Swimming

I don't know how to swim but really want to learn how to swim. I'm thinking of joining a swim club or take lessons or something?. A major drawback i have is i wear glasses. For those of you wearing glasses, do you take them off/wear contact lens? Please advice.

Originally Posted by jakejake

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I don't know how to swim but really want to learn how to swim. I'm thinking of joining a swim club or take lessons or something?. A major drawback i have is i wear glasses. For those of you wearing glasses, do you take them off/wear contact lens? Please advice.
You should learn, you never know when you'll need the skill! There are tons of adult classes out there at places like at your local Y. At some gyms with pools, you can even get a personal trainer to teach you and show you some good exercises too. I wear glasses and I just take them off. I can't see very well without them on but really, what do you need to see if you're exercising or underwater? As long as you can tell there is stuff coming at you, or you're going towards something, that is a few feet away, you'll be good. At the beach I wear them, the tide will drift you to the side and without your glasses, you could get disoriented.

Originally Posted by jakejake

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A major drawback i have is i wear glasses. For those of you wearing glasses, do you take them off/wear contact lens? Please advice.

Try these guys:

http://www.aquagoggles.com/

"Prescription" goggles. Well, sort of. They don't correct for everything (e.g., not for astigmatism) and they don't correct down to your exact prescription, but close enough. Certainly, they correct well enough for you to see in the water.

You will need goggles anyway if you don't want chlorine to give you perma-bloodshot eyes. These are not much more expensive than non-prescription goggles.

I swim 2/3 mile about three times a week.

Have been doing it for over 15 years, since I moved into this neighborhood with a city pool close by. I never swam competitively, or swam laps for leisure before I got here.

Without it I would be much more poorly preserved.

My workout is monotonous, alternating bands of crawl laps and butterfly laps.

The advantage of getting the strokes right, IMHO, is the feeling I get moving through the water with power & smoothness & the most efficient use of my strength.

When I used to do a lot of Nordic skiiing, I got the same feeling when I got the motion right.

Re: corrective lenses: I wear glasses but use ordinary goggles. I don't think I would qualify for a submarine driver's license, but I can see the other swimmers & the walls and that is enough.

A long time ago, I tried to learn swimming but almost drowned.

Originally Posted by Manton

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Would I do that? Probably.

But what I am really wondering is if there are any health benefits to getting the strokes right, like a competetive swimmer. I am not interested in competition and not really even interested in improving my times. It's all about the health for me.

Focusing on the time or the stroke improvement will give you some purpose to your workouts and should help your motivation to be in the pool. When you measure something, monitoring the incremental improvements gives you something to do.

When you do the strokes correctly, you can really feel your muscles working. So a better stroke is a better workout. Eventually your goal isn't to get across the pool, it's to perfect the stroke and have a good workout. Well, this is at least how I feel.

Originally Posted by jakejake

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For those of you wearing glasses, do you take them off/wear contact lens? Please advice.

Having weakened vision doesn't hinder your ability to swim. It's not hard to see a wall and the bottom of the floor. Custom made goggles are an option, however they do cost more and people tend to lose/break goggles. I also need eye correction, and so I use contacts. During swim season, I would just wear my normal goggles while still having my contacts on. Sometimes the water comes into my eyes, but it just displaces the contact. The contact will not pop off your eye, unless you touch it. It's not as bad as you think it is.

I used to swim with a club that had a coach correcting my stroke and everything. I've been meaning to get back into that since it was a great workout and I actually enjoy swimming quite a bit.

Is there anyway to protect my hair from chlorine? I have medium length hair and I don't want to ruin it by swimming three times a week.

Put a little conditioner in it before you swim then wear a swim cap.

Manton - why don't you just stick a notice up on the board at the nearest college pool saying you are looking for a student from the swim team to coach you part time with a salary on it and your prefered times.

You should get some interest, lots of broke college students, and it's a pretty damn easy gig.

Will the chlorine really mess your hair up?

Originally Posted by cldpsu

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Will the chlorine really mess your hair up?

Yes, especially if use alot of hair products. Your typical person when over exposed will get thin and brittle hair, and if you're blonde it can get a green tint to it.

If you use alot of hair products, it can actually cause your hair to fall out depending on what you use. There was a girl I knew during highschool that took up swimming and was an exceptional swimmer; then one day her hair started to fall out and it turned out to be from some product that she was using. IIRC, it was a hair relaxer. She was told to either stop swimming or have frizzy hair, so she stopped swimming.

It really was a shame since she was literally a natural.

So I should wear a cap for sure? ****... I feel like **** wearing one because I've been trying to develop good form and just overall be a good swimmer. So right now I know I'm **** but I feel like everyone will think that I think I'm the **** because I have a cap on

Lol. **** and "the ****". AHHAHAHA. Anyways, a cap means nothing, people will probably just blow it off. If they ask why you're wearing a cap, just tell them you don't want fucked up hair. Why do you feel like **** when wearing a cap?