Swim improvements - share them here

It is all about technique.

I've been swimming for 5 years and haven't improved last 3 years other than going longer. I wish I could figure out what I need to do to get better. I've been to clinics, hired coaches, and still no real improvement.
 

I have been training for 5 weeks now.  I had a swimming background with decent technique.  (I swam in high school and a little after.)  I started with about 400 and have really focused on form and technique and just did 1500 without any trouble in under 40 min.  Probably could have done 2,000 but don't want to overdo it.  My biggest piece of advice for swimmers is to make yourself "long" in the water.  Reach, but don't lock your elbows.  First two fingers enter the water first and make an "s" shape along your side with high elbows.  I am also swim without a kick.  I'll save my legs for the bike and run. 

I don't have my times for you but the DVD "Go Swim Freestyel with Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen" helped me tremendously.  I too have a competitive swimming background and am comfortable in the water.  My technique, endurance and speed have all improved after watching this DVD.

I did my first OWS at a clinic a couple of weeks ago and killed.  I was totally comfortable in the water and was able to hang with experienced triathletes.  The confidence I got from this has allowed me to divert focus to my cycling in running, where I have a lot of work to do.

Here is a link if you're interested.

http://www.goswim.tv/entries/2909/go-swim-freestyle-with-karlyn-pipes-neilsen.html

Yes, they will!  Good enough?

My story:  I hadn't touched a lap pool since I was 7 years old (17 years ago).  The most swimming I had done was surfing.  Started pool training in May (about 5 months ago) doing at least 2 sessions per week.  Looking at my spreadsheets of my workouts here's how it looks:

When I started:   averaged about 57 seconds per 50 meters.

As of this past Wednesday:  average for this month is at 47.5 seconds per 50 meters.

I did a HUGE amount of research on stroke technique and the most important thing I learned is that so long as your technique is correct from the start, it doesn't matter how fast you are going.  Through time your good technique will begin to make you faster without you even realizing it.

Good luck with the training.  Get your stroke right and speed will come.

 I started swimming and was mostly concerned about being able to swim a good distance. I knew nothing and tought myself by reading alot, swimming, and watching alot of youtube. Then I started to moniter my pace to compare against other swimmers. It was consistantly 2:45/100yds!

After a year of swimming, (not a ton of volume, but still), this is what I had. That's embarassingly slow! Back to youtube, reading, swimming, now trying to build speed and efficiency...finally I had a breakthrough. Within two months I went to 2:10/100yds and less than 2 if I push it!

Lessons I learned:

1. you've gotta swim at least 3 times a week, and not 300 yds and go home. Really spend a good hour plus.

2. No matter how much you swim, you still might not get any faster unless you go beyond yourself and seek continuous guidance from others.

3. I'll let you know when I figure it out

I have been swimming regularly a year now. when I first started I swam 100 yards in 6 minutes and my workout consisted of 3 laps.

Fast Forward to today:

Since Jan, I have swam over 100 miles and have my 100 down to 1:40. the only thing I can say that helped me, was getting in the water 4 days a week. I now look forward to the swim portion of the race!

Not sure of my intial times because I just started swimming for fitness with no intention of doing a tri so never kept track when I first started.

 However, first time I tried to swim laps I did 4x25 with big breaks and head out of water.  It took me some time to feel comfortable with my face in the water and eventually got to maybe 200 meters non-stop after about 3 months.  I then found a pool tri that I wanted to do so I had to submit a 300m time a month before the race.  I think I did it in 9 minutes or about 3:00/100.  On race day I managed 8:30.  6 months later I did 6:30 and 6 months later at the same race I went 5:30 so I took of 3 minutes in 1 year.  This year I am hoping to go sub 5'.

Wow! This thread is really inspiring! I am still at 2:30/100. My distance is improving but speed not so much. But I now have hope that I will be able to get below 2:00 as long as I keep swimming 3 time per week. Right now I am only swimming intervals using freestyle, not really doing any kind of drills. I am still struggling with technique. I plan on incorporating drills during the winter for maintenance work.

Good job on all of the accomplishments everyone! Thanks for posting! 

