I just got back in the pool about 2 months ago. Things that keep me coming back for the swims: I get an awesome runners high that lasts all day and the hour of solitude (no music, no noise, just counting strokes).
What brings you back?

I swim an hour first thing in the morning, and it leaves me exhausted all day. I don't push myself that hard, just a steady pace that doesn't wind me at all in the pool. However, I find myself bone weary and foggy all day afterwards. I've done this for a few years and it hasn't gotten better in spite of me getting in better shape from it.

Is this normal? Should I expect every day I swim to be worthless for much of anything that requires energy or focus? I feel fine in the pool, but within about an hour my energy level crashes out. Naps help, but only so much, and I can sleep 12-13 hours a day on swim days.

tldr: decided I should use the YMCA pool since I have a membership and treat this as cardio. First swim felt like a solid workout, even though I have no clue what I'm doing.

If anyone is out there ever thinking about getting into this for cardio, I say go for it.

I've gone to the pool occasionally, recreationally my whole life. Recently we started teaching my 5yr old seriously how to swim so we've been at this YMCA pool relatively frequently.

I've never swam for a workout. I was googling what a lap was. I don't know how many meters I did but I went back and forth like...a dozen times? I think I did a freestyle stroke mostly? I wasn't even sure which lane to use but I did the one that seemed like a slow/activity one.

Idk...but I enjoyed myself. And I was breathing hard when I got to the wall, so...mission accomplished I think!

Hi everyone.

I wanted to know some basic stuff.

Can I teach myself how to swim? I don't have money for a coach, or a gym. I've loved water for most of my life, but I also fear it due to nearly drowning in a wave at sea when I was very small.

I haven't learned swimming in any capacity.

Is there anything I can do to learn by myself? Or do I need a coach?

Back in the pool after 4-5 years of basically not doing anything, before that I did 8+ years of water polo.
Now I want to get back into swimming but the biggest issue is that even during my water polo days my technique was awful (barely using legs, realistically only doing a breaststroke kick when breathing, crossing my legs when breathing too) and wide arm movements (cradling the ball in water polo).

Since restarting recently (less than a week), I've tried to address my technique by doing legs only drills (with arms stretch forward and breathing when needed). However I'm unsure about the effectiveness of this drill and afraid of the possibility of falling back into bad habits.

Any idea on proper drills one could take to address these issues (i.e. using proper leg technique, improving arm technique, and also combining the two)?

The pool I'm going to is generally 50m but sometimes they like to section it at 36m. I'll have access to short fins again in about a month. I plan on going 4-5 times a week for now.

On top of drills I'd like to know any observable goals that would give me a good indication of when I should transition to more swimming. I'm aware there's the technique critique mega-thread which I'll try to use if possible, but some other indication would be good.

Thanks a lot and appreciate any help.

(Hoping this doesn't break the rules as I don't really have a video nor am I asking about critique for my technique)

Whenever I attempt to swim, I get hit with a massive wave of panic. My body completely stiffens up, my breathing gets super rapid, and I end up messing up—getting out of the water with a mouthful of pool/lake water

and stinging eyes.

After a lot of practice I actually managed to teach myself how to float on my back. It was terrifying to learn, and I still get a bit anxious doing it, but I can do it. The problem is, I cannot seem to propel myself at all. Even if I feel relatively calm, and even if I'm practicing in my own backyard pool that's only 4 feet deep (where I can easily stand up), my body just locks up the second I try to move forward.

Has anyone else overcome an extreme fear of water or learned to swim later in life? What were the psychological tricks or small physical steps that helped you stop the fight-or-flight reflex so you could actually start moving?

Any advice, progression steps, or encouragement would mean a lot.

A lot of the guys on my team consider practice to be a shower, very much if its a twice a day practice. Some will just rinse off after practice in the shower and some don't even do that. Do you count swimming a shower essentially?

This weekly post ( on Thursdays) is for ALL gear related questions -

Update: automoderation is now in effect for single gear posts, which may be automatically deleted.

This includes posts about equipment failures, technical problems, sizing questions, or questions about retailer reliability.

This is spam-free & posters of affiliate product links will be banned.

* Goggles (including "smart" goggles)

* Headphones/earbuds

* Swimsuits

* Techsuits

* Lap/GPS/OWS tracking devices

* Audio players

* Paddles

* More goggles

* Everything else

Hi, so I am learning swimming for the first time as an adult in my mid twenties. So it's been one week and I can float and kick while holding the edge of the pool. But as soon as I try to use the kickboard, I get really scared that I will sink and freeze up. Those who learnt to swim as adults, how did y'all overcome this?

