Swimator Blog

Breaststroker's Knee: 3 Tips to Avoid It

2012-04-24T22:59:00.003+03:00

Do you swim breaststroke every time you have a workout? If you do, perhaps it is time to start learning other strokes and give your knees a bit of a rest. I know quite a few competitive breaststroke swimmers who did not train properly during their younger years and now suffer from knee pains during their favorite stroke, so don't become and statistics :). Jenna, a journalism student at Saint Louis University, will share with you a few tips on how to prevent the breaststroker's knee syndrome, so you don't become like the swimmers I mentioned earlier.

Breaststroke kick on back

Enter Jenna:
While swimming is certainly one of the most physically taxing of all the major sports out there, many non-competitive swimmers don't understand the stress that swimming can put on our bodies. It is by no means a sport void of injury. Quite to the contrary actually, there are a number of common injuries brought on by different swimming strokes. Here we will explore one of the most common of these injuries, and offer potential ways to avoid the annoyance of have to deal with it.

Breaststroker's knee is a common swim injury that many swimmers unfortunately have to deal with at some point in their career. Generally speaking, the injury is a result of two particular phases in the mechanics of the breaststroke. First, the whip kick of the stroke stretches out the medial ligament repeatedly in the knee. Then, when the legs are brought back together after the extension, during the propulsive phase of the kick the knee is subject to extreme external rotation. As our knees were not designed specifically for these motions, over time they can wear on the medial collateral ligament mentioned before. But, there are a few good ways to avoid this injury.

Alternating Strokes

By alternating swimming strokes, swimmers can put less repeated, direct strain on the knees and medial ligaments. This can obviously be beneficial to the knee, and can also help keep up practice with your other strokes.

Lengthy Breaks

If your knee is beginning to bother you, try avoiding the breaststroke for as long a period as possible. With enough time, the ligaments can recuperate and rehabilitate themselves if left alone. If possible, try splitting your strokes up by different months or other lengths of time throughout the year.

Knee hot/cold therapy wrap from betterbraces.com

Out of Pool Support/Stretching

Much like soccer braces used by soccer players for knee injuries, there are different braces designed specifically for swimmers to be worn outside the pool, and sometimes even inside the pool, that can be helpful for problematic knees. Also important to consider is the matter of stretching before and after swimming. This can greatly reduce your risk of injury and keep your body limber and prepared for each swim workout.

No matter what your favorite stroke is, swimmers do deal with various injuries. Maintaining proper stretching and workout techniques is an especially vital part of staying healthy. Consult your doctor if you feel you may have any serious swimming-related injuries before getting back in the pool. Stay safe and enjoy.

From Swimator Blog: Chances are you don't swim far enough and often enough with breaststroke to worry about your knees, however, if you do, it is definitely good idea to break it up a little. Do not swim your entire workout with breaststroke, but instead get creative and compose your workouts accordingly. You will prevent an injury before it is too late and have much more fun while swimming when you incorporate more strokes into it.

This is a guest post by Jenna, a journalism student at Saint Louis University. Upon graduation, she hopes to travel the world while producing compelling content for the masses. When she isn't writing, you can find Jenna with her nose in a book, or her headphones in to block out the rest of the world.

From the Swim Bag: Win a swim cap, design your swim suit and more

2012-04-17T16:07:00.001+03:00

I get a lot of different emails from swimmers, people who'd like to swim, swimming companies and other fitness organizations asking interesting questions, promoting their products and services. Some of them are too good to be lost and forgotten in my inbox, so I decided to start sharing the more useful information on the Swimator Blog. Introducing "From the Swim Bag", a semi-regular round up of curated swimming information.

April's "From the Swim Bag" edition is below:

Swimator Blog custom swim suit

Design your own Swimwear with Finis

It is not an every day thing to buy a swim suit, especially if it is customized to your liking. However, as it is with other clothing and accessories, fashion does not sleep and swimming is no other, so why not create a swim suit based on your desires.

FINIS, a swimming equipment company, just launched a new product: The Custom Swimwear Design Studio! which will let all the swimming enthusiasts out there to design a unique swim suit, drag suit or swimming cap. With easy step by step instruction, it is easy as one to three to have a newly fashioned swim suit designed shipped to you. Check out the quickly put together Swimator Blog suit design. You can let your imagination run wild.

Win a free swimming cap

There is an opportunity to win a free swimming cap on our Facebook page. When the fan count reaches 300 a drawing will be made out of the last 20 Likes and one lucky swimmer will receive a free swimming cap. At the time of this writing, there are only 3 spots left, so hurry up and become a fan.

Sedentary job is a killer

To keep up with the swimming for health trend of this blog, I figured it was very appropriate to post the following statistics about our sedentary job.

Created by: OnlineUniversity.net

This does not apply only to Americans, but most developed countries in the world. Why couldn't swimming be an answer to the problem? Go for a 30 minute swim during a lunch break or jump into your local swimming hole for a quick dip after work. Do not become a statistic and learn to enjoy swimming.

Thanks to Signs, You Can Just Keep Swimming

2012-04-16T10:24:00.003+03:00

No matter if we like it or not, we live in the world of signs. Traffic signs on the street, grocery signs in the supermarket, direction signs at the airports and for us more importantly rule signs at a swimming pool. One wouldn't think much about the signs in the last group, however, believe it or not, they are a key ingredient to a well functional pool facility and to enjoyable swimming experience. Suman, a lifelong aficionado of swimming, is here to bring more awareness and understanding of pool signs.

Pool depth sign (in Finnish, but everyone understands)

Enter Suman:
Consider these situations: you’re learning how to swim at the pool and find yourself in a pocket of water deeper than you wanted. You can’t concentrate on getting your laps in because a pool visitor brought his barking dog, or you slip on a Big Mac wrapper lying on the wet ground. Pool facility regulators must do what they can from preventing new swimmers from going off the deep end. Promoting rules, especially through strategically placed swimming pool signs, can make all the difference.

Like driving, swimming is an activity that requires people to be completely present, so there is no wonder that pool signs are utilized in a supportive and instructional manner. Clearly understandable signs help turn the pool into an amazing fully functional organism. Hundreds of people get in and out of pools and none of them would for example want to use public pools where people don’t shower or rinse off beforehand, which is why the signs require swimmers to shower before entering.

Pool rules signs also help to monitor what people can’t/shouldn't bring into swimming areas. For example, food, beverages, and tobacco products are generally prohibited, and apart from guide animals, pets are usually not allowed as well. Since these are public pools, everyone should do their part to keep swimming pools enjoyable places to be, so please obey the signs :).

When it comes to swimming, every inch or foot makes a difference. Shallow waters about three feet deep (~1 meter) are good for wading, relaxing, or swimming with infants or small children. However, that depth is definitely not ideal for jumping or diving, so it’s important to pay attention to 3ft (~1m) pool depth markers. In-ground pools are usually about five feet (~1,5m) deep, so they are a bit safer when it comes to diving in, but still the depth markers are needed for the new swimmers who should test how they feel at different depths, whether it’s three or six feet (~1-1,5m).

No Diving

It’s also crucial that divers know some ground rules before diving, since it can be a riskier activity than swimming. It’s all too easy for someone to jump into waters that are too shallow and injure themselves, striking their head or their legs on the pool bottom or side. No diving signs and other diving rules signs set the ground rules for swimmers to follow, from alerting others of shallow waters with no diving or urging people not to jump or push people into the water. Caution & warning no diving signs will save lives and stop injuries by commanding people to prevent drowning by watching their children or not to dive in an above-ground pool. Apart from fatalities, a dive that’s too steep can result in a broken neck and paralysis. As some of the signs say, "If in doubt, don’t dive!" (from Swimator Blog: An injury sustained from diving into shallow water is very very common, my brother for example had his shoulder dislocated after hitting the bottom too hard during one of our child games at our pool, so do not take this lightly.)

Since swimming is one of the most fun activities possible, that does not mean it is always safe. People must be on their guard. It is all too easy to get into an accident, slip and fall, or inconvenience others. In addition to our heroic lifeguards, swimming pool signs make sure

If you are a swimming facility manager or owner, please make sure your signs have been installed in your pool area as a support system to enjoy swimming or water play. If you are not sure where to start, why not for example check out an online store such as SwimmingPoolSigns.com which will provide you with a guidance on what type of materials and texture to consider. For example, aluminum signs are great allies because they withstand water spray, rust, weather, and abrasion. Or how about choosing signs which are skid-resistant and adhere to most surfaces instead of slippery. Many online shops also provide custom templates, so you as a swimming pool operator can create rules which fit your specific needs. So as you see, getting the appropriate rules arsenal for your swimming pool is quite simple, so make your pools safe.

From Swimator Blog: You may not even realize it, but more than likely you always check out at least one pool rule sign before beginning a swim to see if you are complying with pool procedures. Be it something you spot in the showers, around the pool or the signs which tell you the speed of swimmers in particular lanes. Next time you are in the pool, just pay attention and you will see that I am right. Better yet, why don't you count how many signs you encounter in your local pool during the next visit and share your count with us. It will be interesting to see how signs rule the pool :).

This guest post is contributed by Suman Sridhar, a lifelong aficionado of swimming. She is a content writer for SwimmingPoolSigns.com, a SmartSign site.

Swimming and Medical Infections (The dangers of dirty water)

2012-04-09T10:22:00.006+03:00

Let's step away from swimming strokes, discussions of equipment and other learn to swim related material for a moment and look at the scarier side of swimming. Not many of us realize this, but apart from drowning, it is possible to catch a disease or infection from you local swimming hole. And I am not talking about a foot fungus from the shower floor or the unwashed sauna. Marina Salisbury, an experienced writer, is here to enlighten us about the dangers that lurk in the dark depths of our swimming pools and open water spots. Ok, that was a bit too dramatic as this article is not meant to scare you and by no means, keep you from pursuing this great sport, but it does not hurt to know what is out there to get you :).

Dirty swimming pools can cause nasty infections

Enter Marina:
Every summer, many people all around the world choose to spend their hot days splashing in the water. The American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that swimming is the third most popular recreational activity in the United States; it is also the most popular recreational activity among children. However, not everything is so hunky dory. All water-goers risk exposure to recreational water illnesses (RWI), which are caused by germs that live in contaminated water. These have been found in both man-made structures (such as swimming pools, hot tubs and water parks) and outdoor areas (such as rivers, lakes and oceans).

Many swimmers assume that pools treated with chlorine and other chemicals are less likely to make them sick. Even though, this is probably true CDC still warns that certain diseases thrive in environments like this. Cryptosporidium (or Crypto), which is considered the leading cause of pool-related diarrheal illness, will survive for days in even a well-maintained pool. From 2004 to 2008, reported cases of this disease in the U.S. increased by 200 percent; some experts theorize the Crypto germs have developed a tolerance to chlorine over the years. Another swimming pool risk is the infectious liver disease, Hepatitis A. This virus can contaminate pools if there is any sudden rise in the local raw sewage level—which can occur anywhere after a heavy rainstorm. Though healthy chlorine levels will drastically reduce the risk of contamination, the CDC reported in 2010 that 1 in 8 public American pools were closed after failed chlorine level inspections.

Swimmer’s ear, also known as otitis externa according to the ICD-9 medical coding platform, is another infection, which can be obtained through swimming. Though a high temperature is known to kill many forms of bacteria in water, hot tubs are no safer than swimming pools; in fact, EHA Consulting Group, Inc. reports that heat may break down chemicals in the water and hamper their ability to disinfect. A common jacuzzi-related disease is Pseudomonas, which can produce swimmer’s ear, as well as a skin rash commonly known as "hot tub folliculitis." Even healthy individuals are vulnerable to the rash, which resembles chicken pox. Another potential threat to spa-goers is Norwalk Virus, which has been recently linked to several cruise ship outbreaks. This disease can be transmitted via human contact in setting such as hot tubs and spas. Naegleriasis and Acanthamoebiasis are free-living organisms that enter the human body through the nasal mucosa—and are known to cause corneal infections in hot tubs (especially for those who wear soft contact lenses).

Many miniature dangers await in open water

Many diseases that have been linked to public pools have also been found in the wild. One of these crossover diseases is Giardiasis, a protozoan infection with a notorious reputation among hikers. The disease is typically transmitted through oral consumption of contaminated water, and infected individuals can experience severe abdominal cramps, frequent diarrhea and weight loss for as long as three weeks. Giardiasis can be found in both stagnant and running water—so physicians warn outdoor enthusiasts to never drink from rivers. What does this mean for swimming? Try to eliminate getting water in your mouth, so take a breath well above the water line. Those who swim in areas adjacent to farms or agricultural facilities risk exposure to Leptospirosis, or Weir Fever. The disease is typically transferred into the water via livestock waste; symptoms include fever, chills, jaundice and skin hemorrhages. Finally, North American swimmers are susceptible to E. Coli, a disease-causing organism that is thought to cause 90 percent of diarrhea-related hemolytic uremic syndrome, which causes renal failure and poses particular risk to children. E. Coli is spread through contaminated drinking and swimming water (many physicians urge people not to drink from fountains at public pools).

Those who travel worldwide are advised to take precautions in regard to swimming, especially in third world nations. Schistosomiasis is a disease caused by parasitic snails, which enter the body either through the anal cavity or the urethra. Though these organisms have not been linked to any serious health problems in North America, they thrive in standing bodies of water located in tropical countries. Serious infection can lead to erosion of the digestive tract and colorectal cancer. Another threat is Dracunculiasis, a worm that enters the human body as a larva, matures parasitically and eventually releases offspring once the infected individual enters the water again. Today, this condition is only reported in 13 sub-Saharan African nations.

As countless number of adults and children flock to the local public pools and swimming holes, they are encouraged to take a second look at their surroundings. If any unsanitary conditions are detected, then the swimming area should probably be avoided. Nobody wants to spend valuable summer days hunched over a toilet—or linked to an IV in the emergency room.

From Swimator Blog: So there you have it. There definitely are some scary things with big names in the waters :). While you think you are stroking your way to better health and condition, you might unknowingly contract one of the infections mentioned above and spend a few days or weeks squeezing it out :). Even though, in my opinion it is probably quite unlikely you will ever catch anything from the water you swim in, it is always good to understand the risks and as Marina pointed out, use your common sense when going out for a swim. If you see a dead rat in your swimming pond, this might probably be a good sign to get it checked out or to hop for a swim into some other body of water.

As they say, what does not kill you only makes you stronger :), so get out there and appreciate every stroke, live life to the fullest and eat your dessert first. You never know what might happen.

This is a guest post by Marina Salsbury who planned on becoming a teacher since high school, but found her way instead into online writing after college. She writes around the web about everything from education to exercise.

Learn to swim without water with HYBAC

2012-04-01T11:45:00.024+03:00

This is quite amazing. Learning to swim without water? Wow, I did not think I'd live to see the day. Russian scientists from the Vladivostok's Institute for Marine Research came up with a groundbreaking invention called the HYBAC ("Hydrobaric chamber"). HYBAC is a machine which mimics the water environment with all of its unique properties. Now that is insane.

