Swim Lesson 6: Less is more
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or sign up for email updates. Thanks for visiting!
Attendance is dwindling at my Monday night swim lesson. I guess “the new” is wearing off as some people discover they are only in lust with “intermediate swimming” (and the Clissold Leisure Centre). Selfishly, I like this: fewer students means more attention from my instructor. This makes the class more of a lesson than a practice drill.
Last Monday, as I practiced the breaststroke, my instructor reminded me to bend my knees and bring my heels as close to my butt as possible: hard work but better form for faster swimming (I tend to forget this when I’m swimming alone, and do only a half-ass job of bending my legs). We then did the backstroke for a few laps, and he picked me out of everyone to demonstrate good form!
I’m learning how to get a good cardio workout from swimming. It seems obvious now that all it takes is a little concentration and a lot of hard kicking, but when I first started I couldn’t both kick hard and breath properly at the same time. It’s taken over a year to get to this point where I feel comfortable breathing, but that’s ok - I look forward to seeing where I’m at in another year’s time.
Related posts:
- Swim Lesson 3: Brain versus body
- Another year of swimming begins: Lesson 1
- Swim Lesson 5: A lesson in not swimming
- Swim Lesson 2: Freestyle, baby
- Get Hard Without Weights or the Gym
Tags: Swimming




