Training advice: Swimming part one
Welcome back!
Just getting out of the water at the Late Summer Madness Tri. I love the ducks. They swam right next to me till I started running then they booked it :)
So maybe my workouts have inspired you or maybe you just feel like getting in the pool again but, you have no idea where to start. I’ve had a couple people at the gym and my friends ask me this same question. For starters just getting yards in the pool is helpful no matter how you do it. Most people will find that a simple workout of back to back 25 yard lengths will push their fitness. No worries. I started this way just a couple of months ago. Start with single pool lengths, maybe do 10 of them the first day. Pace yourself to whatever you feel comfortable with. Once that feels easy just start adding on more lenghts. When you reach a point where 20 seems easy then bump up to 50yd laps. Just keep adding when you dont feel completely wasted after your sets anymore.
Ok now that Ive given you some pointers, let me point you away from a few things. First, unless you can swim and swim and swim, like 1000 yard sets are easy for you, DO NOT bother with hand paddles. More than likely you will end up hurting your shoulders as opposed to making you faster. I still don’t use any training aids. Same goes with fins. There is very little reason to utilize fins till you have reached a fitness level where you can no longer get a good workout from just plain swimming alone. For triathletes, in my opinion, fins are detremental because they put less focus on the length of the pool because you are always coming off flip turns. In an open water swim there is no wall therefore no flip turns. The only swimming implements I would use would be a kickboard (can’t hurt but there isnt much reason to use one) and a “pull-bouy.” If you dont know what a pull buoy is, well, its a piece of foam that you squeeze between your legs while you swim to make you focus completely on your arm movement. Personally, I prefer just to, umm, not kick 
Well Hopefully some of my advice can give you a good start, if you have other opinions or have questions, suscribe and leave some comments! Thanks!