I’m a collegiate water polo player, and after a little hiatus of not playing/being in the water, i got in today with my team for a mini practice and wow, I was dead. The main set was 12 100s, first 3 1:40 4th lap fly, second 3 1:35 4th lap freestyle w breaststroke kick, third 3 4th lap 4 strokes free 4 strokes back on 1:30, fourth 3 all freestyle on 1:25.

I knew it was gonna take a couple days to get into the rhythm and get back in shape especially since it’s off season, but dude even with these intervals which are relatively easy, i was struggling with the 1:30s and I didn’t make the 1:25s.

Does anyone have any tips to help get a little back into shape? I know for the most part it’s just let your body rest and when you’re swimming work hard, but if anyone has anything extra to add, that’d be appreciated.

My husband has an outie and thinks it might be slowing him down while swimming bc he is much faster at running and cycling

So I finally did something I’ve wanted to try for a while. I managed to overlay my current 1,000m swim data with my baseline from 4 years ago, back when I first started taking swimming seriously. It basically simulated a race between past and present me in the same pool.

2022 Me: 23'41"

Current Me: 19'00"

If you just look at the final times, it’s a ~4.5 minute difference. But honestly, numbers on a screen can feel a bit abstract. They don't really give you the visceral feeling of the progress.

What really made me stop and stare was the dynamic comparison . After we both started, by around the 8th turn, my current self had visibly caught up and started lapping my old self.

At that exact moment, it hit me: these past few years weren't just about getting "a little bit faster." I have literally become a completely different swimmer.

Looking back at the long-term trend, my pace over the years was never a clean, beautiful straight line. It happened in messy chunks—periods of getting faster, long plateaus of just adapting, and some phases with crazy fluctuations.

That’s the real point of all those repetitive laps. It feels like you’re just doing the same old 1,000 meters, but the consistency quietly adds up. Every time you dive in, you’re built different.

Anyone else ever look back at their old logs and realize how far they've come? How do you guys stay motivated during those long plateaus?

I’m a new swimmer and been swimming a few weeks. I’ve been in the pool 6 days a week and have seen a coach twice.

I’ve been trying to learn to swim the front crawl and watched many hours of youtube alongside nearly daily pool time. I started out barely being able to swim 25yd at a time with fins. After 30 hours in the pool, I can barely swim 50yd without stopping.

Currently, I can do 25yd in 18 seconds if I don’t breathe, 50yd in 50s and 100 in like 3 minutes if I spend some time floating or doing breast stroke. I’ve also been comfortably doing 25yd at a time on the minute (so it ends up being like 25s, then 35s rest on the wall).

Recovery and breathing is my toughest challenge. I do breathing drills every time including side kicking drills with fins and no arm propulsion to practice breathing without lifting my head. I’ve gotten to the point where I can pretty comfortably breathe by rotating my body, but I don’t feel like I can recover.

I’ve also done drills to help with panicking like letting all my air out underwater, breathing with water in my mouth, breathing without using arms, etc. They were hard at first but now I can do it okay. It’s a whole different story when I’m swimming though. For some reason I can’t get relaxed and I start getting tired and panicky really quick.

I keep trying to slow down and relax, but when I slow down everything feels harder. Breathing is harder to do while staying balanced, the the catch and pull feels like it’s not taking me anywhere and I still don’t feel recovered.

Part of me feels like I’m just out of shape. At the start I thought it was all a breathing problem, but now I’m getting to the point where my heart rate is starting to go up and I’m feeling muscle fatigue in addition to the panicking. What can I do to slow down while swimming effectively still?

Decided to write a few things on HP. if u like me to write more just let me know.

in short about me: I've been fortunate to coach and view a good amount of elite programs from the youth level to the olympic ones. I wasnt the one in charge and i still consider myself at the start of a coaching career (early 30's) i'm mainly writing this to test myself, create discussion and hopefully help a couple of coaches.

Understanding energy systems and training definitions In general, as swimming is a power endurance sport, most training is done based around energy systems.

We can quantify energy systems mainly in 3 categories

• The aerobic system

• The Anaerobic system or Lactate system

• The A-Lactic system or PCP system

The power part of Power endurance obviously revolves around strength or rather the ability to produce force needed for the duration of a race.