I started swimming mid '05, teaching myself from the TI book. I progressed ok, but never really swam much and took months off per year. In '07, I started swimming more and for the full year and was feeling pretty good about my swim. This year (after some back probs), I swam alot (4x / week) and joined a Masters team. The coach really hasn't told me much about my stroke, but does give general advice/tips/focus to the entire team that has helped, mainly with my pull. By the end of this year, I'll probably have swum as much yardage this year as '05, '06, & '07 combined.

Here is my swim in race progression for a 300yd pool swim tri I've done every year in August:

'05 - 6:26 (2:08 /100 yds)
'06 - 5:27 (1:49 /100 yds)
'07 - 5:05 (1:42 /100 yds)
'08 - 4:25 (1:28 /100 yds)

Granted these are short pool swims, but with OWS, even within the same race year to year, the course is rarely the same.

Many thanks - exactly what I was looking for... makes me think early mornings in the pool over the winter will be worth it after all!

Some milestones for me:

• Jan/Feb 2007 - First TI lesson package, couldn't make it to the end of the pool doing freestyle without choking. 
• Feb 2007 - Swam half mile in indoor tri in 30 minutes, mostly backstroke
• Feb 2008 - Swam half mile in same indoor tri in 30 minutes, mostly freestyle
• Jun 2008 - First Oly tri, 46 min swim (.9 mile)
• Sep 2008 - swam half mile in pool practice, in 20 minutes - no buoy, no rest strokes, just constant freestyle.

I really enjoy pool time and really try to go at least twice a week.  I got up to the Oly distance using a pull buoy for my distance swims, or the wetsuit in OWS practice, knowing I could wear a wetsuit on race day.

I FINALLY had a breakthrough this last month and got freestyle, without a buoy, for the first time ever.  I found my rhythm and magically could stay buoyant. 

I credit this to constant practice, TI lessons, and setting manageable goals.  The increase in speed was merely a coincidence, because distance was my goal.  But what a nice thing to happen!

After not swimming in about 23 years, I could do

After one year of swimming on my own:  10x100 meters on 1:45

After a second year, but with Masters: 20x100 meters on 1:40, 50 free in 27.1 seconds

Start of third year, strained my shoulder and haven't swum in 4 months, but I'm getting finally getting better at running!

I was a decent swimmer back in the day.  My mind still says I should be holding 100s at below 1:20, but my body stopped cooperating...

Brian 

My opinion is it's not ALL about technique. I think that's just a crutch used like buying a bike that "fits" best. It's hard to quantify, but sure is thrown out there often. If it were ALL about technique, the top female  would be as fast as the top male swimmers. Turns out, the difference (%) in top male/female times are about the same as is for track events.Certainly males don't physiologically have better technique, right?

I guess it's also hard to define what technique is. To me, simply, it's the part of swimming that focuses on reducing resistance and increasing efficiency. So, body position, stroke timing, high elbow, etc all fall under this. Kick & pull strength focus/drills and hard sets would not be something of technique.

For someone (like the OP) swimming a sustained pace of 1:54 per 100, they need to work hard on both to see the most improvements. Also, I'm a firm believer that you need to spend at least 4 days a week swimming to see big improvements.

Edited to add. I'm not a fast swimmer and have plenty to improve upon. I get destroyed by real swimmers several times a week and know my place. I'm just tired of hearing it's all about technique when I had my biggest gains by swimming lots and doing alot of speedwork (ie building strength).

I grew up swimming (swim lessons, OW in the summers and lifeguarding training) so when I decided to start training for triathlon, I figured swimming would be the easiest part of the training.  So in Aug 04, I jumped in the pool and swam 25m and thought I was going to die

Since then, here are some of the results I've seen:

Jan 05 - able to consistently hold under 2:00/100m
Sep 05 - first OD; 29:xx
Sep 06 - OD; 25:xx
Sep 07 - OD; 25:xx
Apr 08 - 1500m SCM; 23:07
May 08 - OD; 23:xx

In 05-06, I was fairly balanced in my training but after getting to the 25' mark for 1500m, I basically put my swimming into maintenance (swam 120k in 07) and focused on biking and running.  In 08, I started swimming 3x/week in order to drop another 2' off my time.  The biggest difference was a combo of consistent training and training with a coach on deck; lots of swimming combined with a coach to provide feedback resulted in significant improvements.

My goal over this fall/winter/spring is to get my swimming up to 5x/week for about 15k/week in an attempt to drop my swim times by another 2'.  5x may not be enough to accomplish this but we'll see how it goes

Shane