Swimming

RESPECT, I would love to do that.
What kind of process got you there?

I've only recently started swimming, but it's ok.
If you're new to the army (doubtful), learn to look after your feet, especially on the long hauls, and make sure everything in you bergen is tightly packed the straps are as tight as possible. But you prob know this.

 

N_B what gym do you train at?

 

25meter pool I'm assuming?
You said length and not "lap", so that would mean you got out of the pool on the opposite side you started from, correct?
Otherwise, going down and then back would be considered a "lap" not a "length".

Assuming the above, that works out to:
25m x 25 lengths = 625 meters total workout
At 35 minutes in duration; your workout was on the pace of 1 minute, 24 seconds per 25 meters.

When I was a lifeguard, we had to swim 500 meters in 10 minutes or less.
Swimming standard crawl/freestyle stroke, you should be able to maintain a pace of 50m in 1 minute, 20 seconds without too much effort - if you're an experienced swimmer.
Even at double your pace (or assuming u were swimming 50m lengths instead of 25), you'd still be at a pretty slow pace.

My swimming workout this morning was 2400+ meters (1.5 miles) in about 1 hour, 15 minutes; with a lot of breaks; the workout was made up of a lot of different drills, not just straight swimming.
You probably shouldn't be at that level yet, but you should be able to swim at least 1000 meters straight through without too much trouble.

I say be able to swim 1000 meters straight through, without stopping, first.
Work on doing it in under 25 minutes after that.

 

First you may want to find out how long your pool is.
Swimming from one side of the pool to the other is usually considered 1 length.
Swimming to the other side of the pool and coming back is usually considered 1 lap.
If we figure out how far you're swimming in 35 minutes we can figure out how to progressively make you swim faster.

For all intents and purposes, you should only need the front crawl/freestyle stroke.
I wouldn't learn the others unless you were looking to compete.

 

Damn, that was one of the most informative, thought out posts I've ever seen.
Anyways, I had a question since you swim a lot. The way I do is almost like wind sprints. I just paddle 1 length (size of the pool), and overhand swim like hell to the other side. Whenever I swim overhand I do perfect tecnique, keep my neck straight, my head underwater, and good strokes. With this though, I've never really gotten good at bringing my head up for a breath...So, I just swim the whole pool without breathing. Is this good or bad?
My pool isn't that big. I'll count my strokes whenever I swim overhand, and it usually takes me about 14 strokes to get from one side to the other. I know it's like 52 laps for a mile or something. I only maybe do 15 laps or something, but around 12-13, and considering I'm not breathing it does get quite tough. I start swimming harder and harder because it's liek if I don't (I know it sounds ******ed) I might drown in the meantime.

 

I didn't mean to imply that you're out of shape, a large part of swimming is technique.

An important thing to remember about swimming is that it's more like ice skating or rowing than running.

When you run, you transfer weight between your legs- maybe with a split second of air time between.

When you swim, you glide. You want to make your body as long and stream lined in the water as possible. For lap swimming you'll want your head/face a bit deeper in the water - it'll make the swimming easier. Open water swimmers usually swim higher up in the water in order to keep an eye on the shore, but this makes it much harder. Your head should roll to the side when you breathe and not pull straight up.

Once you get good technique, you actually burn a lot less energy because you're much more efficient. The longer your stroke, the less tired your muscles will get.

For technique, you may want to find a coach or check out a book by Jane Katz,
Swimming for Total Fitness:
http://books.google.com/books?id=QlqQYX3Q3pQC&dq=inauthor:Jane+inauthor:Katz
It's a good book for learning the fundamentals of technique and it also has some good workouts to get you started.

If you can only swim from one side to the other (1 length), or down & then back again (1 lap); do that, but work on decreasing the amount of rest you take after each one. In your case, I'd keep the total distance around 500m total (ie 20 lengths or 10 laps) until you can swim 200m (8 lengths/4 laps) without stopping - then I would up the total distance to 1000m (40 lengths/20 laps).

 

err thanx

We sometimes do "no breathers" as a drill. It'll definitely make you swim faster, but probably not a good idea to do all the time - some people do drown while lap swimming.

When you breathe, you want to turn your head to the side (i usually breathe to my right) as the arm on that side is pushing down by your leg. As your arm comes up, you'll turn your head back straight and face back in the water - just in time so your bicep doesn't whack your cheek as it goes by. I hope this is making some sense. Your shoulders are going to roll as you turn your head, so the opposite shoulder almost points to the bottom of the pool (the opposite hand should be extended towards the bottom of the pool while pulling water). The reason for the shoulder turn is so you can get your mouth a bit above water, and so it's not all being done with the neck.

That book I recommended is a good one to read for improving swimming technique, and a coach can work wonders.

There's also this page:
http://www.swim.ee/videos/example_free.html
It's basically the definitive video guide to freestyle, with a bunch of youtube clips of the world's best swimmers. One of them should cover breathing.

 

Thanks for that link. I'm planning on improving my swimming technique. I don't suck at it, but it could be so much better.