Having a sculpted body of a swimmer is not as easy as it might appear. While swimming can truly be a relaxing activity, these dedicated athletes spend years doing intense aquatic exercises and arduous physical sessions. In order to get the body you always wanted, you’ll have to work hard for it, so if you are eager to begin your lap swimming exercises, here’s how to properly do it.
Basics are a good place to start
Lap swimming usually entails applying the basic front crawl stroke. It’s a basic technique that is also a good place to start. You should lie flat on the water with your belly down and start reaching with your arm – typically left – out in front of you and pull it down into the water until it aligns flat with your body. Then you do the same thing with the other arm.
You need to feel as if you are “digging” through the water to reach your destination as fast as you can. A variety of additional tweaks can help you become faster. For example, you can rotate your body a bit to the side of the arm you are using to “scoop” through the water to employ more force and garner speed. Once you feel confident about using this technique, you can start practising breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, etc.
Lessons are a viable option
Every sport requires discipline no matter how blunt or simple it appears. This means that you’ll have to seek professional help if you are a total beginner. A reliable swimming coach will assess your skill set and energy levels before they begin the “inauguration” process. The trick is to be patient and listen to the advice even when your training appears to advance at a snail’s pace.
Learning proper breathing techniques and styles is just as important as improving your endurance and speed. Once you learn everything the right way, your strength, speed and endurance are bound to considerably increase, and you’ll waste much less energy. There is nothing embarrassing about taking a swim class, you should always remember that.
Your own pool for practising
Backyard pools are not a luxury anymore. For example, contemporary fibreglass swimming pools are both financially feasible and easy to install, plus they come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Therefore, you can install your own private pool in the backyard to practice whenever you feel like it away from the prying (or judging) eyes.
This is an especially good option for people that have demanding jobs that consume most of their day. Lap swimming needs to be practised every day with strict discipline if you want to see results and become better, and this option is sometimes the only viable course of action for overworked swimming enthusiasts.
Be realistic
As it has already been mentioned, you have to arm yourself with patience if you want to master the skill of lap swimming. Many people that have already developed athletic prowess with certain skills – such as running for two hours every day – think that taking up swimming will not present that big of a problem, but you have to understand that swimming requires a whole different level of metabolic development and a different set of muscles. In the beginning, no matter how skilled you are with land-locked physical activities, you will definitely get exhausted fast.
Be realistic about your goals – know your limits but stay enthusiastic about the endeavour. If you are impatient and try to push your body too hard, you can do more damage than good. The last thing you need is to be forced into a recovery period just as you start swimming. You should start slowly and find a steady pace that won’t be too exhausting for you. You could, for instance, try with two laps in one go, and when you find that it’s become too easy, you can double the number of laps in a single session. If you can’t do one lap without resting – that’s fine too. The most important thing is not to give up too easily knowing that you’ll get better with regular practice.
Feedback is important
It does not matter if you are a loner, shy or dislike people – you need feedback from a professional or someone with experience in order to be absolutely certain you are doing your laps right. Techniques need to be practised precisely to avoid joint damage and other physical problems and if someone can correct you in time, the wrong method won’t solidify in your practice.
Expect your aquatic activities to be a steep uphill battle during the first several months. But thankfully, even if you are a complete beginner, swimming can be one of the best things that have happened to you. First of all, the health benefits are incredible – especially for your cardiovascular system. Your strength will increase exponentially and you will start to feel better than you could have possibly imagined.