Swim Coach near Schaumburg

I've been swimming seriously for about a year. What I did to get started was just went out and swam a bunch. I watch some youtube videos and then hit the pool. It sucked at first, really. After a couple of months of that, I joined a masters group.

My thinking was that, at least initially, there isn't a lot of benefit from coaching, since everything you do is going to be bad - at least it was for me. If you can't swim 50 yards, then no amount of coaching is going to help that - time in the water will help that.

A couple of other thoughts - buy a pull buoy. Try swimoutlet.com. That will take your legs out of the equation, letting you focus on stroke and breathing. It will also pull your hips up higher in the water, making your form better. Pull drills help you learn balance in the water. Also, by quieting the legs, you save energy to stroke with. Especially initially, kicking and stroking would put me into oxygen debt almost instantly; the pull buoy let me swim better while focusing on the stroke. Once I had the stroke, then I added my legs back in to the mix.

Swim slow. Slower than that - keep going slower. Especially in the water, slow = smooth, smooth = fast.

Good advice guys - thanks!