I love being in the water.
In many respects, I’m an excellent swimmer.
I feel like there is zero danger of me drowning (not zero, but pretty close). I’ve got lots of endurance. I float well.
But I’ve always struggled with lane swimming, with free style/front crawl. I’m horrible at coordinating my breathing. I get water in my nose, hair in my eyes, and I seem to lack the basic coordination to have anything like a real stroke.
I’ve mastered it once in my life, with a total immersion swim coach for triathlon, but even then I was the anchor member of the slow lane. Like I could do it, but I never got any better, any faster. In triathlons, I was always the last person out of the water who didn’t need to be rescued.
I’ve taken learn to swim a bunch but the problem there is that I can swim. I won’t drown. I just can’t do a recognizable stroke that would have me swim laps.
Here’s me in 2018 and more about it here. And also in 2018, more about me and swimming and my love of swimming outdoors.
I’ve considered just getting a snorkel for lane swimming!
One thing for certain, this summer I will swim more outside.
But I want your advice about learning to lane swim inside. What’s the best way to learn? I’m too good for learn to swim and not good enough for any masters’ swimming groups.
The blog has some excellent swimmers: Catherine, Tracy, Savita, Mallory, Diane, Nat….I want to join your ranks.
Advice welcome. Did I mention that?
I love that you love swimming so much and I don’t think I realized your challenge coordinating the breathing. I don’t know what to suggest — for me it’s like riding a bike and I can’t explain how I do it. I just do it. If breathing is the only challenge, it seems to me that a short series of private lessons with a knowledgeable coach might be all you need.
I am sure there other challenges too, like stroke technique but not breathing properly gets in the way and takes 100% of my attention.
I used to be a runner but took up swimming about a decade ago, since it’s so much easier on my body. When I first started swimming laps, I was breathing only one one side, which really threw my breathing off (I needed more air than every four strokes, but breathing after two strokes–always on the right–was too much). Once I decided to try breathing every three strokes (alternating on the right and the left), my breathing issues got much better! It took a while for this to come naturally, but now it feels great and it’s much easier for me to swim longer distances (about a mile) without getting winded.
Other fairly obvious suggestions: using a swim cap can help keep hair away from your face, and breathing out your nose helps prevent the water from coming in.
Good luck!
Breathing is the most vital part of freestyle, and the most difficult to master. What you need is a freestyle stroke clinic. One piece of advice is to practice breathing forcefully out your nose under water and breathing in through your mouth. Practice this while standing in the shallow end. We used to do “head bobs”, where you put your hands on top of your head, lower yourself into the water, breathe out through the nose, come up and breathe in through the mouth. Repeat endlessly! You will get bits of water in your mouth and in your nose, but you’ll get used to it. As for your hair, get a swim cap….easy fix.
It would be also good to get a pair of swim fins. That way you won’t have to kick so hard to stay streamlined, and you can focus on your stroke and breathing. Then you can do things like one-arm freestyle to practice your rotation and breathing.
I like this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMSP3cZzy-8
Hope this helps!!
I second the freestyle stroke clinic idea! If you can, find a coach you vibe with to give you one-on-one lessons to help you get a better feel for it. Once it comes together, it’s magical, but it can take a while. Don’t give up, it’s totally worth it!
(Also… I actually don’t completely dislike your snorkel idea. You should definitely work on your breathing, but in the meantime if a swimming snorkel helps you work on the other aspects of your stroke without worrying about breathing and getting more joy out of doing laps, then why not! Just make sure that you also keep practicing breathing.)
I’m so glad you shared your challenge because I struggle with exactly the same issue – and I love the advice folks shared! I might get to the point of lane swimming yet!
Definitely food for thought – I used to do more backstroke or breaststroke when lane swimming for just that reason. Thinking about trying again in the future with this advice in mind.
I agree with the previous comments. Working one on one with a coach would be a good strategy. If there’s a masters club near you, you could see if they could recommend someone to help. In addition to adding a swim cap, consider using nose clips and goggles (if you aren’t already) to minimize the distraction of water in your nose, etc. the flippers idea is good too. You could also use a flutter board to assist – especially when working on breathing and stroke timing.