Swimming Lessons

One nice thing about summer with kids is that if you're working from home you are forced to get out and play. The only summer program we've done is swimming lessons for my older son, and they are working out great. The Oakland parks department has really affordable lessons, so I signed myself up for a refresher private lesson as well. I sort of want to do a triathlon, and I've read that improving the mechanics of your swimming is the most important thing to do as we all tend to be so inefficient in the water.

I learned so much that, unfortunately, by the end of the second and final lesson, I basically could no longer swim. "It's kind of like tweaking your golf swing," my instructor told me as I tried to focus on him while surrounded by screaming children (yes, apparently I was the only adult who has taken the parks up on this lesson offer). "There's so much to remember that you're paralyzed." But he gave me lots to practice. Here's what I learned, mainly for freestyle/crawl:

1. Most important lesson for me: Breathe out through your mouth. I always blow out through my nose, and that causes a CO2 buildup that makes me breathless after just a few strokes. "Breathing out through your nose is like breathing out through two straws," he said. Like a little kid, I practiced going underwater and blowing out through my mouth. Sure enough, I came up coughing. "It's easier when you're horizontal 'cause the bubbles don't go past your nose," my teacher said.

2. Rotate your torso with each stroke, using your lats to help pull you through the water. But don't wiggle horizontally at the hips; that's inefficient.

3. Keep your head down, aligned with your body.

4. Don't cross your arms past your midline in front of you. Extend them straight forward.

5. The ideal breathing pattern is to breathe on alternate sides every three strokes.

6. If you get water in your mouth as you're breathing one option is to swallow.

7. Wear swim goggles.

8. One good exercise is to brush your fingertips on the surface of the water as you first pull your elbow out and extend the arm forward. This helps you get the right rotation.

9. Another good exercise is the catch up stroke, where you extend one arm and glide until the other arm catches up to where the first was; then you finish the first stroke. I found this very hard to do.

10. Using a kickboard helps you strengthen your legs. I learned that the breast stroke froggy-style kick is way more powerful than freestyle kicking for most people. I guess that explains why I mainly do breast stroke. The freestyle kicking was super hard--my quads were burning, and my progress across the pool was abysmal.

11. Holding a floatie between your legs can help you concentrate on your arm form.

12. For navigating in open water (which is where I mostly swim), use the sun's position or the direction of waves or wind as you breathe as a marker so that you don't waste time and energy stopping to look around. He also demonstrated how you take a quick look straight ahead with just your eyes out of the water between strokes; then you put your head down and rotate for a breath.

13. At the beginning and end of a lap swimming session, count the number of strokes it takes you to get across the pool. The number shouldn't change; the point is to maintain the relaxed, even rhythm of your swimming regardless of how tired you are.

I also learned that while I am buoyant and comfortable in the water, I am not an undiscovered swimming phenom. Darn. Swimming from Alcatraz is starting to look pretty hard.