Swimming-back to basics

View from Lillomarka

Well, then here I go. Writing this report three days after carrying it out. Anyway, I went swimming again Monday evening. Last session a week ago was disappointing when it comes to technique. My measure was to return to a small pool and focus on technique again. It worked! Within 45 minutes of reps consisting of drills with a length of 10 metres I managed to regain some of my technique and make som improvements. The latter was to lift my head a bit in order to reduce resistance in the water. In addition, by practising reps of just 10 metres, technique is 100 % prioritized. That clearly makes a difference. My approach in the coming time is to focus just on technique using the same workout and increase number of workouts a week to two.

Technicals:
-Total time: 45 minutes
-Total distance: unimportant

Back swimming again

From Rallarvegen

Finally, I'm back in the pool again after a break of 6 weeks. Demanding session with me struggling to reestablish my technique. Initially it felt like I'd forgotten about it all, but gradually I managed to execute some of my previous technique. It's a new pool, longer length-25 m and partly with greath depth(3,8 m). Today I stayed on medium depths, but next time I'm starting at greater depth swimming towards shallow depths. My target is to execute a steadily better technique and complete a whole lap of 25 metres. My measures for achieving that is to increase the number of sessions from one to two and swim every week except in competition-periods.

Technicals:
-Total time: 30 minutes

Swimming: increasing on my lap-length

From Rallarvegen

Due for another session with swimming again. This time I'd decided to increase the lengt of my lap to three lengths of 10m each. At first I managed fine and maintained a good technique. After some time I got tired and didn't manage to keep up my focus when it comes to technique. After 45 minutes I stopped the session. Next time I'll try with 1 minutes rest between each lap. This time I was down to around 40 seconds.  The important thing is to execute a good technique at all times-not the number of sets.

Technicals:
1. 25 laps of 30 m
Total distance: 750 m
Workout time: 45 minutes

Swimming: technique-session

Nice to swim again tonight. Actually it's my first training session since the race last weekend. Next training-session will be next Sunday and will also be a swimming-session.
The goal with todays session was to relax more in the water while focusing on executing good technique and increase the length of the lap. I managed both. The last 7 laps was 30 metres, the first 26 was 20 metres. From now on I'll only be swimming laps of 30 metres and longer. The fun part is that I'm able to relax more in the water. By being able to relax it's easier to execute good technique, and by executing good technique it's easier to relax.-it works both ways. Still I need to work more on my breath. Now I'm able to catch air, but I need to get rid of it as well while I'm not breathing. It was a very good workout tonight. Hours of training has certainly paid off. I just need to keep on working.

Technicals:

1. 26 laps of 20 m: 520 m
2. 7 laps of 30 m: 210 m
Total distance: 730 m
Workout time: 47 minutes

Swimming: consentrating on my breath

Gardermobanen

My focus this time was breathing. After experiences made on Wednesdays session it was time to work more on my breathing. I need to relax more in the water, allow more time when breathing and increase the distance on each lap. With that as a goal I went for it. Initially I felt bit worn, but managed to relax more and use more time when breathing. As a result of this my technique improved. Important is to keep the body straight, head down and twist the body a little while executing a stroke-even when I'm not breathing. When breathing I exacurate a bit-making sure I get enough air, before I pull the next stroke. That means I'll lose some time, but will be able to increase the distance for each lap. I'll be working more with this in the next session the week to come.


Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-25 reps of 20 m-total of 500 m
-Total time spent: 45m 0s

Swimming: endurance session-front crawl

Winter in Oslo

Well I didn't endure much. Todays session was though. I was pretty worn out after Yesterdays two workouts and my legs were pretty unresponsive and my body was tired. The result was that I didn't execute as good technique as I do on my Sunday sessions. In addition there were other challenges. It was a new pool with a length of 25 metres. The depth was 180 cm at one end and 90 cm at the other end. Pretty sure I wouldn't manage to swim a whole lap I started at the deep end and swam towards the lesser deep end. I did 5 laps of 15 and 4 laps of 25 m- The last laps I had to break up in two. There are several reasons for this. I was tired and that affected my technique resulting in use of more energy. In addition I haven't established a good enough breathing pattern yet. I was clearly struggling to get enough air. I need to work more on that as well
Overall it was a good experience. The challenge for me now is to improve on my technique enabling me to finish one lap of 25 m. In order to do that I need inmprove on my technique and my swimming-endurance. In that sense it is the right choise for me to add another session of swimming a week and increase the length of the pool of which I carry out my endurance-sessions. Question is-would it be wise to train later on Wednesday in order to achieve more rest before the swimming session? I certainly think so. Today I started at 11.45 a.m. Next Wednesday I'll start at 5.30 p.m.

