Been taking advantage of the two lap pools at my new health club (Tucson Racquet and Fitness Club). Today a swim lesson with Mark at the club; pleasantly surprised to learn that my freestyle stroke "looks good" and didn't need correction. My last instructor (Bay Area) essentially said the same thing but good to get a second opinion:)
The problem, I learned today, is that when I get tired, my head starts to pull up when I take a breadth; and I get tired easily. To mitigate this, Mark suggested I work breast strokes into my workout regime to allow my body to recover from the more strenuous freestyle stroke. While this now seems like a simple suggestion, its something I never would have thought of (I used to just rest between freestyle laps); one of the many benefits of having a trained instructor.
Mark teaches swimming at a local high school as well as at the club; he was laid back and I could tell he'd helped many people like me. He also told me that my exercise regime of spinning, running, and other activities, will not condition me for swimming; that's why it is not unusual for me to feel tired after swimming just a couple of laps. Mark said only swimming will condition me for swimming, which makes sense, and although I'd heard it before, I think I chose to ignore it because swimming has always been more difficult for me than other cardio exercise:)
I told Mark today, and will announce here, that my goal is to swim a mile by the spring 2015; figure the more people I tell, the more likely I'll work hard enough to attain this goal:) It seems unattainable now but all it really takes is perseverance. I haven't tried to swim a maximum distance yet but know from experience that I'm breathing hard after swimming 50 yards so I'm using this distance as my starting metric; only 1,710 yards to go:)
No comments:
Post a Comment