Today my wife asked me to join her in the lap pool at our club instead of doing my normal weight routine. She swims laps daily. So I jump in like anything else...balls-to-the-wall 100mph. Well, I get like 3 laps in and I'm dead. I actually had to stop to catch my breath as my wife swam like 30 laps! Pretty embarrased. All this time I spent in the weight room lifting (read: bull-sh!tting ) she has been running and swimming.

Anybody else swim laps for excercise? Any tips? Any goals (x # of laps in Y # of minutes) ? It's a std pool 50M/lap.

 

There a difference between strength and stamina. Not sure what killed you in the pool, but watch the lappers in the pool and how slow they go. When your arms get tired, get one of those floatie boards and just kick.

 

I swim at lunch 3 timesa week. Just learned to swim this year. Well, learned how to swim correctly. I go with a co-worker. He is a long time swimmer. He has a small workout book that has different work outs each day. I think it has 25 workouts. Some endurance, some speed workouts. We end up doing over a mile each day. Counting warm up,kick board, pull buoy adn coold down, we go about 1 1/2 miles.

 

Swimming is great exercise but I really don't like what it does to girl's upper bodies...

 

You shouldn't have been surprised by how much you were able to swim. It's always like that. Strenght and stamina don't go hand in hand. I might be able to lift a lot, but put me next to my friend that runs laps daily... I'd . It's extremely difficult to be able to gain both strenght and stamina to a desired amount.

 

Yup well said... I try to do my best to keep my stamina up and do weight training at the same time. I usually have "off" days where I take a day off from the gym and run for an hr and 30 mins.

 

I can run 5 miles fairly easily and Mt. bike for a couple of hours.... but i doubt i can swim more than 2-3 laps as well..... just not my thing.

I had trouble treading water for 2 minutes earlier this summer.

 

I was like that a couple of months ago when I got into swimming. I could barely do a couple of laps without drowning. But I've been going every day now , and I can swim 30-40 laps. It just takes practice like anything else. The thing that is cool about swimming is that you get cardio and build muscle (upper body) at the same time.

 

[QUOTE=pantyraider,Aug 29 2005, 09:31 AM] I was like that a couple of months ago when I got into swimming. I could barely do a couple of laps without drowning.

 

I started swimming laps about a year ago, usually twice a week, 15-18 laps in around 30 minutes. Mostly freestyle, some backstroke, a bit with the kickboard, and a few laps with a pullbuoy (only swim with your arms). Great exercise, easier on your body (joints/muscles), and when I finish I'm not sweating like a pig.