HYBAC in its beauty (photo by: AP/Wide World Photos)

The invention is a large circular cube where a normal person comfortably fits into. The chamber has mirrors all over the inner walls, so the subject can have clear view of themselves at all times. Special air vents are placed all around the horizontal and vertical lines on each wall. The air vents continuously pump in special nano particles which if reflected by the mirrors cause the air to gain its water like properties. By all water like properties I mean that it is for example 800 times denser in the cubicle than outside, so a person can easily float as if in the water or in zero gravity field. Of course, the air is not breathable, so a mask has to be wore at all times. The front air vents can be adjusted to pump in stronger currents of the nano particles, so the HYBAC chamber creates sort of a swimming flume like effect.

This HYBAC nano technology was originally created to test different scuba diving materials to allow the human body to be submerged into greater depths without the use of any underwater vehicles/submarines, however, I am sure you can now see the huge potential for swimming far beyond the original intended scuba diving use. Since the inside of the hydrobaric chamber feels like water without water, it is possible for the unfortunate individuals who suffer from fear of water (hydrophobia) to safely practice their body movements without actually being in water or for skilled swimmers perfect their body positions without any other distractions.

HYBAC nano air vent (image by freepatentsonline.com)

Let me explain it a bit differently. Many people struggle in the water because they are not able to fully relax and let go, for whatever reason. If a human is placed inside the HYBAC chamber where the water element is removed, after the initial shock of floating in a very thick air, he/she can relax as it is impossible to fall, to drown, to choke on water or to get water in the nose. All of which usually cause the swimmer to not fully relax and not fully allow the water support. Another huge problem is that many swimmers try to swim over top of the water and not through it. This causes the swimmers upper body being lifted over the surface of the water while the legs are dragging way down below the surface. Not the most aerodynamic of positions, let me tell you. One other problem in swimming is that the swimming movement is so complex it requires a synchrony of many body parts and body motions to make it all work, so it is very hard to focus only on improving one little thing. In the HYBAC hydrobaric chamber, there is no reason to swim on top of anything as everywhere it is the same and there is no reason to focus on all the body movements at one time, so the swimmer can easily position the body in a nice horizontal line and maintain it while stroking away.

Inspection by the Russian officials (image by iwm.org.uk)

Pavel Vladimir Apriliovic (depicted in the image above), one of the Russian scientist responsible for the HYBAC chamber invention says that they have already received bids for purchases from the Russian, Australian, British and American Swimming Federation bodies. However, he mentioned that there is only one hydrobaric chamber for sale at this moment in time and it will take at least another year to produce the next sister HYBAC chamber. So there will be an auction held in Vladivostok at the end of May and the highest bidder will go home with a new tool in their swimming improvement arsenal. This comes at an interesting time with the onset of the 2012 London Olympic swimming fever.

Ok, perhaps you have already started to smell something fishy in the article. Happy April Fools to everyone:). Unfortunately, I am afraid there is no HYBAC and you are stuck with the water and with the tedious learning of the intricacies it brings with it :). Keep up the good work. If you get over the initial learning curve, be consistent and persistent, you will soon learn to appreciate and even enjoy being in the water.

Swimsuit Tips for Leisure Swimming

2012-03-26T12:38:00.003+03:00

Swimming is a great sport in terms of the equipment you need to use. One only needs a swimsuit, perhaps a pair of goggles and a swimming cap. Great simplicity, isn't it? Apart from that, you do not need a thing. When I was very young, I tried out for an ice hockey team and made it as a goalie, however, our financial situation in the deep communist times was not that great (let's just say we didn't sit well with the system:)), so I was put into swimming instead. One dollar swimsuit, no goggles and that was it. Easy decision as one, two, three :). However, in today's consumer driven world, the decision is not as simple. Top competitive swimsuits cost hundreds of dollars, though probably still cheaper than buying all the ice hockey padding, but nevertheless not cheap. Furthermore, there are so many choices of swimsuits to choose from, let me just say I am so glad I am not a fashionable lady or a guy from Sweden :). If you are into fashion as well as into practicality and are contemplating buying a new swimsuit for your workout routines or just for leisurely swims, you are in luck. Susan from In Style Swimwear will share with you some important tips which you should keep in mind when choosing your next swimsuit.

Fashionable, yet practical swim suit

Enter Susan:
Attention ladies! Are you considering taking up swimming? Not only is swimming a great full body workout, but it’s fun too! Whether you’re planning to join a masters swim team or simply looking to spice up your workout routine, the first thing you’ll need is a new swimsuit.

When you’re shopping around, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with the wide variety of styles on the market. As a swimwear industry insider, I’ll be the first to admit that many swimsuit styles are not very practical when it comes to active or competitive swimming; a number of swimsuit styles are considered to be "for show" and are more about being fashion-forward than functional. However, there is a way to combine the functionality and also look fashionable. After reading this post, we hope you’ll know what to look for when shopping for your new hobby.

Always look for swimsuits with high Lycra Spandex counts

As a rule of thumb, the higher the Lycra Spandex count, the more the swimsuit will stretch and suck you in, helping to streamline your swimming. You want to find a swimsuit that hugs close to your body so nothing interferes with your swimming, thus keeping your strokes fluid, efficient and graceful.

Great for the swim as well as for the beach

Straps are your best friend

Always look for a swimsuit in a one-piece silhouette. Classic one-piece swimsuits tend to have two shoulder straps and will help give you the support you need. Avoid bandeau or strapless swimsuit styles, as these are more likely to fall down during mid-stroke! While you’re swimming, a blooper is the last thing you want to worry about :).

Support the girls

Finally, if you’re a bit bigger up top, you may need some extra support while swimming. Swimsuit styles that have underwire support, molded cups and/or shelf bras provide the best bust support. Think of these styles as your underwire sports bra. If you’re looking for speed and to beat the competition, skip the molded cups and look for a swimsuit with just an underwire shelf bra.

We’ll leave you with one final tip: Always wash your swimsuit after every wear. Extended chlorine exposure can actually break down the Lycra Spandex and ruin the overall durability of your swimsuits. Happy swimming!

This is a guest post by Susan Bodack who is a blogger for Beauty and the Beach, a swimsuit and fashion blog by InStyleSwimwear.com.

What hand paddles should I use?

2012-03-21T10:19:00.001+02:00

Let me stop you right there, let's ask a better question: what do I need paddles for? If your answer to this question is "I don't know, everyone else is using them" or "I feel more powerful with paddles" or "I swim faster with paddles" or something along those lines, then chances are you should keep wondering what paddles you should use for a bit longer. If you do not, chances are that the current paddles you are using or the paddles you will purchase will do more damage to your stroke and your body than they will do good. You will not have any benefit from them, except maybe thinking you are swimming faster or that you were clever to spice up your swim workouts to be less boring.

The confusing world of swimming hand paddles

Paddles are actually an advanced piece of swimming gear which should only be used by swimmers either with correct technique or by swimmers working on improving specific part of their stroke. So if you find yourself asking a question like "what paddles should I use?", then just save yourself the hassle of going down the cul de sac and of wasting your money. You are better of focusing on improving your stroke through some other means such as body positioning drills, proper kicking etc. However, if you are still wondering what paddles are for and whether you need them, let's explore the idea of what swim paddles to use and for what.

There are literally hundreds of different types of paddles including plain square pieces of plastic with holes in them, more sophisticated palm molded paddles, paddles with vertical protrusions, finger paddles, humongous sprint paddles, backstroke forearm paddles, or antipaddles. There are also many sizes, ranging from small teeny weeny paddles which barely fit into the palm of your hand to crazy looking ores many times bigger than your hand. So no wonder many people out there just blindly follow the trends of what equipment they see the top athletes using, not realizing that the top athletes have mostly different needs in terms of hand paddles as someone that is just starting out with a triathlon or pool swimming.

Majority of the paddles are just simply pieces of plastic which have no other purpose, except to make your palm larger, therefore making you exert more strength throughout your pull. Note: this does not mean that the stronger you pull, the faster you will go. Nowadays, these plastic molds have some sort of holes in them to allow water properly stimulate your palm during the usage, so at least some feeling for water is retained after the swimmer takes the paddles off. In the old days, this was not so, the paddles hand no holes, so the difference between swimming with paddles and without was a bit more radical which was more than likely also causing more shoulder injuries. Personally, I don't recommend extended use of these paddles to anyone unless their stroke is up to par with being efficient and effective, otherwise it is just painful to watch :). A swimmer who has no control over the way arms/hands move under the water should stay away. On the other hand, using these paddles once in a while as a sort of a checkpoint how you are doing might not be a bad idea. Especially, if you follow the competitive swimmer landscape and only use the middle finger strap on the paddles. Usually, these paddles come with a wrist and finger strap. The finger strap is the important part, the wrist strap, just get rid off it ;). By getting rid off the wrist band, you have to make sure that your hand enters the water correctly and that your hand also travels through the water correctly not deviating from almost straight line going backwards. If you have trouble with the stroke technique, chances are the paddles will slip off at the hand entry or during the pull, so this is a good indication whether you are improving or not. If you do for some reason want to power through the water with these types of paddles, be sensible and buy the smaller pairs or your shoulders will regret it later. Furthermore, do not swim with hand paddles your entire workout. Add a set here and there and don't swim with them every day.

What a mess :)

Smaller subset of the paddle family are paddles specifically design to improve your technique. These are the paddles that anybody could benefit from and unfortunately are not considered cool to buy as the simple pieces of plastic. Smart swimmers utilize these types of hand paddles the most. I've already mentioned couple of these technique oriented paddles in my previous posts. The TechPaddle for improving your early vertical forearm motion, in other words, for grabbing more water during your pull. And the Antipaddles to help you with better water perception. I'd definitely recommend the use of these paddles on almost daily basis until your stroke feels right. There is also another set of paddles which I just found online which will do wonders for your underwater pull, but I'll leave that for a next post ;).

In addition to using the regular plastic paddles for all the strokes, there are also paddles specific to individual stroke. Breaststroke paddles are usually tiny triangle like pieces which attach and support only your fingers. They allow you to utilize your hands early, so you can start your catch sooner. Because of their small size, they also put less pressure on your shoulders. Backstroke paddles which span from your fingers to your elbow, covering your forearm, allowing you to focus on better catch. Sprint freestyle paddles with the front part of the paddle bent in an angle down, allowing you to get into the catch much sooner than with regular flat paddles. Freestyle paddles with a vertical piece of plastic for helping you get rid off the thumb first entry into the water. etc. etc.

Finally, there are hand paddles which look more like gloves than paddles with membranes between fingers, so they are not really called paddles. However, they serve very similar purpose in terms of increasing the surface area of your palm. If you are struggling with the proper finger/palm relaxation in the water, in other words, if your hand is too tight or fingers are spread too far apart, the glove paddles actually do wonders for this problem. There are a few kinds, ranging from neoprene to rubber material and from finger tips cut off to full-blown gloves. I am not a big fan of the gloves where the fingertips are cut off as it does not feel natural having the water enter the glove every time you push off the wall or put hand into the water. If you are going to choose this type of glove, use the full-blown glove with no openings at the fingers and as thin of a material as you can find. I got my hands on a set of interesting gloves which are mainly used for ocean water sports, however, they can be totally utilized for swimming as well, so a review of these will come to your computer screen near you very soon.

So as you can see, the paddle family is a very complicated beast and there is no wonder a lot of swimmers are confused. It is much easier to follow a faulty trend than to spend the time and research what is good for me. This of course does not only pertain to paddles, swim suits are in the same boat. The bottom line is, if you really really want to get you some paddles and you have no other thing you'd rather buy with your money, then go for it, but choose wisely. Because swimming with the wrong paddles with the wrong stroke is like lifting heavy things from the ground using your back instead of using your legs and we all know how that can cause some serious back pains. If on the other hand, I managed to convince you that you do not need to invest into hand paddles, but you would still like to buy something, get the front mounted snorkel instead.

Water Revival: How to Swim Your Way To Recovery

2012-03-12T14:22:00.001+02:00

We tend to view swimming as another way to exercise, so we often forget that water and swimming have also health benefits outside of the regular workout routines. Sarah, a certified yoga instructor, is here to tell us about how the water can revive your body and how to swim your way to recover from an injury.

Recover from injury in water

Enter Sarah:
I have been an avid exerciser since the age of 16. I have been able to stay healthy and fit because of my active lifestyle. So you can imagine my dismay when I was told I had a tear in my ACL. When my doctor told me that I needed to take an 8-10 week break from yoga, hiking, biking and dancing I thought I would die. Exercise is my hobby, my spiritual connection, my anti-depressant and my anti-anxiety defense. Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to hang out with me on a day that I don't get my 2 hours of exercise in. Quitting was not an option so I learned to glean the benefits of swimming. Like yoga, swimming is a full body experience. It improves your cardiovascular system, strengthens your muscles, promotes flexibility, and improves your posture. Fear not injured friends; the couch is not your only option while recovering.

A lot of the damage done to my knee was due to the excessive high impact exercises I did every day. So walking, running and dancing above water are not an option during the recovery process. A sudden twist or turn can shoot insurmountable pain up your leg. But avoiding all movement weakens the muscles that surround the joints. Water is almost 800x denser than air so it protects the knee from quick movements that could further damage the knee, no other exercise gives you this protection.

In my recovery treatment I have notice my physical therapist gradually increasing the weight and reps in the exercises I do. When recovering from your injury it's important that you are moving at a steady pace so that you can work toward strengthening the support of the joint while avoiding re-injury to the vulnerable area. Swim exercises function to stabilize the knee and build strength around it. You start easy and work your way up.

The exercises I've mentioned below pertain to knee rehab, although many of them would work for other lower body injuries, such as ankle or hip. But no matter what's going on in your body, remember that you should run whatever program you decide to do past your physical therapist. You are seeing a PT, right?

Seated Exercise: If this is a new injury you're going to want to take it easy at first. The best place for you is on the steps of the pool, where you can be sure you are secure and you can perform very controlled, focused movements. Leg lifts are great from this position. Sitting at the edge of the step lift the leg straight up until it is fully extended. Moving from a seated position to a standing position is also perfect for the steps. Separate your feet hip distance apart and slowly oscillate from seated position to standing position. Do each of these exercises 10x on each leg and then gradually increasing until you reach 20 or 30 without pain.

Marching: Once you have mastered your seated poses you are ready to move to standing. Marching is your next step. Move away from the stairs to where you're shoulder deep. Lift each knee one at a time to hip level. Repeating 10x on each knee and gradually increase until you reach 20 or 30 reps without pain.

Running: Once you have mastered your stationary marching you are ready to move around the pool. A great way to strengthen the knee is to run in water. You must make a deliberate effort to move against the resistance of water in order to gain the benefits of it. This allows you to work harder than running above water but keeps your joints safe from harm. You might want to invest in an aquajogger - floating devices for your waist, arms and feet that can simulate the above water experience of jogging in a low-impact way. With the aquajogger you can make your way around the pool like your running laps. You will find that you wear out much quicker than on land.

To give you even more incentive to get into swimming, the University of Western Australia conducted a study on nine well-trained triathletes (as published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine). Participants were asked to perform an interval running task at 90 % capacity. Half the subjects were told to lie down and rest after the run, while the other half were given instructions to swim. They found that those who swam immediately after had better recovery than those who had rested. They were able to run for almost 14 minutes as opposed to those that rested who could only run 12 minutes. These findings suggest that swimming for recovery enhances performance. Water is ~800 times more dense than air. So you are actually getting a better workout than a run or bike ride. It is a form of resistance exercise which is known as the best way to increase muscle strength and mass. The great thing about swimming is that you are using the whole body to accomplish the task of making your way across the pool or ocean.

