With kitten-like speed and grace
Jul. 5th, 2006 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fivemackAt least, I think kittens are proverbially slow and graceless swimmers.
Managed a kilometre this evening - 40 lengths of Parkside, changing stroke every six lengths to ward off some of the boredom. It took just under ninety minutes; I found that two consecutive lengths of brisk front crawl (where 'brisk' means 40 seconds for the 25 metres) raised my heart rate to 180, one minute's rest got it down to 120 and another minute got it to 100. For comparison it goes up to about 150 on the stair-climbing machine and stays there, and tended not to get even that high on the treadmill (when the treadmill was working).
What would be wonderful is to try swimming with someone who not only can swim but can tell me what I'm doing wrong; I find I can't get any speed at all from my legs, it takes over two minutes for me to do a length holding a float in both arms and getting my propulsion from swimming furiously.
Weird weather this evening; low-contrast clouds and haze enough to cloud one side of Parker's Piece as seen from the other, the sun setting as a visible disc rather than an actinic blare. Rather reminiscent of Bangkok.
Managed a kilometre this evening - 40 lengths of Parkside, changing stroke every six lengths to ward off some of the boredom. It took just under ninety minutes; I found that two consecutive lengths of brisk front crawl (where 'brisk' means 40 seconds for the 25 metres) raised my heart rate to 180, one minute's rest got it down to 120 and another minute got it to 100. For comparison it goes up to about 150 on the stair-climbing machine and stays there, and tended not to get even that high on the treadmill (when the treadmill was working).
What would be wonderful is to try swimming with someone who not only can swim but can tell me what I'm doing wrong; I find I can't get any speed at all from my legs, it takes over two minutes for me to do a length holding a float in both arms and getting my propulsion from swimming furiously.
Weird weather this evening; low-contrast clouds and haze enough to cloud one side of Parker's Piece as seen from the other, the sun setting as a visible disc rather than an actinic blare. Rather reminiscent of Bangkok.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-05 09:21 pm (UTC)I can't figure out whether the breast-stroke kick should be done in-phase or out-of-phase with sweeping the arms round from in front of nose to parallel to forehead, but this doesn't really trouble me since I can't reliably keep either phase relation for as long as a length.
The stroke I find most pleasing is a sort of back-butterfly, if only because it relaxes my neck which I otherwise strain too much to keep out of the water; but it's not very practical in crowded pools, and I'm not quite as reliable as would be ideal at stopping before swimming the back of my head with some force into the ceramic tiles at the end of the pool.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-05 10:40 pm (UTC)I learned two different versions of the breast stroke -- one with the long sweeping stroke you describe, and other with shorter strokes. In any case, it still works even if you don't coordinate it smoothly. The kicks are different, too -- one the frog kick, the other somewhat different.