Open water swimming

No_Bivy

No_Bivy

Treehouser
Joined
Sep 2, 2006
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Anyone here do distance swimming for exercise? Running seems to just hammer my feet And body lately so I decided to start swimming. First session near about killed me. Lots of stopping and starting in 30 min.

I've moved up to two miles a day( in pool) . I do a open water swim on Sunday's with a masters group which is a whole different beast. Sighting seems to be my worst problem.

Signed up for 2.4 mile swim in September. Should be interesting.

Since nursing school proper starts in August , I'm hoping 30 min sesh in morning and 30 min after class will stave off the dreaded " your gonna get fat in school". It's been a real epic tuning out negative peeps in this whole process.....
 
Running definitely hammers feet, knees, hips...repetitive pounding of the foot strike and all that energy goes through the joints.

Most runners don't really stretch so they get tight hamstrings, quads, etc. which leads to injuries. I think swimming can be one of the very best overall exercises...it promotes long, relaxed muscles when you stretch properly and have good technique.

Proper technique can prevent injury while swimming, too...an errant whip kick (frog kick to us older guys) can strain the knee. Get someone that knows strokes to evaluate your strokes from head to toe...hand/arm/shoulder reach and roll, head and body rhythm, glide efficiency, foot/ankle/knee/hip actions.

Be sure you have at least 3 good strokes you can switch between to prevent overuse injury...side stroke, elementary back stroke (arms don't come out of the water), American crawl, breast stroke are the ones I use most.

I don't swim regularly for exercise but would if I could do so. Our Dive Team does water safety for Triathlons. Two of us use kayaks, we have the dive boat available and in the water to remove tired or incapable swimmers and we have at least 3 lifeguards swimming among the competitors. They run heats of about 30-40 people at a time in the local lake...only a swim about 100 yards to a buoy and then back to shore. We pull at least 15-30 people out of the water each race. LOTS of people think they can swim but never really try until the race. It is scary for us because drowners don't really make much fuss, just kind of slip away. In a lake with limited visibility it makes rescue hard...always afraid it will change from rescue to recovery.

Be careful in those big group swims...easy to go down from someone else not realizing they kicked you...only takes a moment to get in trouble.
 
Swimming is just about the best form of exercise you can do. Running on anything but soft ground is bad news, IMO.
 
Agree, MB...all the running I did was on trails, in the woods at local Nature Preserve.

V...hahaha...I don't know about awesome but I have seen folks get in trouble swimming a lot. A fall in running you get up and brush off the dirt...a mess up in water and it can be a lot different.
 
I plan on a swimming regime against this winter, as MB mentioned, probably one of the best low impact exercises (as long as rotator cuffs hold up!) We have an adult water polo league in winter too, always a blast. It's like legal fighting, you get a great workout and can unleash the inner competitor. Some of the most healthy older adults I know have swum long distance for years and they are fit!
 
Swimming is good for a lot of things.
Two things it doesn't work well for is balance and Osteoporosis.

If old people only swim, they end up being in decent shape, but with a poor sense of balance.
So IMO you need to supplement swinning with something else.

Older women, who are prone to Osteoporosis should not use swimming as their main exercise.
It is simply too low impact, unless you REALLY haul ass and therrefore it doesn't strengten the sceleton.
You need the muscles to tear at their fastening to get that effect.
 
Running on Tarmac is bad news, uneven surfaces are much better. Hard or soft doesn't really matter.

Rowing is my go to for an all over workout that will beast me in the shortest possible time.
 
Open water swimming is the bomb. Im not great at it but love it. A great book on the subject is "Swimming to Antartica', about a female swimmer who does stuff that most Navy Seals couldnt touch.

Btw barefoot running is a good way to train running and avoid injury.
 
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  • #13
Freestyle will be my main stroke for the 2.4. I can alternate with breaststroke or backstroke.Slower though. Butterfly is flat out hard as hell to maintain for distance...

I hear ya about the group Gary. My plan will be to hang back at start and swim outside of the cluster fock.

The key is a breathing rhythm . Lots you you tubes on stroke technique.

Stig,
I'm not giving up climbing and weights but had to find a fat burner..... Lost 12 lbs since May 30
Damn chemistry, microbiology and anatomy/physiology will pack it on! Lol....the price to pay for A's I guess

Bought a waterproof iPod shuffle from audio flood to pass the time
 
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  • #14
Chris E said:
You do hear about the "low impact" advantages of swimming often. I hate swimming in deep water, its an irrational phobia.
Click to expand...

