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Swimming Anonymous
So I'm starting to care about losing weight (I'm 5'11" and around 230lbs). In addition to buying less shitty food, I'm taking up swimming. I can only reliably swim Sundays (though I can probably add Mondays if I need to, just not regularly), but I can swim for hours if I need to. I'm also decently fast, given my weight (50 yards Freestyle in about 38 seconds last week).

What's the best workout? I'm thinking of maybe 10 laps each Freestyle, Breaststroke, and Backstroke. I fucking loathe butterfly, do I need it?

I'm looking more to get in shape than become a freakish mass of muscle, but does swimming itself help with muscle at all? Breaststroke in particular always felt like lifting.
>> Anonymous
Advice:
If you are going to swim, try and incorporate HIIT if possible. In other words, swim like you would normally for a lap, then push yourself as hard as you can the next lap, then back to swimming like you would normally.

tl;dr, Swimming will not do a lot for you if it's not taxing you at some point.
>> Anonymous
>>443854
Agreed.
>> Anonymous
>>443854

Do I add Hiit to everything then? How about for eating and taking shits?
>> Anonymous
don't do breast stroke, it's absolutely worthless, you have to do free or you're not getting any workout whatsoever because you're going to waste time swimming for 8 hours with no effort to get a workout, that is, if you're just doing swimming for the workout, if you actually want to take up the sport than by all means do breast for practice, and yes, bfly is a very good workout

and at 5'11 230, i don't believe that you do a 50 free in 38 seconds honestly unless you have muscle too, there's just no way
>> Anonymous
swimming does do something for your body, i found that my back was a lot more muscly after i had been swimming for a few months, but i still was lifting weights in this time span fyi
>> Anonymous
Yeah I'm calling bullshit. 50 yards in 38 seconds is pretty good going for a fatty seeing as 21-22 seconds is the world record.

I'm a fatty at 220lbs 6'1" and I swim 5-6 hours a week. I swim a couple breast, a couple freestyle, a couple backstroke and it is very possible to get a workout from breaststroke if you swim it fast with full strokes focusing on form. Think whip kick rather than sissor kick. Think head down and ploughing through the water with arms thrust fully forward and then brought back to the body. Breaststroke is not tiring at all if you swim tiny little strokes with little movement.

5-6 hours is split over 3 sessions and I generally swim between 3-4km per session. On a good day I can get 2.5km done within 1hr.

As far as results I'm not really changing my diet from 2000-2500 calories per day. Spreading it many small meals though. Better snack choices and 90% of the time 'whole' foods.

30lbs in the past two months although I actually gained and lost 5lbs of that in the first two weeks so 25lbs off my true start weight.
>> Anonymous
>>443896
38 seconds for a 50 is pretty slow. Most people can achieve this with some technique adjustments. 22 seconds is a lifetime away from 38 seconds.
>> Anonymous
>>443918
yes it's pretty slow but, lets take a look at his weight to height ratio and picture him in real life, and tell me if you see someone with that big of a gut holding them back and extra weight with no muscle even swimming kindof fast
>> Anonymous
>>443929
Increased buoyancy might even make him faster, lulz
>> Anonymous
note that swimming does nothing for losing weight; several studies conducted measuring weight loss for groups swimming vs running found that the swimming group actually gained a few pounds.
>> Anonymous
>>443929

It was a freestyle sprint; I was racing a friend. I couldn't do 100 at that speed. I was on a swim team for a few years, so I've got good technique.

And anyway, though better than most amateurs, 50 yards in 38 seconds isn't exactly stunning. The girl I was racing did 44, and she'd just done a few laps.

I do have a decent bit of muscle, too. It's mostly fat, but I'm not buying a bra for my manboobs fat.

>>443886

>>don't do breast stroke, it's absolutely worthless, you have to do free or you're not getting any workout whatsoever because you're going to waste time swimming for 8 hours with no effort to get a workout

Freestyle is a bit tougher, yeah, but Breaststroke at any speed isn't exactly walking. Besides, wouldn't variety of muscle movement be worth thinking about?
>> Anonymous
>>444111

Er, Breaststroke at any *brisk* speed. 50 yards in 10 minutes'd be kind of worthless. 50 yards in 50 seconds, not so much, I think. I know I'm tired when I do a few 100 yards. I did 70-odd laps for charity way back when in an hour, and I was kind of wrecked from it.