FORUMS > General Fitness Discussion Forum Rules

Anyone know of a good site that will tell you how to better your swimming? I am training for tri's and well, swimming is my weakest point. I would, in all honesty, love to take a swimming class but between weight training, running, cycling, being a student, teaching, and also studying for some God-forsake PhD qualifying exam, I really don't have time. So I thought maybe, just maybe, there might be a website out there that could give me good tips on how to better my free stroke (pleeease tell me there is!)

OR, do you guys have any good tips? I know I won't drown, I just really want to do well (and beat my friend).

Thanks for the help, I appreciate it.

I would go to the US Masters Swimming website and start by following the links under training. You may eventually find what you are seeking.

http://www.usms.org/training/

Take a look thru the adds on the right side of the screen for merchandise. There are some good training videos.

www.artofswimming.com

The best thing you can possibly do is to get some footage of yourself swimming, both above and below the waterline.

The popular program, Total Immersion, is valuable, but can be misinterpreted by inexperienced or non-critical readers.

Good luck!

nabob7729 saidI would go to the US Masters Swimming website and start by following the links under training. You may eventually find what you are seeking.

http://www.usms.org/training/

Take a look thru the adds on the right side of the screen for merchandise. There are some good training videos.

Pinny,

a follow up to nabob, you should join a masters team it's the best way to improve. You will not improve unless you are told what you are doing wrong...and a coached masters workout is where that is going to happen.

Not to worry, I found the masters to be very gay friendly....must be the love for speedos.

D

You should also take a look at www.triswimcoach.com The layout of the site looks incredibly gimmicky and hucksterish, but by signing up for just the free newsletter you also get access to all the archives of old newsletters, which contain a wealth of information on maintaining proper form for a distance swim. Most competitive swims which are only swims are much more in line with sprints, and so there's a tendency to end up going all out in those and not having anywhere near the energy left needed to complete a triathlon.

Also, check out youtube. You can find videos of long distance swimmers and triathletes, rather than the elite Olympic swimmers, and start mimicking them, one bit of technique at a time. There's a whole ton to learn to keep track of (elbows high, hand at a 30 degree angle, hand enters the water at 2/3 extension, hand extension is straight in front to straight back, accelerate the hand as it leaves the water, push down on the chest to keep the body in line, head faces down not forward, breathe under your arm, kick from the hip, keep the butt high, keep the toes pointed, don't try to drive too much power from the legs, rotate the torso about the center line, etc.) and you almost certainly can't mentally keep track of it all at once, so pick something each swim and try to do just that properly, and as you cycle among them you'll find you start defaulting some of them to the correct technique.

Check out http://www.totalimmersion.net/ too .It says it can improve your swimming fast.