Frustration

Have you looked for any advice, books, videos, TI, coaching, masters swimming, etc. Swimming is all about technique, if yours is wrong and you don't do anything to fix it, it won't improve on its own.

I just picked up Total immersion. I'm going to read it this weekend.

I'm actually more concerned with the way I'm handling frustration. My girlfriend has described my reactions of that of a 10 year old boy. She's probably right.

Mr. Eff

I find that, like you, I am extremely hard on myself when I struggle. Also like you, I have experienced a great deal of that frustration in the pool.

The evil curse of swimming appears to be that the better you are at technique, the faster you go and the less energy you exert. ARRRGGGHHH!!!!

As for attitude, I try to refocus my anger into my workout. I think about form (swimming, running or cycling) and try to "dump" the anger on the course. It doesn't always work, but I find it is a small way to hold onto some sanity.

I looked at your logs and I can see why you are frustrated. Here is my non-expert advice for what it is worth:

The way to get faster with swimming has to do with form. I am sure you are aware of this. My normal 100 time is quite slow compared to competitive people (around 2 min per 100 yds over 1/4 mile) and I have read that untl you can swim 1:40 or so consistently, you should concentrate on form rather than speed (ie drills rather than intervals).

Since your other legs indicate to me that it is not a problem with fitness, but with form, I would suggest the following tips that are often repeated here:

A lot of people here have found Total Immersion helpful. I have yet to get their materials but their free videos online might give you some pointers.

You need to swim more slowly. This might feel antithetical, but just swim fast enough so you don't sink while practicing form.

I think there are a few major areas where we tend to lose speed over the faster swimmers.

First, you need to not windmill your arms if you are doing that. Slow down and concentrate on pulling under water and being loose on your recovery.

Second, make sure that you are rotaiting your whole body when breathing rather than picking your head up. Picking your head up causes your legs to sink, creating more drag, and also just makes you tired more quickly. Try doing a length of lifeguard crawl and see how much harder it is with your head out of the water.

Third, "press the T" or "swim downhill" these are two terms for basically the same strategy. It means that you push your head down so that your legs come up closer to horizontal with the surface. Swimming like this --0 creates less drag than swimming like this /-o.

Fourth, work on starting your pull at below the level of your shoulders. I am currently working on this. If you start to pull as soon as your hand enters the water you are pushing down instead of back. This pushes your legs down(creating drag) and wastes energy for no forward motion.

Fifth, don't try to propel yourself by kicking. I find that kicking tires me out. This is different for everyone apparently though so do what feels natural. I use a 2 beat kick and my kicking is really only to keep my legs up, all the pull comes from my arms. This is also an effective tri-stragety as it saves your leg muscles for the other two legs.

Finally, again go slowly! Experiment with different ways of moving your body. try to work on being long and stealthy in your stroke rather than fast and whitewatery.

I hope these tips are some help. I am not an expert but have been trying to improve my form and this is what I have come up with. Also remember that the swim portion of the race is fairly short time wise, and that it is better to go a bit more slowly there IMO and conserve energy rather than to waste it while getting relatively little gain in speed. You can use the conserved energy to gain time on the bike and run. Swimming is a hard leg for a lot of people and form is the real deciding factor for most of us. When I started training swimming was my best leg relatively, now it is my worst because while my fitness gains in the other sports have translated into time gains in the bike and run, my swim has stayed the same since I haven't gotten good form down yet.

(I think that I might have misused "drag" here when the proper term is "hydrodynamic" or something, but you get the point: present less body area so there is less resistance.)

I'm a crappy swimmer. I've reached terminal mediocrity. Next step is a master's class.

At this point, though, I can swim up to 2k without stopping, all crawl, however when I started, I could only do about 50m before stopping, completely out of breath. You have to keep going to the pool, and practicing, and even if you can't see improvement right now, you will get there. BUT! You need to stop putting pressure on yourself. Take it easy, Rome's aquaducts were not swum in a day.

You don't say what problem you're having, if you're a real novice or if you're an expert who can't break 10 minutes for 750m.

In any case, this is the website that I based myself on. I started with certain drills and went from there. It's both in German and English, which is handy if you only know a bit of German and a bit of English.

http://www.svl.ch/svlimmat_ratind.html#schwimmen

And if you don't learn enough to crawl through your first tri, breaststroke, sidestroke or doggy paddle. You just have to make the distance, you don't have to win.

It might help to not go with your GF for a while. I find sometimes find that people's "help" when I am already annoyed usually results in my just getting more annoyed, not that that is the right way to be or whatever, but right doesn't enter into it much when you are feeling emotional and irritated and pissed off. Sometimes it is better to just go and hash it out by yourself. That way you can progress better, focus on getting your form right, and avoid the GF problems.

