I was competitive swimmer from age 8 to 16 and think it impacted me in a negative way. I was a girly girl and the change I saw in my upper body compared to girls that didn’t swim caused me extreme distress and body image issues that I still carry as an adult.

I just want to hear coaches and parents perspectives as to why this is not talked about more openly.

When I voiced my concerns as a young girl about that my coach and parent convinced me it’s a myth and nonsense. But it is not.

Swimming changes the growing girl physique and phenotype. Why is this such a taboo topic that nobody wants to recognize?

I have realized there is a lot of people on my pool training with swimming fins. Is this a new trend? Does it add any benefit or extra training? Is it a way to compensate for people with some physical problem?

when I was swimming competitively (a very long time ago) we never used them and I barely saw them in any pool, so I am surprised seeing them so often now.

Once again the pool at our Wellness center has heating problems. It's been this way for a week now. Today it was 76°. So I bought a wetsuit (61F, 135 lbs, I get cold easily). Today I swam laps in it for the first time. Happily, I didn't shiver for 3,200 yards. So that was nice. I was ridiculously buoyant and flew through the workout, shaving about 10 minutes off my usual time. I had trouble with breaststroke a bit because my legs were so... floaty. Anyone else workout in one?

I'm not sure who or how to address this, but the place I swim allows more than two swimmers per lane, but people will actively wait if there are two people in a lane at a time. Most busy pools will have up to 5-6 people at a time. How can I let the lifeguards/admins know to encourage people it's okay to have more than two?

53F here. I have been swimming off and on for my whole life. I swim only breast and back strokes. Yesterday for funsies I started to breathe every two strokes instead of every one. Are there any benefits to doing this or am. Am I just doing parlor tricks?

Hey friendos, need some help here, I’m kinda baffled.

When I do longer non stop swims, let’s say over 600m I start to feel bloated when I get out of the water.

Today I did 3km non stop, felt fine in the water (could’ve done another km) but 5 minutes after I got out I felt so bloated it was actually painful for like half an hour until I got home and lied down. Now after some burps and farts 😄 it’s better 😅

It feels like it’s gas / air but I’m confused at to what I’m actually doing to cause it. I breathe alternating sides every three strokes and have a two beat kick. Breaths are fairly shallow and my head is one goggle under and one over the water when breathing. I guess I’m swallowing air somehow(?). I’ve asked a bunch of people but no solution so far 😅

For reference my pace was 2min/100m which is fairly comfortable for me.
I can do 10x100m with like a 2-3min break at a 1:37 pace and my full out 100m is probably around 1:24ish.
So I’m not a pro by any means but not a beginner either.

Hi all,

I've been trying to teach myself to swim freestyle for the last few weeks. I've finally learned to breathe well enough to not feel like I'm running out of breath all the time and I've gone from about 4:45m/100m to about 2:45m/100m, so I feel like I'm making good progress and I'm pretty proud of that.

The thing I'm trying to work on now is when I go to rotate to breathe on my right side, my left arm bends and drops, I'm having a really hard time keeping it straight out in front of me (and please correct me if it's not supposed to be straight, that just seems like what other people do from watching videos). Does anyone have any tips or dills I can do to try and fix this?

Thanks! :)

70 yo distance swimmer. I am using AI (Claude) to plan my training for a 10k next summer after successfully using AI to train for a 5k. Below is this week's training plan. What are your thoughts?

Day 1: Aerobic (~3,800)

• Warm-up: 400 easy
• Drill: 4×50 on 1:10, RPE 3, working on breathing to the left:
  1. Side kick, left breathing. Lie on your right side, right arm extended, left arm at your hip. Kick face down and roll your head left to breathe, with one goggle staying in the water. Fins are optional.
  2. 6-kick switch. Do 6 kicks on your side, then one stroke to roll over. Breathe only when you’re on your right side, so every breath is to the left. Fins are optional.
  3. Left-arm single-arm swim. Keep your right arm extended out front, stroke with your left arm, and breathe left on every stroke, turning your head with the pull.
  4. Full stroke. Breathe left every 2 on the first 25, then breathe right every 2 on the second 25.
  5. If you’re gulping water, slow your kick instead of lifting your head.
• Main: 3×1,000 on 18:00. Hold 16:50–17:10 (about 1:41–1:43/100). RPE 5. Open turns are fine.
• Cool-down: 200 easy + 200 choice

Day 2: Threshold (~2,600)

• Warm-up: 400 easy, then 4×50 build on 1:00 (RPE 3 building to 6)
• Main: 6×200 on 3:30 at CSS. Hold 3:04–3:08 and keep the reps even. Flip turns. RPE 7. If you’re over 3:10 by #5, stop after #5.
• 200 easy
• 400 pull, steady (RPE 5)
• Cool-down: 200 easy

Day 3: Pull / open-water skills (~2,600)

• Warm-up: 400 easy
• Main: 5×400 on 7:20. Odd reps are pull. Even reps are swim, with the last 100 as 25 head-up plus sighting every 6 strokes.
• Pace cap: no faster than 6:45 (about 1:41/100). RPE 4–5.
• Cool-down: 200 easy

Day 4: Long swim (~4,500)

• Warm-up: 300 easy
• Main: 2×2,000 with a feed stop of 30 seconds or less between them. Practice taking the feed quickly.
• Target 1:42–1:44/100, which is about 34:00–34:40 per 2,000. Open turns. RPE 4, letting it drift to 5 in the last 500.
• Cool-down: 200 easy

Hi, I made a post about my brother's sinking legs previously and it only got one reply... So here I am for more drills ideas, since I don't really have this problem.

What effective drills are there apart from kicking with a board?

Also, we live in a country where we can't tape in swimming pools, so we had to wait for summer time to film ourselves at the campsite pool, which makes it hard to get visual feedback. So we didn't really realize how his legs were sinking until we compared our footage side by side. Are there any ways to keep track of your mistakes in the water without any footage? I don't really think so but who knows...