Do you get bored of swimming lengths?

[*BiGBonES**]

My main source of excerises over the past few weeks has been swimming about 2.5km every couple of days. But, its incredibly BOOORINGGGGG!

 

All you do is swim up and down continuously counting the length your on and thinking about how much water your swallowing (and what percentage of the water is dominated by wee and hair etc)

 

Heres my latest find. I'm going to look into buying one of these so I can swim non-stop for a couple of hours without getting bored:

 

http://www.mp3.com/Waterproof%20MP3%20Play...ories/1446.html

[wayfarer]

Looks pretty cool, Bigbones!!! When I swim though, I enjoy the quiet solitude

that it gives me. I try to use that time to empty my mind. Clear out the

advertisements & crap collected throughout the day. Mind you, I don't

really get bored of the swimming. I enjoy pacing myself, then turning it up

& see if I can pass a paticularly fast swimmer in one of the other lanes.

[lazarus]

ya know bones, i swam for 18 years. all thru ele, mid, high school, and college, and i also coached swimmin for about 5 years. if u can tell me about how long u swim for, i can design a real nice swimmin program for you.

[Fatty]

Don't know about swimming, but I'd imagine the scenery is even less than running of course. That said, there's no way I could run as effectively as I do w/o my mp3 player.

 

PS. Wow, the things you learn. That's a lot of paddlin, laz!

[*BiGBonES**]

Cool!

 

Heres my program at the moment, its not strict but I try and follow it:

 

Warm up- swim around and do hand stands etc

 

20 front crawl

10 breast stroke

20 front crawl

10 breakstroke

 

Sauna + steam + chat for about 20 mins

 

4 x 2 length sprints

 

The pools 33m in length, and I average between 30-35 seconds a length.

 

The sprints I vary between 20 and 25 I think ?

 

I'm open to change

[DogStarMan]

All you do is swim up and down continuously counting the length your on and thinking about how much water your swallowing (and what percentage of the water is dominated by wee and hair etc)

Dude, you too? I hate it when I'm in the pool and I can see all kinds of crap floating around...wads of hair, band aids, etc. I try to wipe it out of my mind.

 

I get incredibly bored when I swim. To the point of kinda' hating going to the pool. I'd get a waterproof mp3 player if there was a good one out there. By good, I mean one that I can also use outside the water and has a little more memory. I can't bring myself to spend a bunch of money on an mp3 player that I can only listen to in the water.

[wayfarer]

The pools 33m in length, and I average between 30-35 seconds a length.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think I found part of your problem. 33M? Thats a little small, no time to really

get going before you get to the other side. Ever hear of runners high? Its what

Fatty has right now. He can't get enough running, & the more he runs the better

he feels. He could not have gotten that from running up & down his driveway!

I swim 4 sets of 6 laps. The pool is 75m long & I'm sure I've got swimmers high!

Maybe it's time to join a gym!

[*BiGBonES**]

33m is the longest pool around in my area, its also the one I work at during the summer so I get in for free, which is why swimming is my main soruce of exercise.

 

Dogstarman -- check out the list of mp3 players once more. There was some type of case for the ipod which allows you to play it underwater, which means you can remove it after the swim and have it as your standard ipod.

[DogStarMan]

Dogstarman -- check out the list of mp3 players once more. There was some type of case for the ipod which allows you to play it underwater, which means you can remove it after the swim and have it as your standard ipod.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have to admit, I posted that from work and the link was filtered, but I figured it was for the SwiMP3. That's pretty much the only one I'd want to swim with as it's completely waterproof and it rests on the back of your head with very little cord to tangle in. Plus, the bone conductive speakers are supposed to be excellent underwater. It would be perfect if I could use it out of the pool too, but I don't see that happening.

 

I've lusted after an Ipod for awhile, so I don't think I could bring myself to trust a waterproof case. Some of the others look good though. I need to read up on them.

[lazarus]

i think i was unclear.

about how long (time-wise...1hr, 30 min, etc) do u spend in the pool?

but i actually needed that other info to, so that was helpful.

other questions:

 

is there a poolside clock with a second hand?

or do u have a waterproof watch u can wear?

do u have a kickboard? (i recommend the rigid ones)

do you wear trunks, if so do they have pockets, how baggy are they? speedo?

do u know any other strokes besides freestlye and breaststroke?

how often do u take a breathe? every stroke, every other?

 

im asking all this bc swimmin can be VERY boring. in high school, it was 1 1/2 hr morning practice and 2 hr evening practice and if i didnt have things i could do in my head, i wouldve gone crazy. i usu did the fibonacci squence in my head as high as i could go, or just sang a song to myself (bangels - eternal flame was my favorite). i wish i had that mp3 player, thatd be nice. but i digress. varying things up and challenging and pushing yourself is very important and also a great motivator. setting personal goals and such. so lemme know about the answers and ill prolly come up with some more questions.

[*BiGBonES**]

I'll say 1 hour in the pool, although some times it varies.

 

I dont have a kick board, as its a public pool. The pool has a few lane ropes in place to seperate bathers and swimmers. I usually dont have a problem with people being in the way, although my back stroke is restricted as I cant see who's behind me.

 

I can do backstroke, and I'm working on my butterfly as I never learnt this during swimming lessons. So far I can manage about 3-4 successful strokes.

 

There is a 1minute second's clock spinning around at either end of the pool, and I do have a water proof watch.

 

At the moment I have baggyish swimming shorts, with pockets and all but I can change to some speedo's in the near future.

 

I believe I need to work on my tumble turns, as at the moment i hit the wall and kick off. I currently find that at the end of the lengths I don't have enough breath in my lungs to breath out of my nose to prevent water entering me whilst I'm turning underwater, but this is something I can work on.

 

I usually take a breath every 3 strokes, but I'm trying to work that number up to 4, so I'm somewhere in between at the moment.

 

So, what do you recommend for an hour in the pool?

[DogStarMan]

So, what do you recommend for an hour in the pool?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Michael Phelps wrote up a good article in Men's Journal last January with a good 45 minute swimming workout. I'll see if I can find it and post it.

 

I swim for 40 minutes every day during my lunch break and I've gone through all kinds of different workouts. I've finally settled on swimming a straight 1200 meters crawl on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and a 500 kick and 500 crawl on Tuesday and Thursday.

Edited September 20, 2005 by DogStarMan