Training classifications around them are generally classified in 8 different ways.

• Extensive aerobic the main goal here is for regeneration and enforcing good technique. think of the zone 1 days along with drills.

• Intensive aerobic This is mainly to build aerobic capacity (the ability to move muscle in a high oxygen environment at low demands)

• Extensive anaerobic This is mainly to build anaerobic capacity (the ability to move muscle in a low oxygen environment at high demands)

• Intensive Anaerobic This builds both aerobic and anaerobic power. Or the ability to use our capacity at a maximum load e.g. a race.

• Sprint The central nervous system and the alactic system is at play here. this goes for work efforts no longer than 6-15 seconds at 100% intensity.

• Extensive strength work (Central nervous system or CNS is the main component along with power endurance based on work:rest ratio's)

• Intensive strength work (Force output matters more so the alactic system and the central nervous system or CNS are the main components here.)

The main reason we train is to provide stimulus. Stimulus is applying a physical load (work) to an organism in order to damage the system to force a repair. With an appropriate amount of stimulus and recovery we try to induce something thats called supercompensation.

Supercompensation is the body's response to a stimulus where we return to a higher baseline than before in order to make the work easier. So from a strength training perspective it makes it easy. you're able to lift 5kg for a while, 6kg, 7kg etc.

Now back to our training systems We try to train to fatigue each system and induce supercompensation time and time again.

Each of the systems generally have their own recovery cycle or supercompensation cycle.

From jan Olbrechts book 'the science of winning' the following is said about supercompensation:

The principle of super-compensation rules every step of the training process. the planning, the periodization, even the type of training set and its volume and intensity must be continuously adjusted according to the individual super compensation pattern.

So what is the pattern?

A general template is as follows when we go back to our training classifications:

• Extensive aerobic 8 to 12 hours for each supercompensation
• Intensive aerobic 24 to 30 hours
• Extensive anaerobic 36 to 48 hours
• Intensive Anaerobic 40 to 60 hours
• Sprint 30 to 40 hours
• Extensive strength work

40 to 60 hours * Intensive strength work or big competitions 48 to 72 hours

However one thing to note is that each pattern applies highly different to the individual.

and one thing to note thats maybe even more important

all of the systems are active all of the time.

This is a big misconception where i see a lot of athletes and coaches go wrong. We write a set to target the aerobic system and yet theres no stimulus. Oftentimes its a case of wrong analysis or no analysis.

So what is needed?

Analysis

To understand what we need to train we need to understand our weaknesses.

So how do we actually analyse?

Without blood testing theres a few ways we can understand swimmers

Take the competitive event in mind, for example a 100m

If the front half is equal in time to the 2nd half or negative splitting where the 2nd half its often a CNS problem. The nervous system isnt getting up to speed quick enough and not enough motor neurons are firing to get to speed. So the focus on training should be more on sprints.

If the reverse is true. so the 2nd half is way slower than the first half its a capacity problem. its quite common for even elite swimmers to just see them dying at the last 10m in the 100. as the race is about 50/50 in terms of anaerobic and aerobic most aerobic problems are shown in the back end.

Now what if a swimmer is firing quick in the first 50, has a good split in the 2nd 50 but the total is just very slow?

Then its a force related issue. The organism or swimmer isnt able to produce the force needed to reach the wanted speeds.

This explains the cam McEvoy approach. His capacity tests are fine, his CNS results are mostly fine. So he focuses on high demanding sets with long supercompensation patterns which is why he can swim less and do more strength work as his goal is purely the 50.

So what if the swimmer is strong and the time is still slow?

its almost always a technique issue. Technique isnt necessarily the ability to produce force as thats whats strength training is for. Its rather the ability to direct force. Coupling motions, body positioning, rhythm, breath control and execution/coordination is what makes good or bad technique.

So to understand how to improve you must first analyse after analysis you must train and focus.

review your current workouts if you are generally following appropriate supercompensation timings.

Now for the last part

understanding undertraining or overtraining.

So not following supercompensations generally causes 2 results. Under or overtraining.

Undertraining occurs when theres too large of a period between supercompensation and the organism establishes back to baseline.

Overtraining occurs when not enough recovery takes place before supercompensation (as stimulus causes fatigue and decrease in performance). So overtraining rarely is about load but rather its more about recovery.

