I've been swimming 3x a week for a month and I'm not making much progress. Prior to this training I've never really swam before. Currently I can do about 50 meters in the pool before I'm winded. After each lap I take up to a minute to catch my breathe and then I continue on. I'm in the pool for about an hour at a time but my progress is real slow. I've asked others for advise and watched videos but I cant figure out what I'm doing wrong. I go as slow as I can, others in the pool normally do two laps to every one of mine. I'm 20 pounds over weight but other wise in good shape. Any advice on what I can do to improve my swim?

I've been swimming 3x a week for a month and I'm not making much progress. Prior to this training I've never really swam before.
Don't get frustrated from your perceived lack of progress - you've just started! First of all, your additional weight probably isn't holding you back too much - especially if it's only 20 lbs. Losing that weight will help your cycling and running, but because fat is buoyant, it doesn't hurt as much on the swim.

Technique is everything in swimming. Post a video of yourself and there are at least a few of us that can recommend improvements in your technique. Or better yet, join a swim program in your area where you can work out under the guidance of a coach and you have the other participants to push you to improve. Do this now before you start to ingrain a bunch of bad habits that will become difficult to unlearn.

You have two options. One is fast. That's find a coach and have them help. The other is keep up what you are doing and don't get discouraged. All of a sudden, you'll make progress. Swimming involes efficieny and it takes time and learning the proper technique. A caoch can make that happen quickly. Otherwise you'll leran on your own.

The important thing is watch others as well as yourself. For example, watch how your hand enters the water. Is it pointed flat towards the water at the proper angle? Is your pull fluid and smooth? Do you make the cross move across your chest and stomach?

2 years ago (early 2006) It took me almost 2 months of swimming 2-3 times a week to get back into swimming to a point where i could survive a 500m open water swim using a freestyle stroke (it had been nearly 10 years since i had done any serious swimming which was back in high school). 1 month into the training i was bearly able to do 100 yards... It'll come, don't worry. :)

Best tip i've got: force yourself to breathe every 3rd stroke so you alternate sides. When i finally got used to doing that (even for a measly 1 lap at a time) my endurance really started to take off rapidly. It's a long enough breathing interval to force your body to become effecient with oxygen while still being short enough that you don't run out of air.

you're not breathing correctly...
this was my problem.. exactly the same as your problem.
what i found worked for me was making sure i exhaled completely...

I had the same problems when I took up swimming in October 2007, and this past month I've been swimming 30 x 25m (continuous, non-stop) and cutting my times down each time I attempt it! I agree about the breathing every third stroke idea, that was a major revelation for me. Another thing is to use your legs less, you don't want to be kicking hard, as that will tire you out and use up more oxygen. Just aim to flutter kick enough to stabilise your body, and work on technique using drills, like these http://www.trinewbies.com/category2.asp?catID=4
A coach helps, mostly because they will push you when you feel like you can't be bothered to go on, and really that's the most important part of adapting your body to take on higher physical demands. If you push yourself you'll eventually adapt and become better, with any exercise, so don't fret about it.
And I'm doing 40-second 25 metre lengths if that helps, if I just do one length then I can do that in under 30 seconds. I'm working on halving my times now. I'd be surprised if I could do it in under a minute before I'd started all this training.

He's right, I'm new and two days ago it all clicked. Now I can swim over 2 km without a prob. I may be slow as hell, but at least I can do it.

You have two options. One is fast. That's find a coach and have them help. The other is keep up what you are doing and don't get discouraged. All of a sudden, you'll make progress. Swimming involes efficieny and it takes time and learning the proper technique. A caoch can make that happen quickly. Otherwise you'll leran on your own.

The important thing is watch others as well as yourself. For example, watch how your hand enters the water. Is it pointed flat towards the water at the proper angle? Is your pull fluid and smooth? Do you make the cross move across your chest and stomach?

How does one train themself to use the "every 3rd stroke" breathing method? I was a swimmer in high school (we're talking 26 years ago) and I never was able to get alternate side breathing down. I always breathe on my left side. I started my swim training over a month ago, and sometimes struggle to get 4 full strokes in so that I can breathe again. Eventually, I end up having to breathe every 2 strokes...which seems inefficient to me. If I could teach myself how to breathe on the right side, I know it would greatly improve my swim. But every time I have attempted to breathe on my right, I get all discombobulated and take in mouthfuls of water. It's very frustrating. I can't afford to get a coach, so this is something that I will have to take on myself. I would greatly appreciate any advice on how to train yourself to breathe on both sides...THANKS!