Swimming will speed up your recovery

You are going to need to keep your cardio up if you want to stay in shape while recovering from your injury and swimming is high on the list of exercises to help burn calories. Every time you swim for at least 10 minutes you burn a nice amount of calories: the breast stroke will burn 60 calories; the backstroke burns 80 calories; the freestyle burns up to 100 calories; and the butterfly stroke burns a whopping 150 calories. A great way to increase the amount of calories you burn is to swim in ever increasing intervals with breaks in between.

Studies show that mood directly affects your health and ability to recover. When you are sedentary during your recovery process you are more susceptible to depression which can lead to a number of problems that will only slow your recovery process:

Weakened immune system
Compromise brain functioning
Lack of appetite needed to nourish the body
Serotonin production decreases which is necessary for mood, blood flow and cardiovascular health
An increase in Cortisol making it difficult for bones to absorb calcium

Of course, there are a host of other benefits to swimming. Like other exercises, it offers a nice steady release of endorphins, the feel good chemicals that give us a sense of joy when released into our blood stream. Just like yoga, swimming is both relaxing because of all the stretching of the muscles and meditative form of exercise because it's aspect of repetitive movements and breath.

William Wilson wrote "The experienced swimmer, when in the water, may be classed among the happiest of mortals in the happiest of moods, and in the most complete enjoyment of the happiest of exercise." Swimming gives the athlete the ability to exercise regardless of injury or weight. It is the only form of exercise that doesn't create intense impact on your internal body because you are only holding up 10 percent of your weight. So if you are looking for an alternative to sitting on the couch during your recovery process, swimming is for you. Put on that swimsuit and hit the pool.

This guest post is contributed by Sarah Stevenson, a.k.a., The Tini Yogini, who is a Certified Yoga Instructor in Southern California. She has a degree in Behavioral Psychology and teaches not only yoga classes but also life affirming workshops. She also writes for Beachbody, which provides effective and popular workout videos, including the Insanity Workout, a high intensity interval training program for total body conditioning.

Swimming, Bilingualism and Perfect Stroke

2012-03-06T12:40:00.000+02:00

Globalization of our world is increasingly becoming the standard, so there is no wonder that efforts to raise bilingual children are nowadays close to being a norm (or they should be). Did you know though that learning a second language as a child gives you an unprecedented advantage over the rest of the unilingual world? You might say, "duh, I know one more language than everybody else", but this is not what I am talking about. According to Princeton Neuroscientist Sam Wang, if you are bilingual from very early age, your mind is more flexible and is able to quickly unlearn previously learned rules (resolve conflict cues). Fascinating. Too bad, my bilingualism is not from very early age :(.

Bilingual swimming sign

So how does this relate to swimming? Well, quite a bit in my opinion. While bilingualism focuses solely on your mind, swimming targets your body. However, as you have heard me say many times, swimming blindly up and down the pool rarely gets you the results you desire, so proper swimming stroke is only achieved by employing your mind in conjunction with your body. Unless you have learned to swim with the correct swimming technique at a very early age and let's face it majority of us have not, so you need to utilize your mind as well as your physical agility to re-learn or unlearn previously learned concepts. As bilingual children can be flexible in adapting previously learned concepts to reshape their way of thinking, you will need to unlearn the flaws in your swimming stroke which make you gasp for air at the end of the lap or which give you shoulder or neck pains. There is no room for having an inflexible mind in efficient swimming as you need to relate different body movements to different stroke analogies and constantly update your understanding of how your body behaves in the water. Of course, this is just one side of the story. The ability to actually perform the body movements highly depends on your physical ability which has nothing to do with the mind. However, assuming you have no physical restrictions, without the mind involvement in the process, you might spend years learning to swim and never be satisfied with the result as you are unable to cope with and understand the "conflicting" rules in swimming. By conflicting rules, I refer to the many aspects of proper swimming you need to coordinate and think about at the same time when learning to swim, some of them being even counter intuitive (such as breathing, head position, arm movement, kick, hip rotation, front arm position while breathing etc. etc. etc.).

Your swimming styles should become shaped and re-shaped again and again with every swimming instructor or swimming resource you follow and if your swimming program does a good job, you will break down the stroke into individual parts/drills and focus on mastering one of the parts first before moving onto the next.

As in learning a new language, first starting with the alphabet, numbers, simple words, short phrases, grammatical rules, sentences etc. etc. Without mastering the numbers, you cannot articulate the date or the time. Without mastering the proper head/body position and hip rotation, you cannot learn how to breathe easily and efficiently.

We all know that the mind is a powerful thing and our brains allow us to do quite amazing feats. Apparently, if you are bilingual from early childhood, more power to you and congratulations, you are supercharged for success:). I will leave you with this after thought: please use your mind to help yourself succeed in swimming whatever your goals may be, watch swimming videos, read swimming tips articles, visualize, adapt, try different things, know how it feels to do it the wrong way, have fun and most of all never stop shaping and re-shaping your stroke. Every stroke you take should have a meaning, be it relaxation or stroke improvement, otherwise you are just wasting your time in your path to a perfect swimming stroke.

The Most Useful Drill for Each Stroke

2012-02-27T10:26:00.021+02:00

Being a beginner swimmer is definitely not easy. Where do I start? How do I do it? It seems much harder than it looks, how come? These are just a few questions I get asked all the time. As I discussed on many occasions, swimming is not as simple sport as it may seem. Sure, what is there to it, just go back and forth between two walls. However, in reality the swimming motions are actually quite complex and very difficult to master. It is quite complicated to learn a stroke (be it butterfly, breaststroke, freestyle or backstroke) without breaking it down to specific swimming drills. This means isolating one or two aspects of a stroke and zooming in your focus. However, this brings another dilemma. Which drills should I do? What are they good for? Lauren, a competitive swimmer of 13 years will share with you what she thinks are the best drills to add to your swimming repertoire.

Enter Lauren:
Any competitive swimmer can give you a list of their favorite and least favorite swimming drills. Drills are an essential aspect of swimming and training. While putting in the yardage/kilometers is certainly essential to becoming a better and faster swimmer, training your mind and body to perform the strokes properly is just as (if not more) important. Swimming is a sport of practice and patience. Dedicated swimmers must spend hours and hours in the pool each week training their bodies to perform their strokes in the most efficient, most powerful, and safest way possible. To help them, swim coaches use different drills to deconstruct strokes for their swimmers. By deconstructing the strokes and focusing on each essential movement using different drills and techniques, swimmers can learn to feel the correct way in which a stroke should be completed. When mere hundredths of a second stand between you and your best time or the swimmer in the lane next to you, every movement you make in the water counts and every technique glitch you encounter can harm. More importantly, performing a stroke the wrong way can be harmful to your health as joints get pressure in the wrong places etc. Here is a list of drills that I find the most useful in my swimming workouts and feel that they are an essential aspect of mastering the stroke they are accompanied with.

fingertip drag example

Fingertip Drag Freestyle

Freestyle is the fastest and most used stroke in swimming. Because swimmers will do the majority of their workouts swimming freestyle it is essential that they perform the stroke correctly. Incorrect posture or placement during freestyle can lead to serious injuries and will slow a swimmer down.

The fingertip drag drill is one of the more straightforward and simple drills to master. While swimming freestyle, keep your fingertips grazing the surface of the water as you take your stroke. The underwater pull will be in the normal fashion, but as you are breaking your arm from underneath the water you should keep you fingertips down on top of the water and position your elbow high in the air. This should slow down your stroke rate slightly, but for the most part will look similar to a normal freestyle stroke.

By forcing yourself to keep the tips of your fingers on the surface of the water during the peak of your stroke recovery, you are helping yourself to master the correct high elbow and body position of the freestyle stroke. Often, particularly in younger athletes, swimmers will throw their hands high up towards the ceiling when they swim freestyle. The fingertip drag drill forces swimmers to keep their elbow in the correct position. A swimmer's hand should never reach higher than their elbow. This drill also helps swimmers refrain from "slapping" the water with their hands thus catching a lot of bubbles under the palm of their hand. For the best results in freestyle, the fingertips should enter the water almost splash free and be relaxed throughout the entire recovery cycle.

Note from Swimator Blog: Often we hear coaches telling their swimmers during this drill to put their fingers into their arm pit. This is just silly. Nobody swims by putting fingers in the arm pit. This position is very unnatural and the swimmers have to twist their hand to even reach the arm pit. Instead, drag your relaxed fingertips through the water next to your body. If you'd extend your thumb towards your body, it still wouldn't touch it, there should be about 10 cm gap between your extended thumb and your shoulder when they pass each other. Another important aspect of the fingertip drill is to make sure that you lead with your elbow and not your hand. So your elbow leaves the water first pulling the relaxed fingertips with it. At the peak of the stroke recovery your hand with your fingers should just be dangling down pulled by gravity towards the water.

Keep one arm by the body and one arm swimming
(not straight though)

One Arm Backstroke Drill

What many swimmers do not realize is that backstroke and freestyle share many of the same drills and mechanisms when you swim them. Both are longitudinal strokes, working on the same axis. For this reasons, your body position and movement from side to side should be almost the same for both freestyle and backstroke. One of the biggest issues with backstroke for swimmers is timing.

The one arm backstroke drill helps swimmers master the somewhat tricky timing of the stroke. You can perform three strokes on your back with your right arm while your left arm is relaxed at your side and underwater. You want to be almost on your side in the water when you are taking the three strokes. Though the stroke is called backstroke, it is important that you understand that you should almost never be completely flat on you back in the water. This drill helps to demonstrate the side to side movement successful backstroke produces. After you take three one armed strokes with your right arm, you then immediately do three normal backstroke strokes using both arms. Next, you put your right arm relaxed at your side and do three back strokes with your left arm. You should repeat this three step process over and over.

The one arm backstroke drill will force you to concentrate on your body position while you pull under water and will help you slow down your stroke movement. By doing a one arm pull, you can feel the strength of you pull and focus on ways to achieve optimal catch in the water with you hand and more importantly forearm. This drill will also help you to learn to dip your shoulder to the side at the correct time.

Note from Swimator Blog: There are many variations of this drill to keep the drill interesting, one variation uses the stroke count where you could swim one with left arm, two with right arm, three with left arm, two with right arm, one with left arm etc. I am sure you can come up with your own fun way to vary this drill. Also, do not forget that your backstroke hip rotation is the product of your hips guiding the way. Your shoulders are not what rotates you from side to side. So always lead your rotation first with your hip and then the rest of your body will follow.

streamline during the breaststroke double kick drill

Double Kick Breaststroke

Breaststroke is often one of the most difficult strokes for swimmers to master properly. Correct timing and body position are essential aspects of mastering breaststroke. One of the most common mistakes that swimmers make with breaststroke is timing when to take a breath and when to kick.

During the double kick breaststroke drill you should perform the breaststroke the way you normally would, however, do two breaststroke kicks one after the other. During these two kicks, your arms should be tight in the streamline position and your head should be down facing the ground. By doing two kicks in a row, you are forced to draw out your breathing process in the stroke. This is great aerobic training and is a good way to get you to breathe at the appropriate time during your stroke. Furthermore, the breaststroke kick is one of the most powerful kicks in the water. By performing two kicks, you are forced to concentrate on finishing the entire kick and getting the most power you can out of it. Don't forget to squeeze your ankles all the way together with each kick. This drill is a wonderful way to help you recognize the power of your kick and master the timing of your breathing for the stroke.

Note from Swimator Blog: When you do the two kicks, make sure your body is fully submerged and you are parallel with the swimming pool bottom holding your streamline. Try to refrain from too much up and down motion during the kick. Also, play with the positioning of your kick, so you find the most efficient kick with the least resistance.

Keep arms shoulder width apart for butterfly pulse drill

Pulse for Butterfly

Butterfly is also one of the more difficult strokes to truly master. There are several positioning and timing tricks that can be hard to get a hold of for beginner or intermediate swimmers. As with breaststroke, one of the most important aspects of swimming butterfly is mastering timing and body position.

The pulsing drill is a little bit trickier than some of the other drills I've described here. First, start by floating on your stomach with your arms out in front of you in a "superman" position. This means that arms should not be tight together in a streamline position, but instead with hands about shoulder length apart. Your face should be looking down in the water and your ankles should be squeezed together, but not tense. The pulsing drill works just as it sounds — you will pulse up and down using your core and sternum to move yourself forward. Press your chest down towards the bottom of the pool while keeping your hands at the same water depth as before. When you do this your butt should go up some in the air and your arms should come further apart from one another. Then press your hips down towards the bottom of the pool, this causes your chest to come up some and your arms to move together again. It is at this time that you should peak your head up for a breath.

Essentially, you will be doing a butterfly kick and body movement without doing the arm pulls. The slight up and down movement of your body should very slowly propel you forward. This pulsing drill also simulates the body movement that you should perform while swimming breaststroke. You can do this exact same drill to master the body motion and breathing pattern for breaststroke as well. The butterfly pulsing drill is one of the most important lessons to learn for the latitudinal strokes (breaststroke and butterfly).

Note from Swimator Blog: When doing the pulse drill, you do not need to breathe with every pulse. This drill is best performed with the swimmer's snorkel Don't let the breathing confuse you. Instead, worry about the right rhythm of pulses. Also, do not worry about going forward too much. When you get it right, you will move forward inch by inch. With that in mind, do not kick with your legs. Let your legs just follow the wave of your body initiated by your sternum and hips. Lastly, during the chest press down motion, don't think that you head has to go with it. Keep the back of your head right at the surface and push the chest down, so in other words, make sure your neck is relaxed :).

This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who was a competitive swimmer for 13 years while also being a swim coach on a side. Lauren is a regularly writer for accredited online colleges.

Breaststroke Like an Inch Worm

2012-02-20T09:59:00.088+02:00

Swim breaststroke like an inch worm? Yes, however, not in the sense of up and down movement, think more horizontal :). Breaststroke is probably the easiest stroke to learn, however, the toughest along with butterfly to learn correctly. If you look around your local swimming pool, you will see many people casually swimming breaststroke or at least something that very distantly resembles proper breaststroke. Many open water swimmers or triathletes also use breaststroke to take a break from their swim or to take a few moments to orientate themselves and sight their target (whether breaststroke is the best choice of stroke for this is another discussion :)). So, one could make the assumption, there is not much to breaststroke since majority of people can perform some sort of variation of the stroke. As someone wise once said though, "the devil is in the details" and this principle can also be applied to swimming breaststroke on a higher competitive level.

Breaststroke glide - Needs a bit more work :)

On my masters swim team in Finland, I have one very capable breaststroker (Johanna) who is a multiple national record holder in her age category and was second in all her breaststroke events in the 2011 European Masters Championships in Yalta. Very impressive results, however, there is always room for improvement right? :) And furthermore, one should never stop striving to be better otherwise we'd never evolve.

Since Johanna is an advanced swimmer, she masters all the common beginner breaststroke mistakes, so we need to look at her stroke from different angles. One of the approaches is to streamline her stroke with the focus on converting all her power and energy to help her go forward by minimalizing any other movement which would cause her body to slow down in the dense water. This may seem a simple concept, but it is not as easy to achieve as one might think.