Technicals:
-Place: Bøler bad-Oslo
-Length of pool: 25 metres
-Water temperature: 32 degrees celsius
-Laps: 9 ( 5 laps of 15 m)
-Total distance: 175 metres
-Total time: 41m 3s

Swimming session: good perfomance in spite of fatigue

Oslo from Grefsenkollen

Pretty exhausted tonight. It's been a demanding weekend preparing for the race in two weeks by running for nearly 5h Yesterday and a new running session this morning. It's challenging to execute good technique under such circumstances, but it works well with a bit of will and focus. Tonight I managed to relax more in the water-this seem to improve gradually in minor steps. I addition I've managed to improve on my breathing technique by relaxing more in the water. I do that by pushing my head down in the water, letting the air out slowly and taking a new breath on every second stroke. The more I do this the better I get. Next week I'll schedule another session of swimming focusing entirly on front crawl. On Sundays I'll start working on back-crawl, starting next Sunday.



Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-35 reps of 20 m-total of 700 m
-Total time spent: 40m 30s  

Swimming: increasing speed

Due for a new swimming-session tonight. My goals for todays session was to continue my work on improving my technique when it comes to front-crawl. I've managed to established a more efficient stroke by using less strokes to cover the same distance. I do that by deliberately streching out when pulling a stroke and twisting the body a bit at the same time to reduce the resistance in the water. I've been doing laps of 20 m each with a break of 45s in between. Today I reduced the break to 30s. By doing that I need to focus even more on executing good technique. My goals long-term is to relax more in the water, move forward with less use of energy(less resistance)and be able to swim at greater distances without pausing. Earlier on I needed 7 strokes to cover 10 meters. Today I need 3-4 strokes. That's good. At the end of the session I got a bit tired. Experiencing that it's even more important to force myself to focus on executing good technique in order to save energy.
Next time I'll be covering 30 metres without breaking up. In the mean time I'll schedule session no 2 starting next week. It'll be on Wednesday in a pool with a length of 25 metres. That'll be a new challenge. I need that in order to develop my swimming-skills.

Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-35 reps of 20 m-total of 700 m
-Total time spent: 40m 30s  

Swimming: working towards less resistance

This afternoon it was due for another technique-session. My aim with todays session was to work on relaxing more in the water by trying to rotate a bit on every stroke and at the same time make an effort to move my gravity-point forwards by pushing the head a bit more down in the water.
By reducing the area of which the water must travel past to a minimum I will reduce the resistance in the water. I achieve that by rotating a bit on every stroke and trying to move the gravity-point forwards.
I'm doing laps of 20 metres in a pool with a length of 10 metres. In addition I'm adding laps to a set of 5 laps trying to work on something in particular in that set. In todays session I clearly felt that by relaxing more, rotating a bit and pushing down at front had a significant effect. I was down by 1-2 stroke on each lap. I felt that rotating slightly was easily approachable, but moving the gravity-point fowards demands more work.Next time I'll assign one working task to each set-working on rotating and gravity-point in different sets. On the last set I'm combining.
I'll extend the length of the lap to 30 metres next time. When I'm managing laps of that length properly I'll add another weekly session of swimming. That will probably be from mid november.

 Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-25 reps of 20 m-total of 500 m
-Total time spent: 45 minutes  

Swimming: technique session

Another workout focusing on technique this afternoon. The pool I'm swimming in has a rather small length(10 m), but it's more than adequate to work on technique. I'm doing laps of 20 m focusing on front crawl. So far my foot-work is good, my use of arm is adequate and my breathing needs improving. Naturally, I'm consentrating on my breathing. My technique is better on the first part of the lap-I need just 2 strokes to get to the turning point. On the second part then I suffer a bit when it comes to maintaining a good technique resulting in the need for more strokes(3-4) to get to the finish. There are two main reasons for this, I think.
First I haven't established a good breathing pattern yet-but I'm improving though. I'm more relaxed in the water and have established the ability to breathe out in the water before returning for more air. I think the solution for me is to establish a pattern which includes breathing on a pre-decided stroke(every second or third). In addition I need to breathe on the same side every time to be able to relax. My decision is to breathe on every second stroke and always on the left side. Before the next session I'll prepare myself mentally for it by visualising in advance.
Second I was a bit tired in my feet after the long run Yesterday. I'll continue my long runs so I'll just have to adapt.
I also tested out a watch meant to monitor my swimming by counting every time I turn and my strokes. I seems like the pool is to small to make the clock work so I'll just have to make notes of the number of reps and try it out in pools of longer lengths.
Finally I shure think it's about time to add another session of swimming in order to establish more amount of swimming training. One session a week is not enough. I'll consider adding one more session in a pool with greater length(25 m).
I'll decide on that in the weks to come and introduce it in the week after that.

Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-25 reps of 20 m-total of 500 m
-Total time spent: 45 minutes

Swimming: improving on my breath

Good to be back again in the swimming pool. I've missed the sessions during the summer and the third quarter. First time was two weeks ago and now I'm having one session a week until the end of this quarter. My focus now is on breathing. I've established an adequate technique so far when it comes to feet-work and the use of arms to enable me to move forwards in an efficient way. Now it's time to work on my breathing-technique. I tend to breathe on every, second stroke and on the same side always(left). In a way I feel more confident by doing so. I think I'll stick to that for the time being. In addition I'm trying to increase the distance covered in one single repetition. The pool we're using is small(10 metres long), but that just mean I need to turn a lot more. It's good to practise that as well. Right now one rep is two lenghts and one turn. I must have done 15-20 of these this afternoon. It's diificult to tell just how many. I need to buy a watch that does the counting. Swimming is all about technique, so my focus is on executing good technique. If I get tired it's important to take short rest in order to be able to execute good technique during my workout. Today I did good by improving the length of my rep. I also managed to adjust my arm-work enabling me to have a more straight-forward direction in my swimming. The next time I'll be working more on breathing technique by using a spesific breathing-pattern decided upon in advance. Before the session I'll visualise myself doing it and make sure I'm mentally prepared.

2. Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-15 reps of 20 m-total of 300 m
-Total time spent: 45 minutes

Combined workout: strength and swimming

Nordmarka-Skjersjøelva

Good to finally be able to start working on establishing muscular strength and resume my swimming sessions again. Today I had a very easy strength session first in order to let the body adapt after 1,5 months of just running. I'm going to consentrate on a very small number of exercises this winter. Two basic exersises-squats and deadlifts. In addition I'm going to use much time on seated rowing. My aim is to strengthen both my core and back. Todays session went fine. My muscles are still a bit sore after to demanding competitions, but my condition is improving. Naturally I've lost some muscle-capasity, but that doesn't bother me much. It'll be regained after some months of training.
An hour after finishing my strength-session I had a swimming session consentrating entirly on technique. I'm attending an advanced course in front-crawling. Well it's been even longer since my last swimming session-20th of May. Very pleased then to discover that I haven't forgotten how to execute a good technique. My prime target this winter is to establish a better technique and improve on my week point-the breathing. Anyway, it felt excellent to be penetrating the water again and I managed to cower a lot of ground before I got tired. A good workout, and an excellent instructor.

Technicals:

1. Strength-training:
-Warm up: 5 min of running on the treadmill
-Squats: 1) 2 sets/8reps/50 % load, 2) 2 sets/6 reps/60 % load, 2 sets/4 reps/70 % load
-Deadlifts: 1) 2 sets/4 reps/50 % load
-Seated rowing: 7,5 min/low load
-Stretching: 5 minutes
Total time spent: 40 minutes.

2. Swimming: Vestli school in Oslo, length of pool is 10m
-50 reps-total of 500 m
-Total time spent: 50 minutes

Swimming, speed skill, front crawl, workout of tonight

I'm covering greater distance within the same session. I'm up from 150m to 270 m- i.e. 10 laps to 18 laps. Progress is slow but it's there. I'm consentrating on my breath. It's getting better. The trick is to forget the end of the lap and consentrate all the time on my tasks when I'm in the water. My feets are operating on autopilot, I need to improve on my arms, but I'm moving forwards. My biggest target now is to relax in the water, establish a good breathing pattern and work on covering greater distance at the same time. I need to forget to complete a lap. I have to consentrate fully on my tasks when I'm in the water. It's a long and slow work to improve, but I will get better little by little. I have two times left at the swimming school. After that I'm training individually during through the summer. I'm determined to succeed!

Swimming, workout of the day

Another technique-workout tonight.Slowly I'm getting more and more grip of the front crawl. Right now I'm working on my breath. It's paramount to relax in the water, consentrate on performance in every movement and then the distance will take care of it self. My leg work is good, my arm work is adequate, but needs to improve. My breath is not sufficient enough yet. Most important to me now is to establish an adeqate breathing pattern. After that I will work on extending the distance I cover in one lap. Beyond that there is more speed skill work to do in all areas. In two weeks I'm extending to two sessions of swimming a week.

