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Supreme Being
Group: Forum Members
Active: 1/25/2007
Posts: 80 |
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Okay, cut'n paste:
Please read:
DISCLAIMER: Consult a physician before starting in this or any other exercise program. You could have a previously undetected condition that could be aggravated when exercising. Improperly executing any of the techniques described here may result in serious injury. You are solely responsible for and assume all possible health risks when engaging in any exercising program.
...now that I warned ya, let's throw all caution into tha' diving well and swim! (warning: lotsa writing ahead)
With an LDU brochure-map in hand, you guide yourself through the main areas of the university. One wing branches off to the athletics area, and the pools. As you enter in there, the air feels warm and humid. As you get closer, you can hear white noise--it is the pool's new filtration systems running. As you cross the pool doors, you see 10 lanes of 50-meter mirror smooth water, from at least 7 feet shallow to 150 feet at the deepest. At the far end, a massive platform diving tower dominates a 200-foot diving well below. To your right, all kinds of strange and fascinating training equipment are stored in bins and hung on the concrete-block wall; above the equipment, a huge LED scoreboard flashes various university symbols and slogans. On your far left, there is a transparent tank with computers and a big motor bolted onto the front end of the tank. That must be the Flume you read about in the brochure....
Welcome, one and all to the Pool! I'm Kurra, a hydrodynamic dragon and I teach swimming here. I've swum since I was 11(now 21); I've been on three teams and competed internationally; coached for nearly a year and a half; and now I train on my own. I plan to return to competition soon, probably in Masters swimming. Anyone can learn to swim, and anyone who already knows how can always get better at it!  If you want to sign up, just post on the forum and I'll respond. All skill levels, ages, species, etc. welcome. If you want to learn how to go faster or farther in the water, or if you want to learn different strokes or do better stroke technique, just ask. Usually I'll focus more on technique than yardage or speed since it goes a lot farther than swimming lots of yards. Now for explaining what I can teach:
All four strokes: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.
Stroke techniques and drills.
Racing techniques: Block diving and edge-of-the-pool diving, relay starts, backstroke starts, pacing distance, and meets.
Of course, workouts and such to train with.
And extra miscellaneous tips and stuff about related water sports.
Please be patient if I kinda screw around with this (but tell me if I am screwing around), because it's difficult to teach this in person and it'll be even more challenging over the Net (I still don't know how I'm gonna explain technique. RPG'ing? Drawings? Video?). Like I said, post if you want to try this out; ask any questions about anything you want to learn, and we'll go from there. Racing and practice will be in the 50-meter pool; technique and strokework analysis will happen in the Flume; the diving well is for, well, diving, deep-water play and water polo. Teaching starts whenever anyone asks for it, and for the moment, it ends September 1st (1.9.04). Training happens whenever you decide to make it happen. Here we go! Let's have fun!
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LDU Swim Team Head Coach: contact for training
"Get ready for Beijing 2008--The Next Summer Olympics" |
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Supreme Being
Group: Forum Members
Active: 1/25/2007
Posts: 80 |
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Get faster in the water now with 4 tips--and no work!
Here they are: presented in late-night show style:
4: BREATHING: To go fast you need to make a lot of energy. To make energy, one of the things you'll need is lots of air in your lungs. And the way most people breathe, they get only half the max air possible. To BREATHE right, you have to lift your ribs up(everyone does that, your chest rises) *and* also lower your diaphragm(what few do). Your diaphragm is a muscle between your lungs and stomach that pulls down when you BREATHE in and goes up when you exhale. As you inhale, use your diaphragm by pushing your stomach out. Try to make your belly big. That's your diaphragm pushing down on your stomach below and pulling in all that extra air from above.
3: You'll love this: get more SLEEP. That's gotta be the easiest thing to do for free speed. For every hour of sleep that you forego, energy production falls, precision muscle control fails(making you waste even more energy), and muscles don't regenerate. If you skip a lot of it, it gets worse. As soon as your body asks for it, sleep. On the special occasion when you can get as much sleep as you like, you may notice that you move and think exceptionally fast, and you are stronger and very powerful. So sleep more!
2: And my fav, eat more FOOD. Good food, that is. Get some vegetables, a salad, or a fruit salad. Try more fish or steamed crabs. Discover new fruits(MANGOES MANGOES) and get carbs. Get plenty o' all that good stuff. No really. If you're going to train, don't eat foods with a lot of fat, a lot of raw sugar, and don't drink milk. No fat, because fats take forever to break down, and you won't get any energy from them in time to use it. No sugary foods, meaning usually anything that tastes really sweet. But, you could eat kinda-sweet stuff with a lot of carbs, (screw Atkins, I think) like bread, pasta, or fruits. See, sugars come in two forms: one sugar molecule or two sugars hooked together, and big chains of sugars hooked together. Very sweet stuff like, well, table sugar and candy have lots of the one and twos, and those little molecules give you lots of energy but only for a short time. Fruits, pastas, seeds and cereals are full of the big ol' sugar chains. You get as much energy from them as you do with sugary foods (ones and twos), but it's released more slowly. And don't drink milk, 'cause it contains lactose. When you burn food anaerobically to go fast, you make lots of lactic acid. Lactic acid is responsible for that burning in your muscles when you're tired. And guess what lactic acid comes easiest from? Yup: lactose. Milk is good, just not before a race or exercise.