We made an underwater video of her breaststroke swim and looked at different ways (not all) to make her body glide through the water smoother. Here are just a couple of pointers which you can take away from the analysis:

1) Streamline off the wall and on the underwater pullout: It is very important to keep the body in a long tight streamline when coming off the wall or off the start. Since you have a great momentum from your push off, your speed is the fastest during this part of the swim, therefore you need to take as much of an advantage of this as possible by making sure your body is as smooth as an arrow. (btw, this does not pertain to only breaststroke). After the initial streamlined glide, you will need to do the underwater pull with a breakout which consists of one double arm pull, one double leg kick and another double arm pull to get you swimming at the surface. Even if your off the wall streamline is as smooth as a javelin, a lot can go wrong during this arm pull and leg kick sequence. Any movement of your arms and legs which deviates from your body line or goes against the direction you are going in is a hindrance, so eliminating as much of any unnecessary big movements is a key.

a) On your initial arm pull, make sure to pull water backwards and not lift your body one or two steps up in the water column. Very common mistake indeed. Many swimmers, are very excited and try to make the initial underwater pull as large as possible not realizing that while doing so, their entire body is bending under the exerted arm pressure and instead of going smoothly forward, they travel upwards in a very abrupt jump. This first breaststroke pull is nothing else then anchoring your arms in the early vertical forearm stage and moving your body around those anchors forward. It cannot be rushed otherwise you will miss out on finding the proper initial catch. Hint: after you finished your catch and are gliding through the water in head first position, try shrugging your shoulders, you will be amazed at the effect:).

b) After you pulled and glided for a bit, you need to move the arms back forward (also called the recovery). We usually do not pay much attention to this, however, during the recovery your elbows can easily come high above your back and your hands far away from your body thus causing a disruption in your body line. Keep your arms and elbows as close to your body and chest as possible, so you minimize the drag and finish in an extended streamlined position again.

c) The breaststroke kick that comes after the recovery can also cause you to slow down. (this does not only pertain to underwater breaststroke, but to breaststroke as a whole). If you think about it, when you are loading your legs by bringing them closer to your body, the motion is against the direction where you are going. So ideally, the kick will be quite narrow staying within the constrains of the hole our body already made through the water. Obviously this is impossible as we have to bend the legs, but we can get very close. First, do not bring your knees forward, keep them back and think of it more as bringing your heels to your butt (practicing breaststroke kick on your back while keeping your knees under water is very good drill for this). Second, when you do the actual kick, do not concentrate on pressing out with your legs, but push the water backwards as if there was an imaginary wall and you are using your outer rotated ankles and shins to push off of it. Finally, don't forget to squeeze your legs together. Use those butt cheeks and inner thighs at the end of every one of your kicks to squeeze the soles of your feet together at the end of the kick. This will make sure your body is nicely streamlined during the glide phase of breaststroke. Word of caution here though, this squeezing part of the stroke, as simple as it sounds, is actually quite tiring on your body and on your mind, so introduce it into your stroke gradually. Perhaps, you can utilize this techniqe every other lap and see how you get on, before you add it to your stroke permanently. Just a reminder, don't forget the dolphin kick during the breaststroke underwater pullout phase.

Inch your way to breaststroke success by just_a_name_thingie

2) Horizontal body line is another aspect of how swimming breaststroke can go all wrong. If you look under water at majority of people who swim breaststroke, I bet you'd see an up and down motion at the beginning of their stroke. During the arm recovery, hands are shot out forward and downward which causes the entire body to follow down into the water only to later angle up to start the breaststroke pull closer to the surface again. This wave at the beginning of the stroke causes a bit of resistance as oppose to just shooting arms forward and keeping them at the same water level without going down and up again. Many coaches compare breaststroke to butterfly and teach it in a similar fashion, however, I am not convinced this is as good of an idea as it sounds, exactly for this reason. When we tell a swimmer that the breaststroke motion is like the butterfly motion which in turn is very wavy (at least from the sternum down), it brings up the idea in the swimmer's head that he/she should move the body as in butterfly which is one cause of the initial arm dip after recovery. A more accurate way to swim breaststroke would be to compare it to an inch worm movement, where the front legs and back legs are in the same horizontal plane and only get closer or further apart from each other as the worm inches forward. There is no up and down motion of the front body anywhere.

Johanna, the masters swimmer I mentioned at the beginning of this breaststroke streamlining post, has been working very hard to optimise her stroke in the last few months, so it will be very interesting to watch, what the little tiny improvements she has made to her stroke will do to her swims at the 2012 World Masters Championships in Riccione. So far, it has been quite exciting as she has been breaking one record after another to cause any disturbance in forward motion.

The above pointers are quite advanced when it comes to learning the correct breaststroke technique as they are tedious details, however, no matter what your breaststroke skill level is, you can take away the fact that swimming is not as simple sport as one might thing. The truth is actually the opposite, since water is so much denser than air to optimise a swimming movement, one must really pay attention to everything a body does, be it better streamline or less up and down motion etc. So if you are frustrated with your swimming skill level, don't worry, even the top swimmers in the world are battling little tiny details. So, be patient, mindful, and go out there and optimise your breaststroke :).

Guide to The Swimmer's Diet (Carbohydrate Me Please)

2012-02-13T11:22:00.002+02:00

Should I eat those smiley gummy bears lurking at me from the cupboard? One more piece of chocolate before I give it back. I'll just even out this corner of the ice cream box and then stick it back to freezer. I know we have all been there :). The temptation is everywhere and the media bombardment with delicious looking advertisements do not offer much help. However, eating something in your regular daily life is totally something else than creating a diet in order to give your body maximum chance to perform at its best. In this post, Marina will give us more insights on what it means to have a swimmer's diet.

Eat more sweet potatoes

This is a guest post by Marina Salsbury who planned on becoming a teacher since high school, but found her way instead into online writing after college. She writes around the web about everything from education to exercise.

Enter Marina:
Swimming is an excellent form of exercise, not only providing huge improvements in cardiovascular fitness but also developing muscle strength. In addition, swimming is easy on the joints, making it ideal for anyone with aches or injuries that other sports like running simply exacerbate. For those who consider themselves to be swimmers, a healthy swimmer's diet is an important part of feeding the muscles, having enough glycogen for workouts each day and adequate protein for recovery. Medical transcription services are beginning to be used in sports-related injuries, and as a result medical experts are becoming more understanding of the rigors of sports injuries. This guide introduces readers to the typical recommended diet for swimmers, as well as how to calculate calories required to perform as peak potential. It will also outline what foods and drinks are necessary leading up to and immediately following an important swim practice or swim meet.

What should your daily diet consist of?

During a typical week, swimmers should focus on their carbohydrate consumption. Carbohydrates are the main sources of energy that will be used during exercise. However, it is important not to think that focusing on carbohydrates means eating processed foods like cookies or chips. Instead, focus on healthier, wholesome foods like rice, whole wheat breads, fruits and sweet potatoes. Avoid high-fat and high-sugar foods that provide only empty calories and no nutrition. Having a small dose of these high-sugar foods will give you a temporary burst of energy, but the energy that comes will only result in a crash later in the day.

Pasta me up baby

Determining how many calories to consume?

In order to determine how many calories you'll need to consume daily, consider wearing a waterproof heart rate monitor during a typical week of swim training. This will help you see exactly how many calories your body burns in a week, which will need to be added to the maintenance calories you already consume. You should be consuming enough calories to provide you with adequate energy for swim workouts, but not so much that you are gaining weight while training.

What to eat BEFORE a swim meet or an open water/triathlon race?

The days and hours leading up to an important swim event are the perfect time for you to load your body with sufficient food to perform your best. Swimmers should ramp up their carbohydrate consumption in the days prior to a major event, but when doing so being careful not to over consume calories. Simply replace some of the typical fats or proteins you eat with high-carbohydrate items instead. Avoid trying any new foods or liquids, and focus on plain, typical foods that the body agrees with. Eat 3 hours prior to the swim meet, topping up your glycogen stores with pure carbohydrates just prior to the event.

What to eat AFTER swim meet or an open water/triathlon race?

After a strenuous swim event, it is important to refuel with food immediately. Some swimmers don't feel hungry right after exercising, but it is important to consume some calories within 30 minutes of the swim meet. There is a small window of opportunity where protein and carbohydrates can do the most good to replenish and restore muscles for a faster recovery, so take advantage of this and drink chocolate milk or eat a protein bar for quick nutrition.

By understanding what to eat during a typical week, it is possible to get more from your swimming and dryland workouts. With the right nutrition before and after your swim races, you give your body best shot on having a great race.

Note from Swimator Blog: I am no nutritionist, and am true believer of eating what you are hungry for, however, I've had my fair share of good and bad eating and swimming experiences, so I do know thing or two about what works and what doesn't when it comes to swimming. One anecdote that I find the most interesting would relate to the carbohydrate rich diet before swimming competition. Long time ago, when I still lived in the Czech Republic, I was in Viareggio, Italy at a Carnevale swim meet. We were there a few days and every day for lunch and dinner we had exactly the same pasta (baked Ziti I believe). As a young kid, I hate it to eat the same thing every day, however, that meet was one of the best ones in my life. I broke all my records and I felt like my swimming was out of this world. You also have to realize we drove down to Italy, so it was like 24hrs in a small car, no great picnic to be competing after :). Magic authentic Italian al dente pasta :).

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Best Swimming Tips of 2011

2012-02-06T09:38:00.003+02:00

After a short break, we are back with some highlights from the Swimator Blog archives for 2011. What swimming tips did you find the most interesting in 2011? That is the question. Below is a short list of the top 10 Swimator Blog swimming tips:

Libor from Swimator Blog in action

1) As traditionally, our novice and beginner swimmers are taking over with the two part beginner tips series on floating and standing up from floating tips and on relaxation and elementary body position tips.

2) Many visitors also wanted to know more about the proper body position in swimming and how to be more efficient in the water. Without mastering this concept, you might as well swim against the current.

3) Swimming faster is an elusive reality for many swimmers, so no wonder everyone wants to know how to do it. However, swimming faster is about stroke technique improvements, not being a yard/meter junkie, so be patient and master the basics first and always come back to them.

4) Among the popular topics on Swimator Blog is also a brief freestyle video analysis. One step in the learning to swim process is the ability to recognize issues in someone else's stroke, so knowing how to pick out the top freestyle stroke flaws brings you one step closer to your swimming success.

5) Getting water up the nose is an ongoing problem for many swimmers. Some swimmers master it from the start without even thinking about it, for some it is an unbeatable challenge. The two part series on how to stop water from entering your nose teaches you about the connection between the mouth and nose and how to close it and the more advanced human nose clip technique. Say no to choking on water :).

6) Ahh, the legs and the kick. This continues to be a pitfall for many triathletes and beginner swimmers. You should learn what to do with your body when your legs sink and how to improve your kick with special kicking workouts.

Open water and triathlon swimming tips

7) Swimator Blog has also avid breaststroke enthusiasts who are keen to learn more about the complex breaststroke arm movements, to conquer the even more difficult breaststroke kick and to recognize the top breaststroke flaws.

8) Finally, many swimmers and coaches are starting to focus more on the "if this than that" approach, than just blindly swimming laps. Swimator Blog's article on the effect of streamlining and better technique on the drag forces is also among the top 10, so that is exciting.

9) Along the same thinking as above, knowing what your freestyle swimming type is can help you determine what drills and workouts are the most beneficial for you. Do you know which freestyle type you are?

10) Not everyone is as comfortable in water as the most of us. And it appears it is actually more people than we might think, so no wonder that our novice swimmers or concerned parents found the "what should I do when I am drowning" article useful.

Bonus: To improve your swimming even more, join our 360swim Facebook or Twitter @360swim communities where we have daily posts of useful swimming tips, swimming advice, swimming trivia, swim workouts and many more.

There you have it. The most popular swimming tips from Swimator Blog for 2011. Happy belated New Year to everyone and don't be afraid of 2012, for what we know, the end of the world prediction was just a clerical error :).

Extreme Swimming Events in the New Year (Are you up for the challenge?)

2011-12-29T13:35:00.004+02:00

If you are after some challenging yet exciting New Year resolutions, why not set your goals a bit higher this year and attempt to properly train for and then undergo an extreme swimming event. I stress one more time the "train" part of the resolution as taking part in extreme swimming events without proper training is just plain reckless and could lead to serious injuries as we saw with David Walliams' Thames swim charity event. However, don't let this put you off. If you train a correct and smart way, your venture into the world of extremes should be an exciting one. Jenna, a journalism student at Saint Louis University is here to share her extreme swimming events insights.

Polar Bear Swimming by farlane

Enter Jenna
As swimmers, we like to challenge ourselves to go a little bit further or a little bit faster every time we hop into the water. While at times, we do enjoy a leisurely swim or snorkel, there are also times when we feel as though pushing ourselves to our outermost abilities is a must. For those swimmers who are looking for a way to spice up their swimming, here are a few challenges that just may be right up their alley:

Note: While entertaining, we don't necessarily recommend that all swimmers, even those with advanced skills attempt any of the following without proper training and preparation:

Swimming the English Channel (La Manche)

If you are looking for a challenge, then by all means try to swim the English Channel. The swim is a 21 mile swim in cold water with strong currents which are bound to move you over and double your distance. The best days for swimming the Channel are in the summer, but even then the water is only 60 degrees, and those that keep records of the swim only certify swimmers that do not wear wetsuits. On top of combating strong currents and chilly waters, swimmers will also have to keep an eye out for boats and jellyfish – neither of which are too fun to encounter.

English Channel Swimming Association

However, there are people certified to help you out if you so choose to cross the Channel. Certified pilots will help you stay on course and help you avoid jelly fish and boats so that you can experience the safest and most efficient swim. They will also give you food and water, and help you if you should run into an emergency situation. Either way, you will be in for one heck of a swim. Swimming the Channel is by no means an easy feat. In fact, more people have climbed Everest than swam the La Manche.

Polar Bear Plunge

If you live somewhere that gets cold in the winter, or is just near a body of water that stays pretty chilly all year long, then you have probably heard of the Polar Bear Plunge. These events are usually held on or around New Year's day and require swimmers to strip down to their swimsuits in chilly temps to jump into frigid waters. While this may not be a great swimming challenge, it is definitely a water challenge in and of itself that will be sure to shock your system. The largest plunge in the U.S., called Plungapalooza, is held in Maryland at the Sandy Point State Park every year.

While many Polar Bear Plunge veterans claim that the event cleanses them and boosts their mood, many doctors forewarn plungers of the dangers of jumping in to ice cold water because of the shock it can have on the body. (Note from Swimator Blog: It is much better to take it nice and slow when getting in and make sure to do some test runs before the actual event, so your body gets slowly used to the extreme temperatures).

Swimming the Cook Strait

Although not as long as the English Channel, swimming Cook Strait in New Zealand is just as daunting. This 19 mile swim is between the North and South island of New Zealand in waters that are teeming with marine life, and is considered one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world. In addition to giant squid, Cook Strait is home to numerous species of dolphins, fur seals, and whales, including Orcas. However, it isn't the marine life that you have to worry about.

Cook Strait extreme swimming conditions

The Strait often has strong winds, large swells, and rough waters, and it is also right in the path of the roaring forties. The Strait also has strong currents which are often undetectable due to lack of tidal height change. Only 65 people have successful swam the Cook Strait, so you can imagine it is not for the faint-hearted.

So if you are in shape, undergone the proper training and looking for a challenge, consider one of the aforementioned. A few other honorable mentions include Catalina Channel and the swim around Manhattan Island. You could even attempt the Triple Crown of Open Water if you feel up to it.

