What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness

Post by 205guy » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 12:20 PM UTC

entee wrote: post #18

Just finished swimming a race from Alcatraz to shore, it's just the best high. I do tons of endurance sports, but swimming is the most reliable in yielding that euphoric feeling. I think it's due to it being essentially forced mindfulness meditation. Though you could swim with music, I don't and that means it's just my thoughts for 30-60 min (watch the thoughts, can't do anything about them right now). I'm forced to…

Post by jraby3 » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 12:51 PM UTC

205guy wrote: post #101

entee wrote: post #18

Just finished swimming a race from Alcatraz to shore, it's just the best high. I do tons of endurance sports, but swimming is the most reliable in yielding that euphoric feeling. I think it's due to it being essentially forced mindfulness meditation. Though you could swim with music, I don't and that means it's just my thoughts for 30-60 min (watch the thoughts, can't do anything about them right now). I'm forced to…

I must put in a word for my favorite sport: week-long solo backpacking. Meditation, frustration, overcoming, self-reliance, singing at the top of your lungs, not speaking for days, exhaustion, mental challenge, pushing yourself, scenery and more scenery, plenty hypoxia too. Bonus euphoria for some high summits, sleeping under the stars, catching your own food, not being eaten by predators, swimming in frozen lakes, e…

Post by rimliu » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

sunstone wrote: post #67

colechristensen wrote: post #58

I have been interested in swimming for a few years but never found the place to develop the skill to the point of not drowning. I could try to swim in my apartment's tiny shallow pool which is really better for children. I could spend $200/mo at a nearby health club. I could drive to the ocean and jump in. The first just isn't big enough or deep enough to get anything done. The second is ... well I want to go swimmin…

Here's a learning process you can do on your own at your local pool, lake or ocean. The problem with learning to swim is that there are perhaps a half a dozen independent motor skills needed and it's hard to learn them all at once. This breaks it down to one skill at a time. Do all of this is shallow water, say, four feet in depth. 1) buy a mask, fins and snorkel set. 2) throw way the snorkel (not really, store it aw…

Post by photigragraphy » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

wcoenen wrote: post #90

eismcc wrote: post #14

In March I started swimming much more due to injury. Swam 250k yards in 3mo. One session was 10k in the pool. Getting past the boredom is a skill. In my experience it’s mostly a symptom of not focusing on your form. Don’t use a watch and count yourself to stay focused. Break it up with challenging blocks to force you to focus. For ex: 50yds on 1min will force you to move and then focus on recovery. I now really love…

You measure swimming distance in yards? Aren't swimming pools usually 25 meters ?

Post by michaelg7x » Sun, Jul 28, 2019, 3:37 PM UTC

michaelg7x wrote: post #94

alimw wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope there's a good answer to this. At the moment my solution is to not do crawl.

I read a blog of someone preparing for a 24-hour swim around one of the Swiss lakes and he was explaining about how it's important to get the reach and catch right. I understood this to mean getting your body rotation, shoulder and slightly-bent, extended arm into the most mechanically advantageous position. I imagine that this minimises "difficult" stresses on the shoulder joint. I'm trying to implement this without…