Linda

Everyone has a preferred side to breathe on. Practice makes perfect, really, but remember to rotate properly too when you swim. Try using a kickboard at first, holding it at arm's length and trying to breathe on both sides.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I guess I had a different perception on how fast I would pick it up. Its funny how you guys mention posting a video because I was going to have my wife video tape me so I could see how I look from a different view. I'll post it in a few days. I do breathe every third and I know to not use my legs more than nessecary. I do have trouble keeping a slow rythm with my kicks, it seems like its eathier quick short burst or not at all. I'm use to running where my arms and legs move in sync. I've noticed when I float in water and only use my legs that barely move at all, is this common?

You suffer from Runner's Kick, I bet, like I did (or still do). Best way to test for it is to float on your back and kick, and if you move backwards (i.e. in the direction of your feet) instead of forwards (i.e. in the direction of your head) then you need to increase your ankle flexibility. The absolute best way to do so is yoga, in my opinion, with child's pose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balasana
Except I don't perform it in seated position, I will have my upper body vertical and rest my body weight on my feet through my spine+butt. It's painful as hell at first, and I couldn't even do it without cramping up severely at first, but recently I managed to stretch all the way back, with my feet pointing behind me and my upper body leaning as far back as my spine would allow. It didn't hurt me and I knew I'd finally reached an acceptable level of ankle flexibility.

http://beginnertriathlete.com/cms/Article-detail.asp?Articleid=77&vote=9

Lots of good advice here. One thing I would add to the OP, if you've got alternate breathing down and minimal kicking, try using fewer strokes per lap, and exhale slowly between breaths. If you glide more between strokes (with good form - keep your head and chest down), you're keeping speed while conserving energy. If you are exhaling slowly the entire time between breaths, you won't feel like you're holding your breath, you're just taking longer to exhale than inhale. These two tips worked for me, and I can now do 1K to 2K meters without getting exhausted or out of breath. Best of luck!

Jim

You might want to use a pull-buoy. This is a float shaped to allow you to easily hold it between your thighs. It supports the lower body and allows you to focus on your upper body stroke and breathing. I use it a lot, both because it allows me to focus on my upper body, and because it gives my legs a break, allowing me to train more intensely otherwise. So, If I swim a mile and a quarter, I'll use it half the time. Also, I think it feels a lot like a wet suit in its buoyancy, and anyway I don't kick much when I am doing a tri, to save my legs for the bike and run. It also helped me to learn bilateral breathing, since it really felt unnatural to breathe on my left side, though now it feels unnatural not to breath every third stroke. To get use to bilateral breathing I counted doing it a thousand times, while using the pull-buoy. You know, whatever you can do to make it easier.

Thanks BigCat...I will try using a pull-buoy on my swim this weekend. I don't expect to get the bilateral breathing down pat in just one day, but I have to start somewhere and it might as well be now.

A question for everybody: Do you exhale through your nose or mouth?

Through my nose only. I've never thought about this. I may some more after I swim tomorrow morning.

I exhale through my mouth but I wear a nose clip. :D

The best way to learn how to swim better is to go to the pool and SWIM. Regularly. Period.
The more you do it, the easier it gets, over time. wear goggles so you can see- always. And ride your bike over to the pool and lock it on the pool deck near the lane you swim in. It will probably be the only bike there...... :-)

I have helped people from time to time, primarily because they were swimming "so" bad it pained me to watch them, and since I was there every day sleeping in the sun waiting for a lane to free up, I knew if i butted in a bit, I could, in a few minutes really give them something that would last a lifetime, and get them the L outta my lane faster so I could get my workout in, and get back into a real nap for the rest of the day in the sun! hehehe! That said, do these simple things.....

Get your butt UP and somewhat outta the water, same goes for your head. Arch your back. Get both of those heavy things up, you will glide better. If you can glide, you can stretch out. Learn to relax and stretch out. If you can stretch out, you can go faster,and soon you can go REALLY fast because you will be relaxed AND efficient. Sounds like a lot- and it is, but it all really is easy to do.