From Swimator Blog: There are literally thousands of opportunities out there to get your extreme swimming bug out of your system. The above mentioned events are just a few of the most challenging examples. However, I will stress it one more time. If you are thinking about taking part in any of the plentiful extreme swimming events around the world, please do make sure you have a proper training plan starting many months prior to the event. As with marathons in running, swimming in extreme conditions in open water is becoming more accessible and more interesting for swimmers from all over the world, however, it could cause serious injuries if not taken seriously. So, don't be foolish, get your swimming technique sorted, then build up some endurance and rough/cold water conditions tolerance before becoming an extreme swimming junkie :). All the best to the New Year, may all swimming dreams and attempts come true.

This is a guest post by Jenna, a journalism student at Saint Louis University. Upon graduation, she hopes to travel the world while producing compelling content for the masses. When she isn't writing, you can find Jenna with her nose in a book, or her headphones in to block out the rest of the world.

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How to breathe with Swimmer's snorkel (front/center mount snorkel)?

2011-12-19T10:06:00.001+02:00

Since I am on the topic of breathing while swimming, let me explain, what seems as an obvious procedure, how to breathe through the swimmer's snorkel. Before we get to that, perhaps a bit of an introduction of what the swimmer's snorkel is and how it can help you improve your swimming technique.

Swimmer's Snorkel - #1 swim gear

Contrary to a common belief, the centrally mounted snorkel is actually not a modern invention. The first documented record of a front mount snorkel as an aid to swimming can be traced back to 1860s. Wow, how impressive is that? And today 99.99% of swimmers thing how hip and cool they are swimming with the newest gadgets :). Funny, how most of us associate things with the first experience we have.

Well, anyway, so what is swimmer's snorkel. As the name indicates the front mount snorkel attaches to the front of the head instead of the side as regular scuba or snorkelling snorkel equipment. It also has a more of a streamlined shape where the tip bends towards the back of the head and the snorkel body is flatter instead of round. And finally, it attaches to the head with a strap and not clumsily to a scuba mask (I opted into not wearing my snorkel when I scuba dive as it always just gets in the way).

Front mount snorkel is designed to help swimmer's technique and the snorkel can do this in several ways. First, when swimming with the center mount snorkel, the swimmer does not have to worry about breathing, therefore has one less thing to worry about and can bring undivided attention to some other part of the stroke such as body roll, early vertical forearm or healthy kick. Second, the snorkel serves as a sensory cue to keep ones head down while swimming. The swimmer can use the snorkel as a reminder to look at the bottom. Third, it is just plain fun to swim with a snorkel and it breaks up the monotony. Fourth, a swimmer can also use the center mount snorkel to help with chicken peck breaststroke problem by attaching the snorkel upside down and in the back along the spine. Fifth, using the front mount snorkel can help strengthen your lungs and here we come to the whole idea of this article.

So how do you breathe with the front mount snorkel you may ask? There are two basic ways. Obviously the intake of air has to go through the snorkel pipe, so I will not discuss that. However, the variation comes in when we talk about exhalation (getting rid off your air or blowing the air out of your lungs).

Exhaling through your nose

First method is to utilize your nose to blow the air out before the next inhale. This method makes sure that you are not sending breathed out air back into the snorkel pipe, so your pipe air is nicely rich with oxygen at all times. As we all know, when we exhale, our breath contains much higher concentration carbon dioxide than during the inhalation process, so by exhaling into the water we are getting rid off it there instead of the pipe. Furthermore, by exhaling through your nose, you actually get rid off the air quicker since you cannot control the amount of air coming out of your nose as you can with your mouth. However, this is not necessarily an advantage at first as it takes some time to get used to the fact that you inhale and exhale through different parts of your face. So, until you get used to it, you might feel like you get rid off all your air and then need to very quickly inhale. Also, don't forget that you still need to purge the water from the snorkel via your mouth when you push off the wall or if you get water in your snorkel at any time of your swim.

Exhaling through your mouth

The second method uses only the mouth to exhale, so the excess CO2 gets sent back into the pipe, it mixes with the fresh air and then it is inhaled as mixture back into the lungs. You may be wondering, why in the hell would I want to breathe out into the pipe through my mouth, that doesn't make any sense. I want oxygen, you told me so in the bilateral breathing article, don't I? Yes, you are correct, however, as anything in training, we always strive to improve something about what we do, be it perfecting your technique, strengthening your kick or improving your lung performance. And this is where the swimmer's snorkel also comes into place. Since you inhale and exhale through your mouth into one single plastic pipe, the air that you subsequently inhale has less oxygen and more carbon dioxide than normal fresh air. This in turn makes it over time a bit more difficult to breathe and you need to really focus on properly purging the air out as well as your stroke. Think of it in similar terms as in hypoxic breathing swimming sets where you'd breathe every 3rd stroke, every 5th stroke and every 7th stroke for a certain distance (25,50,100 or more if you are advanced).

There is one handy piece of additional attachment which can be placed on top of the snorkel tube and the sole purpose of this gadget is to restrict the flow of air into the tube. It is called the Cardio Cap. While using the Cardio Cap your lungs have to work even harder to get the appropriate oxygen intake. In a way, it is like swimming in an altitude where the air is a bit thinner. So, you can be in Colorado or apparently now even in Australia, even if you are at your local swimming joint. If you are not into buying gadget and you'd rather try this in some other way, you can always stick your tongue into the tube during the inhalation process which makes the inhalation a bit harder as you are restricting the intake flow.

Dry Top - keeps water away

So what is the key take away from all this breathing through swimmer's snorkel stuff? It is simple, there is no right and wrong here. If you use the snorkel to improve some part of your stroke and do not want to worry about getting into an oxygen debt, then breathe out through your nose (if you can master this technique). If you are a bit more advanced and can do many things at ones or if breathing out through your nose causes you some issues, then why not purge your excess air out through the pipe to make you work a bit harder. Ideally, you'd be able to switch your breathing type and pattern on the fly, so either of these is possible, but this comes with time and practice as everything else in the complex world of swimming motions :). For example, I've been always using only my mouth to breathe in and out of the snorkel. If I switch to the nose exhalation, I get a bit confused and constantly have to think about breathing through my nose, so in theory it actually defeats the purpose of the snorkel as I cannot concentrate on something else. Of course, if I were to practice the nose breathing technique, after while it would be like second nature to me and I could enjoy my technique work in more comfort.

If you really struggle with using the center mount snorkel, perhaps the issue is that you are afraid of getting water into the tube and choking on it. In that case, you should check out the Dry Top attachment. The Dry Top is a small, yet sophisticated device which attaches to the top of the snorkel and prevents any water seeping into the tube while you are swimming. So, leave your worry behind and get snorkeling :).

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Top 7 Swimming Gift Ideas this Christmas (Gifts from Swimmers for Swimmers)

2011-12-15T10:37:00.000+02:00

If you are still on a hunt for the one perfect Christmas swimming gift for your loved ones or even for yourself, don't look any further. Let me highlight a few swim items which I think would make a perfect gift for a swimmer.

Gifts for swimmers of all abilities

Firstly, I apologize to those swimmers who do not celebrate Christmas, but this swim gift list does not have to be only for this holiday occassion, so feel free to get ideas for your holiday or for any other celebration such as birthday or nameday. Or sometimes giving a swim gift, just because it is a nice thing to do, can go a long ways.

Personally, I am not a big fan of useless gifts which one does not need or which are for decorative purposes. If I give a Christmas gift, then it has to be a true useful item which the person will get to utilize in their live. I know, I know, this ideology does not work well with many as it should be the idea of a gift that counts and not the gift itself. But I still have hard time giving something that I know the other person will not use. With that in mind, same ideaology can be applied to swimming gifts. Some swim items are not very useful, even though they might be cool looking, on the other hand, some swim items make swimmer's journey to a good swimming technique much easier. With further ado, here are the top 2011 gifts for swimmers:

Swim Gift #1: Swimmer's snorkel to get your mind focused without the breathing distraction. Whether you want to work on your rhythm or your above water recovery using the Swimmer's snorkel will keep you distraction free.

Swim Gift #2: TechPaddles or Antipaddles to get that forearm feeling the water and improving your stroke efficiency with the high elbow catch also called the early vertical forearm.

Swim Gift #3: Zoomers Gold or shinfing leg fins to stop your legs from sinking to the bottom, to teach you the right way to kick and to strengthen the right kicking muscles.

Swim Gift #4: SafeSwimmer Float or Aquaspotter for your open water safety. If you are in the triathlon or open water group, safety is the number one concern when you are out there without any swimming lanes or swimming pool walls. So do not take it for granted.

SwimSense Performance Monitor

Swim Gift #5: Wetronome or the Finis Tempo Trainer to find your perfect stroke rhythm and to keep you going like the Duracell bunny.

Swim Gift #6: Subscription to goswimtv.com or the Clean Up Your Stroke DVD set to be better equipped with the right knowledge from the best in the swimming business.

Swim Gift #7: SwimSense or Swimovate Pool Mate performance monitoring watch gadgets to give you even more to think about when you swim :). These swim gadgets are really only for the advanced group who need to keep track of their swimming with online training logs, analyze their stroke counts and pace. However, they do add a bit of a motivation to your swimming which is always useful.

Bonus Swim Gift: last but not least you can recommend Swimator Blog to all the enthusiastic swimmers on your list to give them the gift of knowledge :), so their swimming improvements come in leaps and not in strides.

There you have it, the best Christmas gift ideas for swimmers as I see them. I just concentrated on swimming technique related gifts, so have omitted some obvious swim items such as swimming Ts with different slogans, customized swimming caps or just plain ol' swim suits.

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Three Tips for Learning to Float (Set yourself up for a floating success)

2011-12-12T10:35:00.015+02:00

Learning to float can be a daunting tasks for many novice swimmers. If you are just starting out or tried it out before and got discouraged because you couldn't get passed the floating stage, perhaps the following piece of advice will help you to get over the initial learning curve.

Keeping your arms at the surface or out of the water causes
your butt and legs to sink

Whatever the reason may be, whether you are afraid of falling due to the weightlessness feeling in the water or you are afraid of hitting your head on the bottom of the pool or just the thought of tipping over to your back scares you, without learning to float you cannot continue and enjoy swimming. Learning to float is an absolute necessity in a good learn to swim program, so do not try to skip this step. The more time you spend on learning to float and the better you will get at this will determine your next progress.

From my previous head and body position posts, you already know that your eyes need to be pointing towards the bottom of the pool and you need to stretch your body into a nice straight line at the surface of the water. However, as simple as this sounds, it is still very difficult for many to get to the relaxed long position. So let me give you a few tips which will ease your transition from standing up to floating, thus setting you up for success.

1) Eliminate any unnecessary movement

How you start your exercise determines in many cases how well you can do the exercise, so let's focus on what to do with your body before you actually get into the floating position. The main point here is that you need to be flush with the water and ease yourself into the float instead of starting your float from high up and falling into it. Imagine the following, take a tennis ball and drop it into the swimming pool while standing on a chair on the side of the pool. Chances are the tennis ball, driven by gravity, will hit the water and get submerged and then pop back up to surface and then again gets submerged a little less and pop back up to surface. The tennis ball will do this few times until it reaches a calm floating state. Now, instead of dropping the ball from the standing on a chair position, bend down to the pool's edge and nicely place the tennis ball onto the water. Because you were gentle, there is no bopping in and out of the water, the tennis ball just nicely floats without any distractions. Similar concept applies to anything you do in swimming, especially when you are just starting out to learn to float. If you start too high, you will more than likely be sinking and coming back to surface and sinking again, so it is important to eliminate this extra movements from the start. So, next time you are practicing your floats, assuming you are in a shallower water where you can stand up, squat down (bend your knees), so your shoulders are flush with the water. I don't mean, bending forward, just get yourself lower into the water, so your distance from the surface of the water is smaller (like with the tennis ball). The only thing that is sticking out of the water is your head. Your body is still vertical, just lower in the water due to your knee bend.

Keep those hands under water.

2) Start below the water

When you are nicely submerged up to your neck in the water, you are basically in a good position to get started. When you first learn to float, you should have your arms extended forward (no elbows bending here please :)), so you add more weight to the front of your body which in turn will make it easier for your legs to float. However, this is where many novices run into trouble as they try to stretch very tensely with their arms forward like they'd be reaching for apples. This causes their body to be rigid and more importantly their arms stick out of the water when they float. So, extend your arms forward and relax them. You can pretend there is a ledge 1/2 foot (~15cm) below the water and you want to rest your palms on that ledge. Let the water support the arms and relax your neck and shoulders. At no point in time should your fingers or hands break the surface of the water, otherwise, you will start slowly sinking.

3) Get into the position before you start

Let's recap, you are close to the surface with your shoulders below the water, your arms are extended forward, yet relaxed and they are below the surface of the water. The only thing that remains is to take a breath, put your face in the water, so your eyes are looking at the bottom of the pool and your entire head is below the water. At this stage you are ready to give yourself a little gentle push from the bottom of the pool or from the side of the pool and you can float. Note: if you want to blow bubbles, feel free to do so, but I'd suggest to try both variations, with blowing bubbles and without as some folks do not float very well and when they start blowing bubbles, they are getting rid off their floating ability even more :). However, don't be afraid, most of you will float very well as your lungs will keep you at the surface.

Applying downward pressure on the arms and upper body.

As mentioned above, the major issue here is that your arms should never ever break the surface of the water as it is with majority of novices which try to float. Another way to think about it is that your arms and your body do not actually form a true straight line, you are pushing your arms a bit down when you float. This is very bad analogy in terms of our history, but it could work in this sense. Do you remember Hitler's straight arm greeting which was used by Nazis during WWII? If so, then just move the arm from that position another foot (~30cm) up towards the sky and you will have the right position for your arms. Maybe a bit less gloomy analogy is to pretend you are laying on your stomach on a bench (as if you are floating). The bench is about a 1/2 foot (~15cm) high off the ground. Your chin is right at the edge of the bench, eyes looking down and your arms are extended forward and your fingers/palms are touching the ground somewhere in front of the bench as opposed to being a straight line extensions of the bench itself.

Have fun with it and remember, patience and gentle movements are very important when learning to float. You can get more tips to improve your swimming by joining our growing Swimator Facebook community or following us on Twitter @360swim.

Get Speedo's Fastskin3 for Free (Swim Smarter, Not More Expensive)

2011-12-05T14:05:00.002+02:00

That got your attention didn't it? Well, now that you are here, let me reveal the well guarded secret how you can get your own Fastskin3 from Speedo totally free.

Fastskin3 Swimmer Models (sponsorship=slavery)

What is Fastskin3?

It is a supposedly revolutionary swimming equipment composed from 3 parts of swim gear: swimming cap, goggles and a jammer suit for men and shorty suit for women. Not much innovation there in terms of type of equipment, is it? However, the main idea here is that by wearing the Fastskin3 equipment you eliminate or streamline certain contours of your body to make yourself more efficient in the water, therefore become faster swimmers. Sounds good so far?

Well, don't go celebrating an efficient swimming stroke just yet :). I have nothing against Speedo and am a great fan of people who try to promote swimming or bring swimming to the next level, which obviously Speedo's Fastskin3 racing system is doing, however, I just can't help and be critical in response to the video Speedo put out as an introduction to the Fastskin3 swim wear. It just seems that swimming is becoming more about technology than about the swimmer him/herself which makes the sport exciting (at least for me). However, who can argue with our society if this is what it takes to keeps people interested in the sport. Without interest, any sport is as good as dead, so introducing a new technology is unfortunately a necessity in today's world.