Swimming-tonights workout

My second workout today. I'm continuing to consentrate on the front crawl. Tonight I challenged myself to increase the length of each lap i swim to 15 m. There are two main reasons for that. The first is that I have to breathe in order to complete the distance. That means I will have to practise breathing in order to improve on that point. Second is that I need to cover a greater distance in order to develop greater strength. I wont get better just by svimming the same distance. This evening I finished 10 laps of 15 m. It's the first time I'm logging distance when it comes to swimming. I have three more times left on this swimming course. I need to work individually through the summer in order to develop my swimming skills. In august I'm attending another swimming course-hopefully held by the same swimming school.

Swimming, workout of the day

Working on my speed skills today. Front crawl is still my main area. I'm getting the grip of my feet, have some improvement to do when it comes to the way I use my arms and I'm not able to breathe thoroughly yet. Progress is slow, but I can sense that there is progress. Anyhow, I've been scheduling one session a week for four months now. I think it's time to add one more session. Additionally, I've been scheduling my session on nights. I prefer to keep it that way until I manage to swim by using front crawl at least 200 m without pausing. Today I'm able to cover 15 m. That's not much but the key is the technique-my speed skills. Next week I'm adding one more session.

Swimming, speed skill workout tonight

Gradually I'm improving my swimming technique in front-crawl. It takes lots of drills, persisting consentration and patience. I've managed to let my feet work without having to consentrate on their contribution. Later on I adjusted my heads position in the water in order to maximise my drift in the water. Beyond that I've been working on the way I use my arms. The last step is to incorporate breath. At the end of the session tonight I managed to accomplish 15 m of crawling without taking a break. I'm very satisfied. Additionally I'm able to relax more and more in the water and that's some of the secret to succeed.

Swimming-progress

Since the beginning of this year I've been participating in svimming courses. One was held before the Easter and I've just started on another one right after Easter. In total I'll attend about 18 times-9 sessions on each course. I've consentrated on crawling and some backstroke(back crawling) as well. These two tend to work well together. I must say though that I have in my eagerness been spending the most time om front crawling. The more I exercise the more relaxed I feel in the water. Front crawling has three different levels. First I have to master to float and get my feet working properly. Secondly I have to use my arms in the right manner in order to get maximum progress forward. Thirdly I have to breath regularly. So connected with back crawling there are three different tasks to attend to while swimming. The first two I'm quite comfortable with. The third I got to work some with. The main approach to develop swimming skills is patience. I have to establish a set of drills, carry them out in planned order and relax when fatigue occurs. Most important is to consentrate on correct performance. Speed and distance will automatically fall in to place later on. I'm confident that I'll develop sufficient swimming skills in order to train regularly and compete in a triathlon if I feel like it. During this period I've been swimming once a week in connection with attending the swimming course. In order to develop further I think it's time to extend the weekly swimming program with one more swimming session. I have to fit that in my training program starting no later than the beginning of May. Swimming is a fantastic alternativ to running, cycling and strenght training. I feel completely relaxed and recovered after a session. It's a good thought to make use of that experience in scheduling a weekly traning program. If scheduling swimming on Thuesday and Thursday morning I have three windows to train other sports.

Swimming-speed skills

I've participating in a svimming course since the beginning of January this year. The main purpouse was to improve my speed skills. A total of 9 times I've been working on my crawl- technique. Has there been any improvement? The answer is yes. I've come across an excellent swimming instructor and he's been able to comment on my week points, allow me to practise and correct when necessary. I'm very satisfied and have decided to attend a new course with the same instructor starting right after Easter.
Most important to me is to carry out a set of drills, work on my technique and challenge my self when progress is identified. Today I was a bit tired and didn't gain as much effect of the lesson as usual. That's because I carried out a workout on my bike earlier today. I'm not going to repeat that on later occasions.
To be spesific I have sufficient leg work, need to work more with the way I use my arms and must improve more on my breathing. I have to establish a pattern of drills and consentrate on my performance on every session through my next course. When tired it's essential to take a break. It's paramount to focus on establishing the right technique. Speed and distance is no subject at this stage. When it comes to drills for arms I think that consentrating on one arm at the time could be useful. I'll practise that on my next session. First right, then left and so on.
After establishing that I'll attend to my breathing. All the way I have to consentrate on relaxing more and more in the water.