That's cuz it's either sharks or crocodiles where you live......and when you get out you have to beware of the spiders and snakes!
 
ha! You are not alone Chris. I am a good swimmer...but it plays with my head when I swim in the ocean and know it's 1,000 feet to the bottom. There is something very weird to me feeling suspended over such an expanse of water...kind of like being on a 6 inch spar at 80 feet wiggles my brain a bit, too.
 
pantheraba said:
ha! You are not alone Chris. I am a good swimmer...but it plays with my head when I swim in the ocean and know it's 1,000 feet to the bottom. There is something very weird to me feeling suspended over such an expanse of water...kind of like being on a 6 inch spar at 80 feet wiggles my brain a bit, too.
Click to expand...


Just have some beer before setting out, Gary.
That'll take your mind off it.
I can vouch for that.

I celebrated new years eve in Aukland , New Zealand with my x- wife and a couple of American friends many many years ago.
Back then the culinary range in New Zealand was so narrow, that all we could find to eat for new years eve, that didn't have meat in it, was Chicago Deep pan Pizza...............Not my most memorable celebration meal.
We had a shit load of XXXX beer afterwards ( Australian, and the joke is, it is brewed for people who can't spell" beer")
After the girls went to bed, My buddy and I decided to go for a swim.
The ocean was quite warm, but with long swells, so we kinda lost orientation until we hit a crest.
Anyway, we were both strong swimmers, so we swam out to the first bouy about ½ mile out. Rested by that and made for the next one, and so on untill we ran out of bouys.
Then we swam back.
On the way back I started getting a bit worried for my buddy, but he made it ok.

Next morning we woke up with quite the hang over and a total shock when we realized just how far out into the ocean we'd swum!

I've no idea how long it took us, but we were MILES out.

Beer and the stupidity of youth is a no good combination.

Still remember hanging onto the outer bouy and looking at the lights of Aukland every time we crested a swell, nice:)
 
I always felt weird swimming in the Gulf... no telling what was underneath you.

I did have fun free diving, though I got out of the water ASAP.
 
Gary, I know exactly what you mean.
I spent a couple of months as a beach rat on the coast of the Red sea in my early youth ( Back when I first hung out with the mail order bride, in fact:))
Didn't have the cash for Scuba rentals , so we just snorkeled.
Do that every day for a couple of month and you get good at it and able to go deep..
The reef we played along is one of the best in the world for diversity of species ( Or was, anyway), but underneat that, the bottom would go almost straight down and visibility would disappear.
Sometimes you'd see something big moving down in the darkish water, it would be too dark to make out what it was, just a big shape. That always gave me the creeps real bad.

There were tiger and black tipped sharks aplenty, but since they'd never had a single attack on humans for 30 years in that area, we felt safe swimming among them.
I never noticed one of them looking at us with any interest, with the plethora of fish, we were probably not too interesting as food sources.

Once I was up for a bit of air and had taken my mask off when something large ( In my mind F...... HUGE!!!!!!!!!) bumped into me.
My partner swore afterwards that I almost levitated out of the water.
Giant sea bass, not shark.
But man, oh man, did I get an adrenaline burst.
 
My wife regularly swims 5k and often 10 k. She can swim a mile in less than 20 minutes. She has gotten me into it somewhat although my furthest is 1.5 miles. A friend gave me some neoprene shorts that seem to help keep my ass up and not sink and drag. I really like it. Its hard to fund good lakes though. So much private property, too many motor boats, and to much fertilizers and pesticides. There are a couple of good spots but we have to go early early before the boats come. We drag a little swim bouy, that is nice because it adds a but of security and allows you to be seen. You can hang on it if you get too tired.
 
Once I was up for a bit of air and had taken my mask off when something large ( In my mind F...... HUGE!!!!!!!!!) bumped into me.
My partner swore afterwards that I almost levitated out of the water.
Click to expand...

haha...that's a very understandable story...unexpected big bumps in water...worth an adrenaline dump.

Quick snorkeling story here, too..except I was the unexpected bump.

Some friends and I were snorkeling in Mexico, at Barcelo resort, beautiful water, pocked with limestone passageways everywhere. One of the guys, Bob, is a Navy SEAL and he was leading the explorations of the area. Two of the guys were so-so swimmers. I noticed a passageway big enough to swim into and commented to Bob that it looked interesting...before I could finish he was gone! Down that rabbit hole.

I was brazen enough to go in right behind him. Neither one of us knew where it went...lots of openings all around as we swam down the tunnel which let in a lot of light...well lit but most not big enough to get up to air. We had been about 30 yards and I was getting a bit concerned when Bob started up (we had been at about 8 feet in the tunnel). He went up a tube big enough for one person, opening about 2 feet below the surface. He was perched up there like an otter looking around. He did not know that I followed him thru the tunnel. I gave him a few seconds then lightly tugged on his fin that was just above my head.

Oh, boy...that SEAL put it on afterburner. He shot up through that hole like a porpoise, which was fine with me 'cause I was starting to need to breathe by that point. Needless to say, he was incredulous to find out I was right behind him...got me a few brownie points...probably almost got my ass kicked, too. :lol:
 
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