If I watch and listen to the Fastskin3 video (watch it below), I can't help but wonder what the hell they are talking about half the time. Perhaps this was their marketing approach to provide a video full of terms 99% of people on the planet do not understand and confuse trustworthy swimmers into thinking that by purchasing the Fastskin3 equipment they will become faster. Sure, we can't stop technology from entering our daily lives and we definitely cannot stop progress as that is a natural way of things. However, we can still wonder and question it can't we? :) Let's breakdown the Fastskin3 swim gear and see what we can get out of it for free.

Fastskin3 Swimming Cap

Speedo indicates that the swimming cap was designed with 3d global head scan. Hmm, unless they are going to custom scan everyone's head, how does that help you, since everyone's head and neck are different. They also indicate that the cap features IQ fit profile. I can't even begin to understand what that is. Does that mean if you have certain IQ it works better for you? And don't even get me started on the Speedo hair management system which goes below the cap. It totally resembles a very old school Lycra swimming cap, nothing more and nothing less. However, I can see how it helps to keep your hair out of the way and smooths out the contours of the head. Finally, the Fastskin3 cap is designed to fill the curve in the shape of your neck, to make the back of your neck more streamlined. From the video, I fail to see this feature, but let's take their word for it.

So, how can you get the Fastskin3 swimming cap for free? Well, the cap helps to streamline your body, so let's focus on how you can achieve the same result with your head without a cap. No matter what slick and fancy bleeding edge swimming cap material you have on your head, you will not swim faster unless you fix up your head position. I discussed the high head position problem on this blog on many occasions, so next time you are working on your head position with nice and tall body line and flat neck, just imagine you have the Fastskin3 cap on your head and perhaps this visualization will help you get the right streamline effect. So in a way you will use the new Fastskin3 cap technology to your benefit without actually spending a dime. If you really would like to get even closer to the Fastskin3 streamline efficiency, you can opt into wearing two swimming caps. One latex and another silicone over top of it. Beware though, this will increase your head's buoyancy a little, so you will have to push your head down with a bit more effort, so get used to it before you race in it.

Fastskin3 Goggles

The goggles just look plain bizarre for my taste, but let's say we give them a futuristic chance. Again and IQ fit type of stuff with 3D seal. Can you imagine something else than 3D seal? How would a 2D seal work? :). The Fastskin3 goggles are advertised to improve contours of swimmers head. Ok, I can see how that would make some very small efficiency difference if the goggles were smoother, but then again, everyone's eye socket sizes are different, so not one size fits all solution here I am afraid. The next thing is the advertised hydroscopic lense with 180 degree field of vision. First, humans don't even have 180 degree field of vision and I am not so sure how something like that would help you in the swimming pool anyway. I've never heard anybody complain about needing more field of vision in the pool. In open water swimming, there it is a bit of different story and that is why those full goggle masks are quite popular. Speedo also says the Fastskin3 goggles have secure and confident fit. I say, any goggles have secure and confident fit if they are under a swimming cap, they match the swimmer's face and the swimmer feels good about them.

Put goggle strap under your swimming cap

So, how can you get the Fastskin3 goggles for free? Well, make sure you buy goggles which are comfortable and not too large on your face. When wearing a swimming cap, put the goggle strap under the cap, so they are more secure. Then if you can, move the edges of your cap over the goggles, so the goggles and the cap create more of a smoother contour. That said, however, no goggles will make you swim faster if you do not fix your stroke. So instead of buying the newest of the newest swim goggles, why not concentrating on improving your head position during breathing. Keep your head low, make sure you blow out bubbles before you breathe, so your breath is brisk and try to maintain one goggle in/one goggle out of the water position. Another way to describe it, if you breathe during freestyle, push the top of the head into the water, so it will feel like you are swimming down the hill. This is an unusual feeling that many of use need to get used to before it becomes natural. The SwimSmooth guys explain it very well in their Clean Up your Stroke DVD set.

Fastskin3 Suit

Speedo is definitely onto something when they say their Fastskin3 suit is a network of bonded seems and panels. In fact, majority of newer swimming suits are just that. :) The Speedo Fastskin3 suit is uniquely zoned and graduated body compression system, it offers precision support and greater stability in the water. Ok, now this makes sense, the more you compress your body the more streamlined you will be in the water, right? However, what is precision support and how can you get greater stability with a swimming suit in the water? What you will get is your butt and thighs not flopping around while you swim, thus reducing a bit of a drag, which is a good thing of course, but unless it is a flotation device you will not get any extra support nor will you feel more stable. And we all know what happened to the full body suits, last time swimming companies tried to change the swimming rules. Speedo also claims that the suit enhances the speed of starts and turns which I actually believe, as your body is in the highest speed during the start or turn activity and it is fully submerged under water, so any small extra wiggle will slow you down.

So, how can you get the Fastskin3 suit for free? How about improving your core body muscle strength in order to be able to hold better streamlined position when your feet and arms are forcing your body in all the directions. Also, what about not swimming on your stomach during freestyle, but practice a proper body roll, so your body glides better. Finally, improving your freestyle kick efficiency by making sure your kick is small and compact as if you were kicking in a bucket and paying close attention to what your legs do when you take a breath. Do they go into scissor like motion? If it is a yes, then just keeping your feet in line with your body instead of doing a scissor kick trumps any drag reduction by utilizing a Fastskin3 suit or any suit as a matter of fact.

Speedo is a pioneer, but not for everyone

I don't doubt that Speedo has done a great job on their research when producing the Fastskin3 cap, Fastskin3 goggles and the Fastskin3 suit and the claimed 16.6 passive drag reduction, 11% improved oxygen economy, 5.2% active drag reduction is probably true. However, this only applies to the top of the crop Olympic swimmers such as Ryan Lochte, Michael Phelps, Jessica Hardy, Rebecca Soni, Ian Thorpe or Sun Yang. It is not an accident they mention the following sentence "the world's fastest racing system combined with the world's fastest swimmers". Without the world's fastest swimmers, it is just another ordinary cap, goggle and suit combination, so don't be fooled by marketing and swim smarter instead of more expensive. On the other hand their marketing probably works well since I spend the time writing this article :). If you want to find out more about the Fastskin 3 equipment visit for men and for women.

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What is bilateral breathing? (Does bilateral breathing mean to breathe bilaterally?)

2011-11-28T12:59:00.001+02:00

There is a fundamental difference between actually performing bilateral breathing and the ability to perform bilateral breathing in freestyle. Many beginner swimmers get confused with the terms they read on miscellaneous swimming blogs and learn to swim sites. They often read about bilateral breathing and automatically assume that they have to breathe to both sides all the time. By all the time, I mean breathing every 3rd arm stroke, so the rhythm would be: breathe to the right, stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe to the left. Then they are all confused why swimming has suddenly become very hard for them and they are breathless when they reach the end of the swimming pool. Finally, they resort to reading more about bilateral breathing and wondering how come it is not helping their swimming. It actually made their swimming harder. If you fall into this category, read carefully the following advice.

Do you have the ability to breathe bilaterally?

The key concept to understand is that bilateral breathing is just a term used to describe a motion in swimming where a swimmer breathes to both sides. That does not necessarily mean that to swim properly you need to rhythmically breathe to both sides though. What it means that you should know how to breathe to both sides aka bilaterally, but there is time and place where the actual rhythmical bilateral breathing is needed.

Like it or not, our bodies have two sides and if we heavily strengthen one side by repeating a certain activity our bodies will evolve, so to say, and adapt to that particular activity. The adaptation usually comes in terms of strengthening or stretching muscles. Unfortunately, the majority of us are either right handed or left handed and only few are ambidextrous. My guess is that if you do a bicep flex to show off your muscles, your leading arm will probably have a bigger bulge. Or next time you are in your bathroom, try cleaning your teeth with your weaker hand. You will see how difficult it is. Swimming on the other hand, requires a certain level of ambidexterity and here we are back at the bilateral breathing problem. If a swimmer only knows how to breathe to one side, it could create a whole lot of problems such as, not having the same body roll to both sides, not swimming in a straight direction in open water, imbalance in important neck muscles or you might permanently end up with a Popeye like mouth grimace :) (and many more). So, learning to breathe to both sides has also a health benefit as well as swimming benefit.

Make a Popeye mouth to breathe

Also, imagine you are swimming in a race or in the ocean and you only can breathe to your right side. Now, what if there is a swimmer with very strong and splashy kick to your right side or there are huge waves coming from the right. What will you do then? Take the beating and keep breathing water instead of air and potentially choke your way back to the finish line or to the beach? If you can't breathe to the other side, then that is probably what you will do, but if you can, then you just switch your breathing to the left and you are set and water choke free.

So as you can see, breathing bilaterally has a lot of benefits, but back to the initial point I was making. Bilateral breathing does not only refer to breathing rhythmically to both sides, it most importantly refers to the ability to breathe to both sides. You need to understand that your body needs oxygen. While you can strengthen your lungs and make your oxygen consumption more efficient, the more oxygen you have the better you can perform. Therefore, the more breaths you can take during your swim, be it 100 meters (yards) or 1500 meters (yards), the better off you are in terms of not feeling out of breath. Therefore, if you set yourself up to rhythmically breathe every 3rd stroke, which means you breathe once to the left and once to the right and so on, this means you are not getting oxygen for three strokes and this is where most beginner swimmers go wrong. Even though it is only 3 strokes between breaths and it might feel ok for the first length of the pool after a little while you start feeling the lack of oxygen. You might as well quit swimming and join the extreme apnea divers if you get high on lack of oxygen :). It would be much more beneficial if you breathe every other stroke, where you only have one stroke without breathing and you breathe only to one side at a time. Sounds much better doesn't it?

Keep a good body line when breathing

You might now be wondering, well, how is that bilateral breathing if I only breathe to one side all the time? Easy answer. You will not breathe to one side all the time. You can try breathing to the left half the pool length and then breathing to the right the other half or 20 strokes to the left and 20 strokes to the right etc. This way you will make sure your body both gets enough oxygen and stays healthy. Note of warning though, the assumption I was making here is that you are able to breathe properly and every time you take your face out of the water to breathe you do not slow down. In other words, your breathing technique is not causing drag problems in your swimming. If you feel that this breathing every stroke is not for you, why not change it a little and breathe two times to the right and then two times to the left with three strokes between. This is still much much better in terms of oxygen intake than breathing every third stroke at all times.

If you think you have the freestyle bilateral breathing ability down to 100% perfection, you can test your breathing skills by breathing every stroke. This means you breathe with every arm stroke and maintain the true rhythm of bilateral breathing. In other words, the rhythm is breathe right, breathe left, breathe right, breathe left :). This is an advanced skill and you might feel quite dizzy if you try to do this for too long with too high a stroke rate frequency. However, it is a great test of how well and efficiently you can breathe without sacrificing your freestyle streamline. If you can do this well without zigzagging all over the place, it comes in extremely handy during your freestyle swimming races or swim workouts as you will get much more oxygen than anybody else. If you think I am crazy, think again. This is a true pro skill which is used by the best of the best in the world.

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Swim Smooth DVD review: Clean Up Your Stroke (Practicing one thing at a time)

2011-11-24T11:23:00.005+02:00

Swimator Blog November 24, 2011 Final rating: 5/5

The Swim Smooth's Clean Up Your Stroke DVD set is not your usual learn to swim program on DVDs. It is more of a series of short hints and tips addressing a few important aspects of an efficient freestyle stroke. The DVD is split up into a few logical sections: Breathing, Head Position, Leg Kick, Body Roll, Recovery, Hand Entry, Catch and Pull, Visualization. Paul Newsome, an accredited level II triathlon coach who coaches triathletes in Western Australia, will breakdown each of the parts of the Freestyle stroke into a few drills, so you can concentrate on one part at a time and don't get all tangled up with trying to swim the full stroke whilst also trying to fix a problem.

Swim Smooth's Clean Up Your Stroke DVD set

Breathing - Get the oxygen in

Breathing is the essence of any sport's activity and swimming is not any different. Actually, a good breathing technique in swimming is even more crucial than anywhere else since we are a bit tied to a certain rhythm and cannot take a breath whenever we want. The first part of the Clean Up Your Stroke DVD explains the importance of bubbles and the usefulness of bilateral breathing as well as shows you some drills to make your breathing a bliss. If you want to know what bubble bubble breath stands for or what a very useful isometric exercise is, just get Swim Smooth's DVD set and you will find out :).

Head Position - Say no to neck pains

Your head position is one of the key factors which determines how efficiently your body moves through the water, so it is very pertinent to get this right. Paul describes the pros and cons of the two schools of thought regarding your head position in the water. The old school, water at your hair line vs. the new school with eyes at the bottom of the pool and water going over your head. Which one is better for you? I am a fan of the new school of thought, so if you are starting out your learn to swim endeavor, this is the way to go. Once you become more advanced and go into open water or triathlons, then it is time to play around with your head position, depending on the water conditions and your body floating ability.

Leg Kick - Turn on the motors

Strong legs is one of the key spices which make your swimming delicious. Without a good kick, you can forget it. Even though you should not kick very fast at all times when you swim, your entire learning to swim career revolves around drills which require a good kick for a good balance of your body. In the Leg Kick section, Paul discusses the proper way to streamline (or torpedo as they call it down under) and the drills that can help you with keeping your body in an arrow like body shape for as long as possible. He also shows you the right way to kick with a very simple yet effective drill as well as explains when you should utilize fins in your workouts to maximize their purpose for kick improvement.

Paul Newsome working with his swimmers

Body Roll - Rollin', rollin', rollin'

The importance of body roll was discussed on Swimator Blog many times and it is a key concept in swimming. Without a proper body roll, you will struggle to breath, you might suffer from shoulder injuries and you will also never reach your full potential in your swimming. Paul shows you an unarguable fact which proves that rolling your body is better than swimming flat. Then he explains and performs a few effective drills which will help you get the right balance and body roll in the water. For example, the 616 or 323 freestyle drill which helps you with improving your body roll and subsequently with bilateral breathing.

Recovery - Relax and enjoy

Recovery is the motion your arm/hand performs out of the water. This is what most of us see when we watch a swimmer in the pool or in the Olympics. However, instead of just an aesthetic part of the stroke, the way a swimmer performs arm recovery determines how effective the swimmer's stroke can be under the water. In the Recovery section of the DVD, you will be introduced to Alexander Popov drill which made the Russian swimming tsar the elegantly graceful swimmer he was. Paul will also show you the difference between high elbow and straight arm recovery and how they affect your stroke.

Hand Entry - Don't over think it

How you enter your hand into the water usually determines how well you can grab onto water and push yourself through the water at the later part of the stroke. Fingers first, flat hand, crossing over or thumb first? Those are just a few concepts Paul addresses in the Swim Smooth's DVD section called Hand Entry. Furthermore, if you suffer from shoulder impingement, perhaps Paul's Spearfish drill for hand entry practice could just be the thing to get you rid of the pain.