Edited by lablover 2005-07-15 9:33 AM

Walls R Us! I hit them all the time. You keep hitting it long enough and you will break the wall.The trick is hitting it hard enough to wear it down without breaking you in the process. Get your head down in the water and follow The Bears advice about technique. Do NOT spread your legs out behind you like a dragging Y, kick from your waist, not your knees... just go slow. A lot of people try to get fast without trying to get smooth in the way. Total Immersion Swimming is supposed to be good. You can also spend some good money on a coach for an hour and make HUGE improvements. Other than that it's time in the water. Get goggles if you don't have them and a swim cap and yes, the dreaded Speedo!

My advice is to stop doing that.

You need to take a step back and consider a couple things.

Why did you decide to do it in the first place.  For fun?  If so, keep that in mind.

Also, this is a sport of patience.  It takes *time* to get better/faster.  You're not going to suddenly see marked improvement overnight.

If it's swimming, then do this.  Don't your stopwatch along.  Don't look at a lap clock.  Just swim.  Keep swimming.  Repeat the mantra "I'm doing this for fun".  You're not going to turn into an olympic swimmer overnight, and it is unhealthy and unrealistic to place the expection on yourself that you will see improvements every single session.

You need to be in the right place mentally before you'll be able to advance physically.

-C

If it makes you feel any better, I can relate to frustration in the pool. I was a competitive swimmer up until my Freshmen year in college and then I didn't touch a pool for about 18 years. In the beginning of this summer I joined a Masters swim and thought I could jump in and it would all come back to me. I couldn't even swim a 25! It was extremely frustrating! The good news is that it does get better but it takes time. I was surprised at how slow going it was to get my strokes down and my endurance up. My coach was a huge part of getting me through it. He made some tweaks to my stroke and gave me really good drills tailored to what I needed to work on. If you can join a Masters swim, I would highly recommend it. Or at least find someone who really knows what they are doing to make little corrections that will improve your stroke. Another tip that really helped me was learning to relax in the water. The more stressed and frustrated I got, the worse I did. Once I learned to relax, I could breathe much better, swim longer and my stroke improved. Stick with it!

yup. for me, its running. i did a 5k last winter and had to walk part of it, after hoping i would be able to run the whole thing. i had to scale back my expectations after that...and sloooowly work at it. our improvements are so small, that sometimes we don't even notice that we're improving. that's one of the reasons we feel like we have breakthroughs. we were improving all along, it just takes a while for it to sink in. you will improve. do the tri, just give yourself a break.

"I'm actually more concerned with the way I'm handling frustration. My girlfriend has described my reactions of that of a 10 year old boy. She's probably right."


this is how i act when i play golf. I am horrible! my wife is a good golfer and doesn't like to play with me because of the way i act! My problem with golf is that i rarely play, don't take lessons and expect to go out and play well. It doesn't work like that!

Keep working at swimming..you will get it!

You need to start out with the attitude that you are going to suck at something that you are just starting. Then you do it. If you suck, you're not too upset, because you expected to suck. If you suck somewhat less than you expected, you're ecstatic. If you do well, you're popping champagne corks when you get home.

That's what I did with my car repair this week. I expected to get reamed on the repair bill. When I got reamed, I wasn't too upset, because I fully expected the reaming.

eff - 2005-07-15 10:50 AM

"I'm actually more concerned with the way I'm handling frustration. My girlfriend has described my reactions of that of a 10 year old boy. She's probably right."

When I completed my Tri last weekend I draped my medal around my husbands neck. He definatly earned it more than I did. You might want to consider handing her a LOT of flowers when you finish!

Edited by nliedel 2005-07-15 9:55 AM

Wow. You all are really great people. I appreciate all of your responses.

Whit, I think nailed the frustration on the head. I've apologized profusely to my girlfriend and hopefully I haven't done irreparable damage to our relationship.

With the swimming, I'm encountering two problems. One, I can't find a breathing pattern that's comfortable. Two, I know that I'm wasting energy because of bad form, but I don't know how to fix that.

So I bought the total immersion book, and I'm going to go through that. I'll see if it can help. The other thing I'm going to do is stop swimming in the morning. I'm not a morning person. I'm irritable and cranky in the morning on the best of days. So it's not a good time for me to take on that type of challenge. When my swimming progress becomes a matter of fitness rather than form, I might swim in the morning again. But not now.

Thanks again...and if anyone has any other advice, feel free to chime in. I'm going to print out this page at the end of the day for inspiration and guidance.

Edited by mr. eff 2005-07-15 10:04 AM

Pick a side, for now, and breath every stroke even if you feel like a complete moron for doing it. Work on sustained strokes before breathing later and bilateral breathing can wait a bit too.

Great advice!  It would make a good article!!!