea of how to get the best out of your pool time.

Post swim I just use whatever face moisturiser and body lotion available. You can get shampoo that is supposed to neutralise chlorine - but I don't know if it's any use.

hunnymonster

40-50 lengths is a good start but for fitness gains (and particularly body shape changes) you should aim to increase this. I'm assuming it's a 25 m pool? You should also try to mix things up a bit. One day might be a long slow swim where you don't take any breaks and really concentrate on your swimming technique, another day might be a series of short, shart bursts (2-4 lengths) with say 15 seconds break between them. Try to mix the strokes up to us the maximum amount of muscles. As you get more used to swimming, you should become more efficient which actually means you'll need to do more to get the same benefit. Unfair but true. Doing more can be more distance or more effort (speed).

I'm with KT and usually grab the first thing I can to moisturise. I've found it more important to make sure chlorine is washed off my skin before applying anythng than the actual product.

I've really long hair so dealing with that is another matter. There are a couple of options. I usually just wet my hair before hitting the pool. In theory once hair is soaked, it won't absorb more liquid. Of course the actually liquid will change but this is relatively slow. Second option is to smother your hair with conditioner before entering the water. This works really well but I prefer not to do it on the basis that there are enough chemicals in the water already and I shouldn't be adding more. Thrid option is just to use a good conditioner after the swim and a hair masque once a week.

interested

hunnymonster wrote: »

Second option is to smother your hair with conditioner before entering the water. This works really well but I prefer not to do it on the basis that there are enough chemicals in the water already and I shouldn't be adding more.

Off topic so apologies to OP but wow ... Id always wondered where those smells were coming from I gave up club swimming along time ago but always wondered what a strong smell of shampoo like stuff was coming from ... Ive a reasonable sense of smell but reckoned it was coming from the shower room - anyhow - thanks for shedding light

Back to topic - I think anything over 1000m (40 lengths of 25m pool) is good going - as mentioned changing pace and stroke up regularly helps keep things interesting and stop your body and muscles growing accustomed to the same movements.

I guess it all depends on what you want out of your time in the pool. Heading to a masters club / session once in a bit might help you get an idea of how an hour can be spent - most cater for all levels

dylbert

Boots do a shampoo and body wash called Sun Swim and Gym, I start using it last week and it does the job.

AngryHippie

I try to build up distances in steps of 200m, so start off with an easy 1 km, then after the end of week 2, that should be up to the mile mark (1600 m). After that its safe to spend a month or so building from 1600 to 2.5 km, Ideally I'd be trying to get 3km done at each pool visit, but that'll take a while to build up to. I've recently switched from a 25m pool to a 50, which doesn't seem like much of a change, but is actually a good bit tougher, (only half the turns). On the other hand, when I get back into a short course pool, I know its going to do my head in turning all the time.
On the hair and skin, Put some conditioner on your hair (under a silicon or rubber swim hat) before you swim, that'll stop your hair getting all dry. As for your skin, anything apart from baby oil should do the trick. (Baby oil is just too slippy to use near wet changing room floors)