Paul Newsome explaining the importance of a high catch

Catch and Pull - Go forward

"To S pull shape or not to S pull shape, that is the question :)". If you ever wondered, how your hand/arm should move through the water during freestyle, wonder no more. Don't be stuck in the 80's, forget about S pull shape. Pull straight through and maximize your swimming force. In the Catch and Pull part of the DVD, Paul Newsome explains why the S pull shape is an old school thought and why it is inefficient. He then goes on to explain what sculling is and how mixing cold and warm water in your bath tub could actually be an important motion in learning the under water pullthrough in swimming (btw, this is one of the best analogies to explain a concept in swimming I have heard in a long time). Finally, Paul talks about the time and place for using paddles and pullbuoys, which goes hand in hand with what I am preaching on the Swimator Blog, trying to get all the triathletes to start swimming smarter and not just following what they see in other inexperienced triathletes.

Visualization - Smooth swimming is priceless

Some of us like to learn by reading, some by listening, some by watching. We all are different, however, no matter what your learning style, if you combine two or three of these learning styles together, you will be more likely to succeed. In swimming or any sports, seeing someone perform the particular motion and trying to mimic this motion is priceless. In the last Visualization section of the DVD, Bill Kirby, a 2000 Sydney Olympic gold medalist from an Australian relay team will swim for you for a few minutes, so you can visualize his lean and smooth stroke next time you are in the pool. Give it a shot, it could just do wonders for you.

Clean up your Freestyle stroke

Bonus, who does not like bonus?

There are a few extras included as a bonus in the DVD. You can learn how to improve your stroke rate with the revolutionary Metronome device, how to write your own swimming workouts, what is the equipment that should definitely be part of your swim gear bag and more. An important Open Water Skills section is also included. It is loaded with tips on wetsuit purchases and specific open water swimming drills. Even though swimming is done in the water, to be a good and healthy swimmer, you need to have some core strength and good flexibility. In the last extra section, Paul will guide you through some important stretches to improve flexibility and some dryland exercises to help you gain the right swimming muscles strength. The third and last DVD included in the package contains a full 8 week program for you, so you have some initial guidance in and out of the pool to get you started on your way to perfect freestyle stroke.

Finally, if you really want to see Paul Newsome in his sexy blue swim suit :), you should definitely get his DVD set. If this does not entice you, how about a great English and Australian accent guiding you through your swimming stroke correction drills :).

Summary: Pros and Cons

So, there you have it. The Swim Smooth's Clean Up Your Stroke DVD set is a very nice resource for swimmers who are looking to improve their freestyle stroke or just overall swimming fitness. All the different sections have nice guidance from Paul as well as a few example swimmers in the water with a commentary and text to explain what you should be focusing on and what you should avoid. Each section also has some examples of how not to do it, which in my opinion is priceless comparison for the visual learners out there. In a way, listening to Paul is like having a coach on the pool deck tell you exactly what you should be doing.

I'd say that the Clean Up Your Stroke DVD is targeted towards swimmers who have already acquired some basic skills and are now looking to make their swimming more efficient and streamlined. The breakdown of the DVD into meaningful parts of the freestyle stroke brings a quite logical view of what an improving swimmer should focus on. I would not recommend this DVD to true novice swimmers who are just getting accustomed to the feeling of their bodies in the water as the concepts, yet not advanced, are a bit tough to apply to your swimming if you struggle with some basic body and head positions. I'd mainly recommend this DVD to all the folks who can already swim up and down the pool a little and are feeling frustrated that they are not really improving anymore or just don't know where to go next with their improvements.

Remember, focus on one thing at a time and if you start feeling like all is going to hell, then stop, refocus and try again. Otherwise you are just wasting your time.

Final rating: 5/5

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Zoomers Gold review: Improve your freestyle kick in a soft rubber comfort

2011-11-17T00:22:00.003+02:00

Swimator Blog November 15, 2011 Final rating: 5/5

One of the toughest things to learn in swimming is a proper effective and efficient kick. Many coaches can tell you that having a great kick is the essence of fast swimming, however, many coaches also struggle with teaching the proper kicking technique. No wonder though, the right kicking movement, whether it is freestyle, breaststroke or another style, requires good body coordination, so the right muscles get fired up at the right times. Swimming coaches can explain the kicking technique in many different ways, using different analogies which might bring out the ahaa moment in your kicking learning process, but there comes a time where we do need to enlist the outside help of some swimming gear, in particular swimming fins. I've already talked about the shinfin leg fins and how they can help you with your kick and proper body position, however there is another type of fin which is used successfully and widely by swimmers. The special fins are called zoomers and I'll introduce you to the youngest of the zoomer family, the "Zoomers Gold" edition from Finis.

Zoomers Gold Review: improve your freestyle kick

What are the features of Zoomers Gold?

In layman's terms, a zoomer is actually just a regular fin with the tip cut off, so it is shorter without the flexion at the end. However, don't let that undervalue the work Finis has done with their Zoomer Gold edition. Apart from having a very cool yellow color (btw, great product marketing approach on Finis' part), the material and the shape of the Zoomer Gold fin is much much better than any fin that I have come into contact with. The zoomer fits very snugly on my foot and is very soft around the heel area, so I don't have to use socks or plasters to keep my heel from getting chaffed and blistered up as is the case with the majority of fins out there. The tip of the zoomer is more rigid, however, it still allows for some flexion, so you don't feel like your ankle is going to snap off every time you kick. Since the zoomer fins are shorter than regular fins, they are much easier to throw into your swimming gear bag and transport around. You can use Zoomers Gold to improve your freestyle, backstroke and butterfly kick (no breaststroke sorry :)). The fins are designed to help the swimmer build strength in the right muscles during the kick as well as improve ankle flexibility, so the final kick without the fins is a beauty. Finally, if you are naive enough to refuse to buy items produced in China to cripple the Chinese economy, you are in luck as the Zoomers Gold is made in Malaysia and Finis even provides a toll free US based phone number to call in case of any support questions. I wonder if anybody ever called them during a swim workout :), I haven't tried it, but if you do, don't hesitate to share your experience with us. The Zoomers Gold edition comes in many sizes which accommodate the majority of the feet in the world and is as good swim gear for beginners as for competitive swimmers, so you can't go wrong.

What will Zoomers Gold do for me?

It is no secret that the more flexible your ankles, the better kicking potential in the water you possess. If you have friends who are competitive swimmers, you might very often hear them complain about twisting their ankles very often. I lost count a long time ago as to how many times I sprained my ankle playing ultimate Frisbee. Ankle braces became standard equipment for me when doing any type of running sport. All this is due to the extreme ankle flexibility needed to maximize the kick's efficiency. Don't worry though, most people will still kick just fine without having ankles made out of rubber. Usually, triathletes, runners and cyclists have very stiff ankles, as they should, in order to keep them stable during their specific activity, however, this creates an issue when they enter the water element. Their ankles and subsequently feet do not act as extensions of their legs like a fin, so triathletes generate much more drag and less power from their kick which causes them to sometimes struggle during their learning to swim process. Zoomers Gold are here to help though. The stiff front blade adds an extra pressure to the top of the foot which stretches the ankle in the right direction. So if you suffer from the stiff ankle syndrome and decide to use zoomers regularly and properly, you should see some results in your kick in a few weeks as your ankles get a bit looser.

Another common mistake, this time not caused by genetics and repetitive motions :), is the size of the kick itself. Many swimmers tend to over do it and have a very wide and slow kick, instead of a faster smaller kick (like kicking in a bucket). With the Zoomers Gold this is actually almost impossible to do without feeling very awkward. The shorter, stiffer blade of the zoomer pushes you to maintain a faster, shorter kick which by itself should help you with the propulsion needed to go forward instead of a stationary or even backward kick struggle.

Since Zoomers Gold are so short and have a very intuitively designed angle of the outside fin, they feel as if they are a part of your foot. This is good from the aspect of being able to feel the right motion of the top of your feet as they freely press against the water going down on freestyle and up on backstroke. (Let's not talk about the other part of the kick where you kick with the sole of your foot - this is a bit too advanced.) As a bonus, it is very easy to walk in zoomers since they are so short.

Finally, you have probably heard this many times from your swim coaches and swim instructors or you have read it in swimming magazines, but it is pertinent that while kicking freestyle or backstroke kick that there is very limited knee bend. So keeping the legs straight and only letting the water pressure slightly push your knee back is the way to go. If you pretend to swim with straight legs, you will probably think you have straight legs, but in reality, you will actually have the correct kick which allows only for a very slight knee bend. The power of the kick comes from the quadriceps (your thighs) and hips, so if after using the Zoomers Gold fin you don't feel slight burn in your thighs, modify something about your kick. You can strengthen the right muscles for your kick with variety of kicking drills.

Zoomers Gold Review: stop the blisters

Summary: Pros and Cons

To summarize, the Zoomers Gold fins are one of the most comfortable fins I have ever had the pleasure to train in. They work the correct thigh and hip muscles to improve swimmers' kicking ability. The zoomers are very easy to carry around as they are quite light and small. With the zoomers, it is much easier to perform certain swimming balance drills as the swimmer has more power in the kick. Finally, the yellow color is very hip and cool :).

Word of caution though, do not use Zoomers Gold throughout your entire swim workout. You should incorporate usage of zoomers into your workout to help you with your kick, however, stay away from using zoomers just to keep up with the faster swimmer in the next lane. This is a pitfall which many swimmers and triathletes fall into. Remember, first slow down and learn the right kick, before you can speed up and enjoy it. I'd not recommend swimming more than 20% of your workout in fins.

Pros:

soft foot pocket
improves kick as advertised
awesome color
great cost - only $31.99

Cons:

could be a bit odd feeling at the beginning to swim with zoomers, so you need to have patience and determination to get your kick right

Final rating: 5/5

usability/effectiveness - 5/5
material - 5/5
look and feel - 5/5
price/value - 5/5

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How to start with open water swimming (Tips on how to transition from the pool to open water with ease)

2011-11-07T10:24:00.001+02:00

Open water swimming is supposedly one of the fastest growing sports around the globe. I am not sure where I heard this statement, and it is probably not true, however, the fact is that open water swimming and triathlon are becoming very popular. If nothing else, just the simple fact that there is a market for enjoyable open water swimming holidays all around the globe is a good indication that the sport is gaining traction. And since, 70% of our planet's surface is covered by water, it only makes sense we'd discover it sooner or later :).

Rostislav Vitek - Capri-Napoli Grand Prix winner

With the increasing popularity of open water swimming popularity,there also comes quite a big challenge for open water event organizers and for swimmers themselves. The open water events organizers struggle to make sure that swimming events are safe and many swimmers have a hard time understanding that swimming in open water is not the same as swimming in the pool. New swimming skills and an understanding of the environment are required in order to fully enjoy mother nature's outdoor liquid wonders.

I've sat down to discuss some open water training tips with one of my friends from my younger years in the Czech Republic, who has gone through the difficult transition from wall to wall pool swimming to a very successful world wide open water swimming career. Meet Rostislav Vitek (Rosta), a 2008 Beijing Olympic participant, English channel swimmer, multiple Czech record holder in open water races and one of the world's top open water swimmers. In fact, Rosta is an extreme marathon swimmer as he loves participating in events, such as the Argentinian 57km swim from Santa Fe to Rio Corondo. He has won this event on a few occasions. Just to bring his achievements into perspective, he swam the 4th fastest English Channel Swim time (7:16,25) in the history of the La Manche crossings. Now these are credentials any swimmer would be proud of.

Anyway, enough of the bragging, let's get down to business and talk about what you are interested in as a beginner open water swimmers and what you can do to help yourself with the swimming pool to open water transition. I asked Rosta a few questions:

Swimator Blog: What would be the first tip to give to someone who is just starting out or thinking about joining in the open water and triathlon frenzy?

Rosta: At the beginning you need to swim a lot in open water. I know this sounds simple, but just going for a swim in your local lake or pond instead of being in the pool makes a huge difference. Spend some time in open water before going to your races, so you get accustomed to the different environmental conditions (wind, water temp, rain, waves etc.) as well as reliance on yourself and not the swimming pool walls. Usually, whatever conditions you swim in at your home open water hole, you will be comfortable when swimming in a race. Just to give you some perspective, I spent three years plowing the open waters back and forth before I felt comfortable during my races and I started to understand the open water environment. After that I could migrate back into the pool and only use my races as my open water swims. However, to leave out practicing in open water, you would need to go to a race almost every week, so this is not for everyone.

Rosta keeping his swimming rhythm in the ocean

Swimator Blog: So what sort of things should a person do in open water? Obviously, not just mindlessly swim as fast as possible.

Rosta: For sure, open water swimming has a lot of nuances that the pool swimmers don't know much about. For example, sighting. Sighting is the process of raising your head out of the water to look where you are going during your swim. The idea is quite easy to understand, however, the hard part is to figure out how often to sight and what to look for. You can practice different sighting intervals until you figure out what is a good one for you, so it does not necessarily slow you down and make you more tired. One way to do this is to count your strokes in between your sightings, so for example, you can sight every 50 strokes to begin with and see if you can keep a straight line. With sighting also comes the experience of knowing what to look for. The most common mistake is to look for a floating buoy or something on the water, however this technique does not work. You need to pick a large object (house, tree, TV tower etc.) in the distance in the direction you are swimming before you begin a race and then just quickly look for that object during your sighting while swimming. There are many other things you also need to think about and consider while in open water, for example how to breathe, how fast to move your arms, when to eat etc.

Swimator Blog: That's a good advice. Should you have any tactics during a race or how does racing in open water differ from swimming pool racing?

Rosta: Well, in the swimming pool, it is just you in the lane with nobody around, so you have to rely on your speed. In open water, it is not so much about who the fastest person is, but about who is the smartest tactician. Obviously, you do have to swim fast to be with the best, however, you don't have to do it alone. In open water races, and this is very hard to get used to coming from the swimming pool, you should attempt to swim in a pack of swimmers so you can utilize drafting. If you swim alone and employ the same tactic as in swimming in the pool, you will be doomed. Just pick a group of swimmers that have a similar or a bit faster speed than you and stay inside the pack. It is the same principle as in cycling. So, sometimes you need to conserve your energy by letting someone else do the work, instead of letting your competitiveness get the better of you. However, in shorter triathlon races, this is a bit different. For triathletes, your race tactic will depend on how long the swimming part is and on how good of a swimmer you are. Either you will just fight to survive the swim, in this case, you should heavily invest in improving your swimming technique or you will cruise to the end of the swimming leg with plenty of juice left to continue with the race. While swimming in a triathlon, you do need to keep in mind that there is still biking and running left afterwards, so not much sprinting is done at the end of the swim here for most triathletes. Instead the focus on fast swim to bike transition is in sight.

Sunny destination for outdoor swimming workout

Swimator Blog: Ok, the drafting makes sense. Very hard to get used to coming from the pool though :). It needs a lot of practice. You mentioned that for someone starting out in the open water sport, swimming in the open water should be the main aspect of their training. Do you recommend leaving out the swimming pool altogether?

Rosta: No, not at all. For beginner open water swimmers, the importance of swimming in the open body of water is not necessarily for energy draining workout purposes, but for getting familiar with the environment and learning the different tactics and techniques such as sighting, drafting, recovering, right arm movements etc. However, you can still get great preparation workouts in the swimming pool. Preferably in 50 meter swimming pools as it better mimics the open water scenario.

Swimator Blog: What type of workouts should you do in the pool then?