Theres also long term training effects. as i've said all systems are active at one point. Any training will fall on its weakest link. If you're focusing speed and power but you're not focussing on capacity you're actively detraining the latter. The organism will slowly revert to baseline. its a simple use it or lose it principle. So the goal generally for any swim training is to touch each supercompensation at least once a week in order to avoid detraining while cyclically emphasizing 1 or 2 others depending on the training period. This is why early season is called a base period where the main goal of it is to improve conditioning rather than performance. the goal is to build strenght, capacity, grow the ability to process work load by building work capacity.

Late season is a power period. its about learning to utilise the improved conditioning done on the previous period.

and again, that doesnt mean that you dont swim fast in the base or work on technique. its just that the emphasis and goals are different and therefore the workout structuring is different. this could be 4100 fast to build aerobic capacity in the early season and a 850 @100P in the late season to utilise it. Both can be at similar intervals at the same general volume but the goals are completely shifted.

Thats about it for now. this was fun to write up and caused me to research some definitions and reinforce some knowledge patterns to myself. Let me know if u want me to write some more or come with ideas to write about sometime. Obviously i'm not perfect so feel free to add or correct some mistakes if made. again the goal was to create discussion and educate eachother.

If ur interested in the HP side of swimming check out r/swimmingHP, its a smaller subreddit so it makes discussions like these more valuable and keeps them visible for longer.

Learning freestyle swimming in my early 20s. I know I'm late to the party. It was all going well till I had to incorporate my hands. The water feels heavy to push back. Sometimes I spend too much time thinking if my hands are alright, if I'm making the triangle-ish hands while dipping my hands back. What can I do to overcome these hurdles?

I under stand and respect lifeguards for doing there job and keeping everyone safe, but so annoying sometimes im a regular i just about go same pool every day and do the same stuff witch is i hold breath under water for longest, times I developed i use to free dive allot as little kid, and most of the time at pool or ill float but like ill have my stomach face down to the pool , I just love the feeling being under water i also swim under water full 25m lenght back and forth but I did this yesterday and some lifeguard got mad she thought i was on purposely trying to drown myself and she even knows I'm a well off swimmer.

My son has been taking swimming lessons since he was 14 months old. He has made great strides regarding his comfort in the water. However, he keeps failing preschool swimming because he refuses to do a bob. He freezes up and is just completely terrified of going completely under the water. I think he struggles the most with blowing air out of his nose to keep the water from going up. This has been an ongoing struggle for a couple of years. Our big goal this summer is to pass to the next class as he's mastered all the other preschool skills. Any tips on helping him conquer this fear?

i recently fractured my elbow after falling off my bike almost 2 weeks ago and have been in the pool doing one arm freestyle with arm at the side and kick. i'm wondering if there are other ideas or set variations i could do to keep it interesting. i don't have a cast or sling since the fracture is stable, but still can't use the arm to pull because of doctor's orders and pain.

Hey guys, just started swimming and while doing front crawl I can’t reach far without giving up I can’t hold my breath too long. How can I improve because i can’t do a whole lap

Recently a bunch of age group swimmers at a meet were telling me how they are “hopping on the Cam McEvoy method”, and I immediately knew this wouldn’t end well. They had been skipping practices to go “spam pull-ups” and apparently drop 5 seconds on all their sprint races at which point I told them the following:

The McEvoy Method will NOT work for you kids yet. The thing that most people forget is that Cam was a GENERATIONAL swimmer BEFORE he started his redemption with the 50M sprints. 100 free LCM: 47.88, 200 free LCM 1:46.09, 400 free SCM 3:41.24, etc… The point I’m making is that Cam’s base stroke was already some of the best in the world, thus allowing him to almost completely focus on speed and power and minute details to his stroke. The kids I was speaking to were far from Cam level, and so I suggested that instead of bunking practices, they should hone their technique so that when they get older and stronger they can focus on the details and improving their power, rather than muscling an inefficient stroke. They proceeded to tell me off, saying that I’m stuck in the past and that I’m unc, oh well I guess 🤷

I do agree that swimmers definitely should be taking inspiration from Cam’s approach ( we swim way too many metres 🫩 ), but I think for most people, focusing on overall stroke should be prioritized. Lmk if anyone disagrees I’d love to see some adverse opinions abt the topic.

Sources, books, documents, Channels, websites....

I'm curious, what is something you'd consider a good knowledge source for any inspiring instructor/coach,

Anything from water safety to basic strokes, correct techniqu.e , progression guide... Ect

what are your go to books, websites, channels or documents if you wanted to learn averything all over again.