So, what's most important? Learn to stretch out and relax. How to learn how to stretch out? Simple. From the wall of the pool, drop down in the water 2-3 feet, push off the wall with both feet, chest down, body completely level, both hands completely pointed forward over the head, body as straight and as streamlined as possible. Glide as far as you can until you stop and bob to the surface, taking zero strokes. Note how far you have gone on the side of the pool. A "good" glide will be well past the overhead flags, about 20-25 feet from the wall. Several things will happen as you learn to do this. You will learn how to keep your body LEVEL thru the glide, you will learn how your body functions at different depths- some are much better than others, you will find the correct depth to push off at that will take you the longest distance for your body type. In both, its important very important for your body to be at the correct depth in the water and to swim level. It will feel weird, and it should, because you did not learn how to swim this way to begin with, and what you are doing now is probably wrong- and feels right. With time, better body position and remaining level in the water will feel more normal and natural, your body will go to the correct depth in the water for speed and efficiency and you will not go back to the old way ever again. So you taught yourself all this with a simple exercise, and, you now have "the feel" of how to actually do it correctly. So what's next? Add arm strokes. Learn to strike the water over your head- hard. Think of it as a punch. Longest middle finger enters the water first, arm COMPLETELY stretched out forward overhead, just like the position in the push off exercise. Yes, THAT stretched out forward overhead. I tell people to learn the punch as most people do not have enough turnover on their arms to go fast at all, learning to "punch" the water will help with this and get rid of all your old bad habits and bad form with your arms, and then you can back off a bit and turn over with more efficient and natural form as each hand enters the water.

From here- its anybody's guess what you are doing and what you look like.... Get this down, get some swimming strength and you are ready to talk to someone about your stroke, get some stroke work, breathing and pointers. No, you don't have to pay someone for this help. Just be polite and ask someone that has been around the pool all their life- there are lots of us- just ask politely for some general help and criticism, we pool people are FULL of opinion so you should get an ear full of free assistance. How to identify them? Anyone that swims fast, can do a great flip turn, they are a good target to ask- I even bet a few of those might have swam 10,000 meters a day at some point and have some interesting stories to tell- like doing "that" with tennis shoes on for 3 weeks of hell workouts....; or a swim coach that has tons of swim kids around, they will find a way to fit you in to help you out at some point....it will only take a bit of time their time to give a lot of help to make you a better swimmer..... Whew, that's a start I guess- hope that helps.....

poolhopper thak you for your advice I do ask for advice when I get the chance There is not a lot of people in the pool when I go which can be a good thing. I hope to post a video soon so you and others can comment on my technique or lack of.

I expel air from both my mouth and my nose. Also I breathe in with both mouth and nose.

interceptor12 (http://www.bikeforums.net/member.php?u=88759)- No matter how wonderful is is to have a big pool to yourself, never swim alone. Make sure an additional human knows you are in the water and is close by. Buddy system always. Sometimes its hard to get some help when not many people around, but search them out somewhere else. You will be amazed where competitive swim sessions are going on. Coaches "will" help you. Few are there for the money- they are there because they love their sport and truly enjoy helping others with swimming. I was at a reunion not too long ago with one of my old coaches- now in his 70's, he suddenly starting talking about all the people in the room he has taught to swim, some 3 family generation's worth. The whole time he was talking with a big smile on his face....you will find some excellent help I am sure....

Also, another simple tip. Keep as much air in your lungs as possible during breathing process. Reason. They act like corks to keep you up high in the water. Yes, its a balancing act of course to make your body run effectively- but the more volume of air in the lungs at all the times- the better. Don't believe me? Try this simple test. Float verticle in the water, feet pointed to the bottom, arms somewhat close to body, face planted down in the water, lungs completely full of air. The back of your head will stay mostly above the water. Expel out all the air in your lungs while face down. You will quickly sink to the bottom. The more air you let out- the faster and deeper you will go. No different on top of the water with your heavy body. Same thing happens.... Another fun drill you can do to learn to float better and learn more about your body position in the water- Float on your back, put both feet up and together, big toes out of the water, laying out as flat as possible. Now skull.push with hands only, make forward momentum and progress down the pool, feet first. Head lay out flat- should be reasonable easy to do, when you lift your head up and get it out of the water, now becomes very difficult and you will probably begin to sink and slow down and.or stop. The higher you can learn to push your body closer to the surface and keep your head out of the water, the better and faster you can move down the pool.lake.ocean. Sounds silly and simple enough, but, most people have a problem learning how to do this. Why? Because as you raise your head up, your butt tends to go downward and make you naturally sink. This really is a quick drill to learn how to get your butt up and keep it in the right position high up in the water, so you can move more effectively in the water, both for swimming on your back and on your stomach. Keep at it, learn how to get good body position high up in the water, relax, stretch out. You will begin to go faster. Soon enough your time will be cut in half. :-)