Rosta: Well, this fully depends on how skilled a swimmer you are, but you should definitely focus on your swimming technique, so your stroke is efficient. Some technique work should be part of every workout no matter how advanced a swimmer you are. Then you can simulate open water race conditions by for example swimming series of 50s. 4x6x50 or 4x20x50 (depending on your skill ability) and every set of 50s is on a bit faster interval while maintaining the same speed. So the first set of 6x50 is on let's say 1:00 interval, second 6x50 on 55 seconds etc. You need to maintain the same time for every 50 even with the lower interval. This simulates how your body gets more tired during the race and also the sprint towards the end of the race to the finish line as that is where most of the races are won or lost since drafting tactics are used. It is something called the "endurance speed".

Swimator Blog: Would you recommend the use of any swimming gear for the open water swimmers or triathletes?

Rosta: If I really have to choose, I am a big fan of technique oriented swimming gear, so my number one recommendation would be the front snorkel. This tool is great for getting your body aligned and keeping you in the rhythm while also improving your lung power. As far as other swimming gear products currently popular among triathletes and open water swimmers, such as paddles and fins, these are not necessary. I would not recommend using these unless you already are a pretty good swimmer as this type of gear can cause more harm than benefit with a bad technique. You are much better off doing some technique work.

These were just some introductory tips from Rosta about how to get started with open water swimming. If you have any specific questions you'd like to ask Rosta, please feel free to put them in the comments as this is a unique opportunity to gain inside knowledge on open water swimming from one of the best open water swimmers in the world.

I will bring more insights from Rosta's vast open water experience in future open water posts, so stay tuned and don't forget to join our growing Swimator Facebook community or follow us on Twitter @360swim.

New 50 meter pools contribute to swimming success in the UK (Improve your swimming in 50 meter pool as well)

2011-10-31T09:01:00.004+02:00

Many swimmers do not have the luxury to train in 50 meter pools, however, some of us do have the option and still choose not to do so. The following article will give you some information about 50 meter pools and Olympic size pools in terms of what it could mean to your swimming success.

outdoor 50 meter pool with a 25 meter diving well in Finland

This is a guest post by Matthew White (@serious_square) a swimmer and water polo player based in the UK.

During my time with the Great Britain Junior Water Polo Team one of the many places I had the privilege of playing was Barcelona. When I was there in 2001 there was a rumour that there were more 50 meter swimming pools in Barcelona than the whole of the UK, a statistic that we all knew could easily be true but were never able to verify.

What may have been the actual fact was that there are more 'Olympic size pools' in Barcelona than in the whole of UK. This is because in 2001 there appears to have only been one, Ponds Forge International Sports Centre. This was the only pool to meet the 50 meters by 25 meter (10 lanes) standard. In 2011, there are now 3 more official Olympic sized pools in the UK: London Aquatics Centre (the venue for the 2012 summer Olympics), Sunderland Aquatic Centre and the John Charles Centre for Sport, in Leeds.

Since 2001 there have been a number of swimming pools built that are 50 meters in length, notably Manchester Aquatics Centre, Cardiff International Sports Centre and the K2 near Gatwick airport to name just a few, we seem to be getting the idea that for our swimmer athletes to compete at the very top level they need to be training and racing in full length swimming pools. Just as it would be ridiculous for a 100 meter runner to sprint 50 meters, turn and run back, the dynamics of training in a 25 meter pool are completely different to that of a 50 meter pool.

In Australia, a country with a population a third the size of the UK they have built 47 Olympic Sized swimming pools and they consistently produce swimming and water polo teams that compete regularly with the very best in the world. Does their success boil down to having more quality swimming facilities? I would argue that it is an important factor, however, probably not the only factor.

Swimming is amongst one of Britain's most participated sports, so the pool of potential athletes probably matches or exceeds that of Australia, therefore, nurturing top athletes with the very best swimming facilities is very important. Looking at UK swim teams performance in the pool since the Sydney Olympics in 2000 the theory of an increased number of 50 meter pools aiding top level performance could gain a more weighted argument.

Year	2004	2008	2012
Gold	0	2	?
Silver	0	2	?
Bronz	2	2	?

The table shows an increase in medals between 2000 and 2008, plus in 2008 British swimmers made more finals than any other Olympics before. Looking at this purely quantitatively, more pools = more medals – but it is not as simple as that. What will happen in the 2012 Olympic Games in London is still to be decided and your guess is good as mine. Will the team GB break records and bring home more medals than before?

One might argue other factors contribute to a country like Australia's success, firstly, the climate is far warmer and from my own experience potentially Olympic standard athletes get fed up with getting up on a cold dark mornings and training for two-hours before school – therefore just quit or 'burnt out' as it is called. I don't know what the 'burn out' rate for Australian athletes is, but personally I find it far easier to getting up to a bright warm morning as opposed to a cold dark one. So one could argue, to be an Olympic swimmer in UK is much more psychologically challenging than in warmer and sunnier countries like Australia.

Olympic size pool with 10 lanes in Cyprus

Other factors have to include training strategy, when Bill Sweetenham came in as National Performance Director of Team GB after the unsuccessful 2000 games, he employed what was known as 'tough love'. The details of his methods are unknown to me, however, what we do know is that he was heavily involved with Australian swimming before he joined Team GB and therefore must have been the same. We also know that those methods helped improve the GB swimming teams world performance.

There are always going to be more factors than 'the quality of swimming facilities' and accessibility. But looking at the number of recent pools built in the UK, someone must be realising their importance, both for elite athletes and for the general public. For me, the increase in 50 meter pools has directly influenced UK swim team's national performance and I would be interested to hear from readers about their own country.

The future seems quite bright for swimming in Britain, and no doubt the 2012 Olympics effect will go further in increasing funding and participation for the next swimming generation. At an age still young enough to compete, but getting nearer to coaching 'age' I personally am quite excited about the potential new facilities and interest in aquatic sports has received and where they can take us in the future.

More about Matthew: He writes swimming and pool related articles for Aspect Pools who sell everything to do with aquatics from swimming pool chemicals to garden swimming pools.

From Swimator Blog: If you have the option to train in 50 meter pool, you should definitely jump on the opportunity. Practicing in 50 meter pool has many benefits Here are just a few. It is much harder to swim as one cannot rest on the wall every 25 meters, so you will get stronger over time and coming back to the 25 meter pool for training will feel like a walk in the park. You also have more time to practice the miscellaneous swimming drills since you do not have to loose focus with too many wall turns. Also, usually, there is more space in the 50 meter pools, so you have less swimming traffic in the lane. If your main swimming goal is to improve in open water swimming or triathlons, 50 meter pools should take up majority of your indoor training. However, that said, it is not a good practice to only train in 50 meter pool as it is quite easy to loose speed and loose the grip on your turns. So make sure you strike a good balance between your training locations. Happy swimming!

Triathletes - Learn to See Swimming in a Different Light (Drills, Drills, Drills)

2011-10-24T09:56:00.002+03:00

Stereotypically, I find triathletes to be very self-motivated athletes always pushing their limits in whatever they do. And rightly so. In order to achieve competitive level in all the three sports combined, triathletes have to manage their workout regimes very tightly, so they have time to practice and improve in all of the sports. Talk about time management skills :). This, however, also brings with it a big challenge for many triathletes when it comes to improving in swimming. Running and cycling are very similar sports in the sense that if you run or cycle for longer periods or more often, you are bound to improve as the motion is not as complex as in swimming and the activity is on dryland which we are more accustomed to. Going for weekend 6 hour rides feels very tough at the beginning, but after a 3 month period of continuous riding, it suddenly does not feel so bad. One cannot, however, simply use the same principle in swimming. If you enter your swimming workouts with the following idea in your head, "I will swim as hard and as much as I can and I'll improve" you are already setting yourself up for a failure. Swimming smarter and not harder is the cliche that gets repeated over and over, but it is actually very much true.

Arm lead balance drill

Swimming needs a bit of a different, more scientific approach to training. You cannot simply turn your brain off when you swim and hope for the best. The swimming movement is such a complex matter that it needs to be broken down into parts and these parts need to be practiced over and over before they can be slowly put together again. Similar to babies finding their hands and practicing putting them in their mouths and practicing their first steps.

Human bodies weren't originally built for water, so we need to work extra hard to be efficient swimmers. To break down swimming into parts, we use what we call in swimming lingo "swimming drills". Each swimming drill focuses on a specific small aspect of the swimming stroke with the goal of improving the overall stroke. Some drills are easy, and some quite difficult, but they all have a purpose. For example, we could have a side balance drill where a swimmer only kicks on his/her side to practice correct body line position, increase core body strength and overall ballance in the water. Or to help with the underwater catch we could use the freestyle one arm drill where the swimmer swims freestyle only with one arm while the other is pointing forward or by the body. There are hundreds of swimming drills for every stroke out there and the best coaches incorporate them into their practices every day. So why shouldn't you?

I know what some of you might be thinking: well, if I swim slower with one arm or just kick on one side, I don't feel I am working as hard as I do when I train in running or cycling. Sure, your heartrate might not be as high, so you feel like you are wasting your time since you are swimming slowly or you might get bored as your body needs that rush of exhaustion all the time for you to feel that the workout was worth it. Or you might be thinking that I don't have time to worry about this, I just need to swim as I don't have enough time to master all three sports and, I have to swim as much as I can. If you belong to this category of triathletes and you train in this way, you are just asking for trouble, especially when it comes to improving in your swimming. Not improving your technique by incorporating miscellaneous swimming drills into your swim routines, is a bit like running or cycling with untied or unstrapped shoes. You can tie them at any point you want, but you do not and you keep running or cycling with them untied even though you'd run much faster if you took the time to tie them. You can perform swimming drills during your workouts, but you do not because your mind and stubbornness get the better of you.

One arm freestyle drill with an early vertical forearm catch

The same problematic behavior can apply when swimming in a group, on a masters team or in a lane with other lap swimmers. Your competitiveness or pride gets the better of you and you try to race the person in the next lane or pass a slower swimmer in front of you. This competitiveness spirit is awesome and it is what makes you better in one way (so don't lose it), however, it also cripples your ability to slow down and properly understand the different movements your body is making in the water. The same goes for choosing what time intervals to keep during your swim practices. Many of you may feel you have to keep up with the faster swimmers all of the time and therefore cut your rest or interval workouts so you can stay with the group. As much as this is very good practice once in a while, most of the time you are damaging your swimming more than you are helping it. First, the intervals and rest are there for a reason: if you cut them short you are suddenly practicing on a different heart rate level which has a different effect on your body than planned by the workout. Second, since you are working harder than you are supposed to, your swimming technique deteriorates and your stroke suffers.

Next time you are doing your workout or are in the pool just cruisin', take these words to heart and do me and most important yourselves a favor. Start to think about your stroke. Swallow your pride, learn to think like a swimmer (not a triathlete) when you are in the pool and swim at your own speed and utilize swimming drills in your workouts. You can't go wrong, if 50% of your swimming workout is composed of miscellaneous swimming drills. So happy drilling everybody!

Swimming in college in the USA - Do you have what it takes?

2011-10-17T19:27:00.003+03:00

Learning to swim at an early age can have many more advantages than just mastering a necessary water survival skills. It could for example lead to a longer term swimming career which will affect ones life even if they do not plan on it. Sure, not everyone will be in the Olympic ranks with Ryan Lochte, Alexander Popov, Ian Thorpe or Michael Phelps, however, if some swimming dedication is present in a person, it is not unreachable to pursue swimming at a collegiate level. There are many collegiate swimming levels and therefore many opportunities for a swimmer to take part in this wonderfully competitive sport. However, as it is with every good thing in life, swimming in college also comes with a price. More about what it entails to be a swimmer in college from Marina.

Swimming Pool at the Olympic Training Center, Colorado

This is a guest post by Marina Salsbury who planned on becoming a teacher since high school, but found her way instead into online writing after college. She writes around the web about everything from education to exercise.

Enter Marina Salsbury
If you're considering participating on a swim team in an American college or university, more power to you. There are, however, some issues you should weigh before taking that literal plunge. Being on a collegiate swim team has tremendous advantages and positives such as team comraderie, but it also demands hours each week in the pool and away from your free time in addition to time in the library and taking online college classes. If you or your child is considering swimming in college, please understand that it requires a firm commitment in order to excel. Moreover, if you're thinking about going pro, swimming in college is invaluable and depending upon your individual event(s), may require you to swim 7,000 - 10,000 yards (~6500 - 9000 meters) or more each day.

So what are the ups and downs of swimming in college? You'll have to wake up well before any of your other fellow students, for starters. Swim practices typically begin at 6:00 AM sharp. For many students, this means no late-night partying, but instead going to bed much earlier than everyone else because it’s guaranteed you will need that rest for the morning training. A typical morning swim workout will consist of roughly 3,500 yards (3200 meters) of swimming over the course of 90 minutes. However, don't despair, you will not have to do this alone. A plethora of devoted teammates will keep you company and will not hold back any sly remarks about your morning hairdo.

Not only will you have to get up before the crack of dawn, you’ll have to participate in yet another training session later in the afternoon for another swim team workout. By committing to swim team training five or six days a week and three or more hours each day, your social life outside of the swim team will be severely impacted. You also have to be careful about choosing the right foods, especially before a big competition. There is no question being a competitive swimmer in college requires an enormous commitment on your part but there is an upside to all of these countless hours of training in the pool.

Improve your swimming skills at university

The big positive is that you have the sense of pride of being a college athlete and excelling at what you love. Because you'll be paying careful attention to your nutrition needs, you'll also very likely be much healthier than your partying friends. If you search hard enough and apply yourself, you might even score a swimming scholarship, so your tuition fees will be cheaper. The luxury of traveling to meets means you will be able to see many places throughout the country that you might otherwise miss. For elite collegiate swimmers, this can even mean travel to other countries. As an example, if you are an elite swimmer you can compete in one of the premier swimming events in the Pan American Games, this year’s event to be held next month in Guadalajara, Mexico.

If you excel in elite swim events such as the Pan American Games, the NCAA Swim Championships, and other top events, you might even have the honor of representing your country even further by swimming in the most prestigious swimming event of all, the Summer Olympics (held next year in London, England). Many world-class athletes dream about the incredible honor of standing on the Olympic podium and receiving that coveted gold medal while representing their countries. While as a college athlete your status has to remain as an amateur in these competitions, you still can earn many other rewards including endorsements from sport companies and others sponsors, which can kick off an ongoing professional athletic or other career.

Beyond your collegiate career, you'll have gained immeasurable experience in swimming and fitness from your coaches and peers as well as life long skills such as ability to perform under pressure, ability to work on a team or ability to pay attention to detail (if you work on perfecting your swimming technique). All of these skills become an advantage after the college education is finished and decision to pursue ones career path has to be made. Especially, if you choose to pursue a career of coaching, collegiate or otherwise, swimming in college is invaluable. Perhaps most rewarding of all, incorporating swimming into your life after college might grant you the distinction of working in field you truly love and can enjoy for the rest of your life.

From Swimator Blog: If you are interested in swimming in college and what you read above scares you as it feels like a lot of work. Stop and think of it this way, many millions of students have done this before you, so it cannot be all that bad. Yeah sure, swimming at a university requires some dedication and commitment, however, the benefits of life long friends, skills and attitude by far outweigh it all. If it would be easy, would you get as much out of it? Probably not :). If you are considering swimming in college, learn more about your scholarship opportunities.