1: This has to be the most important and most forgotten tip that EVERYONE forgets about, me included. It's the STREAMLINE, the shape you put your body in to glide your fastest and farthest underwater. It makes a world of difference when you streamline "tight" compared to when you do it sloppy or not at all. To do a good streamline, start by reaching your arms forward and locking them (straight up if you were standing), putting your hands together, one hand on top of another. Lock your hands together with your thumbs, and stick your head right between your arms, squeezing your ears tight against your biceps. Don't look up at your hands or down at your feet. Straighten up your back and legs, and keep both aligned. Tuck your wings(if you have them) close to your back. Point your toes and tail straight back (think teasing Dino who's just out of reach behind you). Your whole body should look like a sharp torpedo.
Well, there's more info I'll drop from time to time, including workouts, swim technique and stuff. I still want to coach anyone if they're interested, and answer any questions they may have. But if you want to get better, you will have to do something yourself, right? 
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LDU Swim Team Head Coach: contact for training
"Get ready for Beijing 2008--The Next Summer Olympics" |
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Forum Administrator
Group: Forum Members
Active: 6/18/2018
Posts: 1,755 |
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| Yeah, don't look down at your feet! That's for...um, others to do. -------------------------------
Dinosorceror, Administrator
Lava Dome Five Enterprises |
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Supreme Being
Group: Forum Members
Active: 1/25/2007
Posts: 80 |
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You'd always ask to go second in a lane, Dino, if only to be behind someone's feet... But really, if you drop your head it throws off the sense of your angle in the water, and it causes drag. 
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LDU Swim Team Head Coach: contact for training
"Get ready for Beijing 2008--The Next Summer Olympics" |
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Supreme Being
Group: Forum Members
Active: 9/4/2007
Posts: 191 |
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any other swimming tips!? I am an ok swimmer but i get tired to easly in the water! . |
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Supreme Being
Group: Forum Members
Active: 1/25/2007
Posts: 80 |
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Alright Neil! Gettin' in on the swim thing, too! Water itself absorbs energy. It draws away heat, dissipates motion, and to another extent eventually drains your soul and mind of their energies (no really, I feel it and it's just a matter of time till this is proven). So no matter how well someone swims or how strong they are, tha water eventually gits ya. I know what it feels like to be tired like that. I see people doing stuff in the water that exhausts them so quickly, yet they're really easy to fix. Like not stretching your arms out fully, both forward and back. Maybe a few have shoulder or flexibilty problems, but if you don't, then stretch all the way. Like paddling a canoe, it makes no sense to paddle 30 million times across three feet of pond. Making slow, long, smooth pulls and stretches maximizes your efficiency. Faster does not necessarily mean faster. Heh! What I mean is you don't really have to turn your arms over faster or stroke faster to swim at a higher speed. Lotsa swim peeps can use the same arm speed from lazy slow to just-less-than-sprint. All that changes is how hard you pull, your kick speed, and how far you glide between strokes. It's like...um, what is it like? *scratches horns* Like the beat to a song. A slow-song beat is what most swimmers use at any speed, each arm catching the water or pulling back to the rhythm, while something as fast as techno would be for all-out sprints. Attitude toward your swimming is important too. If you realize that you're killing yourself to go faster, and then understand that you *can* swim smoothly without using much energy(because other people have done it), then you know you can eventually do it. From there, just concentrating on going fast by swimming smooth and easy every time is what it takes. More coming soon in this post, gotta go, bbl. Hope that helps, Neil!
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LDU Swim Team Head Coach: contact for training
"Get ready for Beijing 2008--The Next Summer Olympics" |
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Supreme Being
Group: Forum Members
Active: 1/25/2007
Posts: 80 |
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Heya everyone, I'm still here, haven't forgotten about my offer to teach.
I hope everyone's doing well in whatever sports/activities they do for the new year. I'm still swimming, as well as lifting and running a bit, when the weather's not too bad.
If you ever got any questions, I'm on FaibanxMUCK and you can hassle 'bout stuff--if you're new come and see everyone on Faibanx! ...Yeah, I'll put up another snippet of swimming technique things here soon.... hee.
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LDU Swim Team Head Coach: contact for training
"Get ready for Beijing 2008--The Next Summer Olympics" |
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Forum Member
Group: Forum Members
Active: 9/19/2006
Posts: 12 |
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| Jee, if you have swimming tips for the dragon body swimming, how about wings? I mean, my wings can fold in very close to my body, but wouldn't those make me faster if I used them whiel swimming? |
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Supreme Being
Group: Forum Members
Active: 1/25/2007
Posts: 80 |
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It all depends. I just say fold your wings in to reduce drag, but then again I am a very old-fashioned-style swimmer
If you have the strength to push all that water back with your wings, go ahead. All's I can say is 'try it and see'. Good luck!
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LDU Swim Team Head Coach: contact for training
"Get ready for Beijing 2008--The Next Summer Olympics" |
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