Also if strength is troubling you start do a lot of chin-ups/pull-ups and push-ups! :eek:

I was just wanted to give my two cents. I just started swimming again about 2 months ago for the first time in about 5 years, so when I started I could do about 2 laps before I was winded. Since then I have improved to the point where I can swim over 1K comfortably. The change was slow and frustrating at times. For the first few weeks, I saw very little improvement and began to get discouraged, but if you stick with it, you will be surprised at how one day it just seems easier. Here are a couple of things that I have done to help:

It is important to understand that the body senses a build up in acid better than it does a decrease in oxygen. Acid is a byproduct of the production of CO2, which means that as we produce more CO2 from our muscles working, we are also producing more acid which is telling the body that it needs to breath. In the big picture, this means that the feeling we get that we desperately need oxygen while swimming is as much related to getting rid of CO2 as it is breathing in more oxygen. So the moral of the story is to make sure you exhale completely in between breaths to get rid of all that CO2. I hope that made some sort of sense.

Second. I was just told recently about importance of the "flutter kick," which I am finding to be more and more true. It is advantageous for a swimmer to engage their legs as much as possible in a race, because they want to go as fast as they can in their designated distance, but for a triathlete, its all about getting through that distance as efficiently as possible. Using your legs while swimming is a huge metabolic drain, which I did not understand until I started using a pull-buoy. By floating my lower body and disengaging my legs, I find that I can swim with nearly twice the intensity. This of course is partly due to the fact that you are making yourself buoyant, but I also think that part of it is because you are not expending the energy in your legs. I will now use a pull-buoy for about a third of my swim work out and I try to really push with my upper body until my muscles are burning. The more efficient you can make your upper body muscles, the easier the swim will be and the less you will have to use your legs.

I hope these things help. I'm still learning myself as I go along. If I can think of anything else, I will post it.

Train hard.

Excellent posts on improving the swim. I will definitely try these.

So for a triathlete it is completely unadvantageous to have a strong kick? I should just be using my kick to keep my legs up and my body in an efficient position but otherwise should not use my legs to kick so much?

I skimmed through the posts quickly, so if my suggestion was previously posted, oops!

OP, I'm in the same boat as you. I started swim training about a week ago and, like you, couldn't get 50 meters without being winded. It's frustrating! I remembered when I swam competitively years ago that wearing speedos helped immensely, so I went out to my local sports store and picked up a pair of these (http://www.bodyglove.com/products_detail.php?product_id=9645). They really helped me by cutting the drag down.

So for a triathlete it is completely unadvantageous to have a strong kick? I should just be using my kick to keep my legs up and my body in an efficient position but otherwise should not use my legs to kick so much?
I think that's an overstatement.

It depends largely on how efficient your kick is. If your kick pulls you backwards, you want to kick as little as possible. If you can get significant forward propulsion without a lot of effort by kicking, you'll probably be better off that way.

So for a triathlete it is completely unadvantageous to have a strong kick? I should just be using my kick to keep my legs up and my body in an efficient position but otherwise should not use my legs to kick so much?

Ya I think thats a little bit of an overstatement. Mind you, that I also just started swimming a little over a month ago, so I am by no means a swim coach or even a swim expert. Although I have seen huge improvements in my swimming (I'm up to doing 2500-3000 meters per swimming session and rarely feel very out of breath anymore). I was told a few weeks ago by someone who is a an experienced triathlete, that the kicking portion of swimming is a very large metabolic drain and that when I practice swimming, I should try to use my legs a little less and concentrate on my upper body. Before I was told this, I was trying to focus on keeping my legs kicking strong, but was getting fatigued very quickly. So then I tried kicking less, but still enough to provide a small amount of thrust, and focused on my upper body form, I found that I was not getting as fatigued as before, and was able to maintain a much better pace with less breathing necessary for a longer distance. I'm sure for strong swimmers that have been swimming for years, this is less of an issue, but for someone like me that has just gotten back into swimming, I find it crucial to conserve as much energy in the water as I can.

So for a triathlete it is completely unadvantageous to have a strong kick? I should just be using my kick to keep my legs up and my body in an efficient position but otherwise should not use my legs to kick so much?

Not exactly. The idea is you want to conserve your legs as much as you can for the bike and run segments. If you have a strong efficient kick that doesn't tire your leg muscles, all the better. :)

Jim