Health Tips : Swimming Equipment
0By Winston Salem in : Fitness Tips // Jun 27 2010
A swimsuit, a pair of goggles, a swim partner or lifeguard, and a pool are all you need for splashing around or swimming laps.
A swimsuit saves you embarrassment (or keeps you out of jail). Goggles keep water out of your eyes.
A swim partner or lifeguard offers a measure of safety and a pool gets you wet!
Kids (and adults) unable to swim must be attended closely by an adult when in the water.
Optional equipment includes swim fins, kickboards, hand paddles, and leg floats.
Swim fins provide your lower body (muscles of the hips and knees) with a good workout and improve the flexibility of your ankles.
Swim fins also enable you to swim faster.
The remaining equipment (kickboard, hand paddles, and leg floats) must be used only by those whose swim technique is sound.
Swimming Variations
• Freestyle or Crawl – the fastest, most efficient, and most popular stroke.
• Breaststroke – Good choice for variety and injured shoulders.
• Butterfly – the most difficult to master, but impressive to watch when done well.
• Backstroke – Keeps the face out of the water and can be quite leisurely.
• Sidestroke – the safety stroke all lifeguards must master but also offers recreational swimmers more variety in underwater movement.
Did you know that humans are the only mammals that must learn how to swim?
All other mammals have an instinctive ability to swim. Regardless of your stroke choice, it is important to understand that technique is critically important – the wrong technique will likely cause injury and hinder efficient progress through the water.
You’ll improve your swimming performance most readily by eliminating resistance. Stroking furiously in the water does not necessarily propel you faster, it only exhausts you faster!
General Technique Tips – Even if you’re a recreational swimmer, you’ll benefit from this advice. Swim speed, or velocity, is the product of Stroke Length (SL) and Stroke Frequency (SF).
Increasing the SL (distance traveled per stroke) requires that you first learn to reduce resistance to forward progress.
After perfecting a position of low resistance, you can then add power to your stroke. This power originates in the hips and is translated up through the torso to the shoulder.
SF is not as important as SL. World class swimmers are not fast and efficient because they take frequent strokes.
They’re fast and efficient because they travel further in the water with each stroke. the following tips ought to help you maximize SL, improve efficiency, and minimize risk of injury.
1. Buoyancy varies from individuals to individuals (some are natural sinkers), so make the best of what you have. You will find that your swim speed improves as you take advantage of your buoyancy (no matter how small).
You will find your center of buoyancy in the region of your sternum. By balancing yourself on your center of buoyancy (especially in the crawl, breast, and back strokes) you will move more easily in the water.
Here’s a secret of world class swimmers – Balance yourself by consciously pushing or pressing your upper chest into the water. This maneuver brings your hips closer to the surface and decreases your frontal resistance.
2. Rowing sculls are long and narrow. This shape decreases water resistance to forward progress. What can you do? Maintain a long, streamlined body.
Between strokes pause slightly (with one hand extended in front of you) – this introduces a longer glide and streamlines your body (making it long and narrow) as it is propelled.
3. When swimming backstroke and freestyle, rotate the body side-to-side from the hips. It may seem like you are swimming on your side, but this is exactly what you want.
This rotation starts at the hips and is transferred up the torso to the shoulder and arm. Just before you start the arm pull, you should start to rotate in the opposite direction.
Make certain to use this rotational force (biomechanists call this torque) to help pull you through the water. A similar series of movements is used by major league baseball pitchers to throw 90+ MPH fastballs!
4. Don’t force your hands through the water! As your technique improves you ought to feel like you are climbing a “water ladder” with your hands and forearms resting against solid rungs of water. This is what collegiate coaches call a “feel for the water.”
5. the use of equipment such as kickboards, certain hand paddles, and leg floats must be reserved for those swimmers with firmly established technique!
Make certain to use of these pool “toys” ordinarily alters the body’s center of buoyancy and may harm your technique. Swim fins are acceptable swim aids.
It helps to realize that good swim technique takes time to develop and regular practice to maintain.
See the sample workouts below to improve or maintain your good form. Don’t risk injury by swimming at high intensities with poor technique!
Muscle Groups Used While Swimming
Swimming is an great aerobic activity. Nearly all the major muscle groups are recruited when you swim with the proper technique. Also, use a variety of strokes to recruit additional muscles. MIX IT UP!
Recommendations For Swimming
Swimming Risks – If you or your children don’t know how to swim, learn now! Lessons for both adults and children are typically available at your local YMCA/YWCA, high school, or college.
Injuries from swimming ordinarily occur in the shoulder. Such injuries are the result of improper technique, overuse, and/or weakness or muscle strength imbalance in the shoulder region.
Swimming Safety – Never swim alone! Be certain you are familiar with the water in which you swim. Open water swimming in the ocean or in lakes and ponds could be in particular dangerous.
Ocean currents can carry you several hundred yards offshore. Lakes and ponds may have submerged hazards.
Swimming Concerns – Without the proper training, attempting to rescue someone can cost you your life (no matter how well you swim or your conditioning). the American Red Cross offers water safety courses (see Resources below).
Swimming Resources
The American Red Cross
USA Swimming
Swimming Workouts
The following workout is designed primarily to improve your technique. It is intended as the first half of 2,000-2,500 meter workout.
More advanced swimmers should consider workouts listed in J.E. Counsilman’s book, the New Science of Swimming, 1994, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Important!!!
The heart rate response to swimming is more moderate than the response seen in dry land exercise.
Accordingly, the Karvonen determination of target heart rate ought to be modified downward 10 to 15 beats per minute for each zone.
• Warm-up – 250 to 400 meters easy crawl, breast, and back strokes. Don’t over-exert yourself!
• 4×50 balance drill – Scissors kick with arms extended in front of you (without a kickboard). Your head should be in the water and turned to the side to breathe.
Consciously press your upper chest into the water to bring your hips up. You may use swim fins if your forward progress is slow.
Pause every 25 or 50 meters to catch your breath. This is not a race, but a drill to improve your balance in the water.
• 2×50 side balance drill – Scissors kick on your right side with your right arm extended. Your head should be leaning on your right shoulder with your mouth just above the surface.
Don’t forget to balance properly by pressing your armpit into the water. Do 2×50 on your left side. Again, pause every 25 or 50 meters to catch your breath.
• 4×50 single arm pulls – This time you will concentrate on rolling the trunk during the pull phase of the stroke.
Start as you did with the initial balance drill; face down, scissors kick, pressing the chest. This time you will keep your left hand extended while you pull your right hand through the stroke and turning your body to its left side (you should be facing the right wall of the pool).
Do not pull your arm quickly through the water. Pull it deliberately and allow it to search out a rung on the ladder (still water). Pause briefly on your side, your right hand resting on your right hip.
Recover the right arm close to the body, returning it to meet the extended left hand. Perform 4×50 for the left arm.
• 4×50 double arm pulls – This drill brings together the elements in the three previous drills. It is performed similarly to the single arm pull.
This time, however, you’ll alternate pulling right and left arms (remembering to roll the body each time). Don’t forget to balance on your center of buoyancy.
• Do not neglect the proper technique during the remainder of your workout. You might finish your workout with any combination of distance or interval workouts. Here is an example
• 2×100 breast stroke
• 2×100 back stroke
• 10×50 freestyle – Rest 30 to 60 seconds. Count the volume of strokes with each 50 meter interval and attempt not to exceed 22 strokes.
Don’t forget, good swimmers swim fast because of a long stroke length! Your goal ought to be to reduce the amount of strokes you take in 50 meters.
• Cool-down – 150 to 250 meters easy stroke(s) of your option.
