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Archive for August, 2010
How Young is Too Young for Surfing
A common question parents ask is how old does a child need to be to start surfing. The surprising answer is that age doesn’t really matter, to a point. All that really matters is swimming ability. There’s no set answer on age. Kids as young as 5 or 6 can probably learn to surf in calm waters, as long as they’re good swimmers and have constant adult supervision.
I am 29 and just now learning to swim. I had a le…
I am 29 and just now learning to swim. I had a lesson today. The breathing is the one thing that is keeping me from officially swimming. I actually did the freestyle stroke today, and took my first breaths!! I was very excited, but when my lesson was over, I wanted to practice on my own, and then I had trouble. I was a little bummed for the rest of today…I just want to swim so badly!!
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History of Swimming (How swimming as a sport became to be?)
Human beings are not build to live in water like the many species of fish in our deep blue oceans, however, despite of that, taking the journey to learn to swim has become a necessary skill for many people in today’s world. Since you are reading this post, you should applaud yourself, as you are the small part of our population that is trying or has already conquered the world of the water. Great job.
Learning to swim, does not have to be difficult though or out of reach of many, if the right approach is taken, however, as it is with anything we learn, one can never truly understand what one is learning until one understands its history. True, one can learn to swim without knowing the history of swimming, but it nevertheless is interesting to know that our ancestors from 7000 years ago were already eager to take on the water world. And it might give you some cool story to share with your fellow swim class or swim practice participants next time you are stroking your favorite style up and down the pool .
So, without further ado, History of Swimming as told in 21st century:
As you can see, the sport of swimming has evolved quite a lot with new swimming techniques, understanding of physics of motion in the water or by providing swimmers with super swim suits. What does future holds for swimming? Who knows, maybe in a few hundred years we’ll evolve to be more aerodynamic and grow webbed feet to make our swimming life much easier. 
See more swimming related articles at blog.swimator.com.
4-Wheel Drive in Keystone
Driving in a Winter Wonderland
Do you need 4 wheel drive to get to keystone?
A question we are often asked is “will I need to rent a four-wheel drive vehicle in order to get to keystone?”. The answer is a resounding “not at all”. Keystone is renowned as being the most easily accessible ski resort to get to from Denver. Keystone earned this reputation for several reasons.
The first is convenience. The majority of the short drive from Denver to Keystone is along I-70. This route is a very scenic drive that brings you into the Colorado Rockies, meanwhile passing through some of the old Colorado mining towns from the start of the gold rush. The drive ends shortly after passing through the continental divide via the Eisenhower Tunnel, the longest mountain tunnel in the US and the highest point of the Interstate Highway system. Once you are through the tunnel, the Dillon/Silverthorne exit is a short 10 minutes away.
Once you take the Dillon/Silverthorne exit, Keystone is a mere 10 minutes away on Highway 6, a four lane highway that is incredibly well maintained. Any night there is snow fall or accumulation on the roads, Summit County begins operating snow plows that run the entire night, or for as long as is needed depending on the snow. Keystone maintains and clears its own roads, parking lots, and even sidewalks daily. Summit Cove offers rentals at Lone Eagle and The Timbers, both of which are located along a heated road if conditions are still a concern for you. Also, much of River Run has underground heated garages, making parking a breeze and it’s nice to not have to scrape off ice in the morning!
A Few Easy Steps to a Swimming Start (Learn the basics of a proper dive)
Learning to swim with the correct technique can be quite challenging during the first attempts, however, do not get yourselves discouraged. Many have learned to swim before you and many will follow, so what seems like an impossible task to master is, with a little patience and perseverance, conquerable. Let’s forget for a few moments about swimming with correct head and body position and focus on how to actually get into the water to swim. In other words, in the next couple of posts I’ll teach you how to
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| Streamline by axeb |
dive into the pool to begin your lap swimming. Diving head first is also called “the start” and in shorter distance sprint swimming like 50s or 100s, it becomes a crucial part of the swim, so mastering your starts is a must if you are going to compete in swimming meets. If you are not competing, it is still a great skill to have, so you can share it with your children, fellow lap swimmers or just simply break up the monotony of going up and down the pool. So, here we go:
1) Streamline position – Before we actually start diving into the pool, let’s talk about what your body should look like. Right after your dive, you are actually in the fastest part of your swimming, because your speed off the starting block is much higher than when you swim. Thus, it is very important to limit the resistance during the entry into the water. This is done by keeping your body in a streamlined position with your arms stretching up, one palm over the other and tightly squeezing just behind your ears. Go on and try it. When in the streamlined position, you can even get on your tippytoes and try to stretch your arms out of your shoulders as much as possible.
2) Feet first test – If you have passed the fear of water test you should be able to do the following exercise. Stand on the side of the pool (forget the blocks for a while), put your arms above your head in a streamline and jump into the water feet first. Note: make sure the water is deep enough, so you don’t sprain your ankles . You will look like a needle falling vertically into the water. Do this a few times to get used to jumping in and the small impact the water entry has on your body. When you are comfortable jumping into the pool feet first, you are ready to move on.
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| Sitting dive by navratil |
3) Sitting dive – This is just a transitional quick exercise to get us thinking, fingers first, so do not spend too much time on this, but try it a few times. Sit on the side of the pool with your feet in the water. Note: use the side of the pool where the water comes over the side. Put your arms into the streamline as we practiced, bend your upper body over, so your arms and head move closer to the water and slowly keeping bending and shifting weight to the front, so you end up mildly easing yourself into the water and enter the water fingertips first when your body tips over. You can help yourself to tip over with the heals of your feet pressing against the wall of the pool.
4) Squatting dive – We have done our preparations and now we are ready to move forward to hands first entry into the water. Squat at the edge of the pool (ideally, at the edge where the water goes over the edge into the gutter, so you are quite close the water). Wrap your toes over the edge and put your arms into the streamlined position. Then as a next step, start slowly bending your arms with your head down towards the surface of the water. Important note: keep your head between your arms and DO NOT look at your finger tips. You might be tempted to look forward where you are going, so you don’t loose your goggles, but believe me if I tell you that if you are in the correct streamlined position, you will not loose them. Your eyes are looking at your knees at this stage and your fingertips are or almost are touching the water surface. All is left now is just shifting your weight a bit more forward, so you can fall into the water with your fingertips entering the water first and your squatted body follows. And voila! You have done it, your first partial swimming dive is behind you. Keep practicing this exercise until you are quite comfortable with entering the water with your fingertips first and your body following.
This was it for today. Next time, we’ll move on to the final stages of the dive and get ourselves onto the block to do a proper start.
See more swimming related articles at blog.swimator.com.
Learning to Swim with your Xbox 360 and Michael Phelps (From the Swimming Pool to your Xbox 360)
The last few years has seen a tremendous explosion of miscellaneous games which require some physical and social activity rather than the traditional sedentary joystick control games. So what does this has to do with you and learning how to swim?
Microsoft just announced a new swimming game, called Push the Limit, featuring the multiple Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps. The game is for the new Kinect on Xbox 360 and is meant to come out this summer (2011). Microsoft introduces Kinect as a no-controller game. The game simply responds to the movement of your body parts to execute game play. So, if you need to wave your hand or kick a ball, you just do so in front of the xbox set and your character will mimic your movement in the game itself. Pretty cool ey? We will soon be jumping up and down and doing crazy moves in front of our TVs like a chicken with its head cut off, but there is hope .
The previous swimming games that we have seen are usually part of the Olympic sport series and are controlled merely by a controller, which is, truth to be told, very boring to use. Also swimming is not the highest rated sport out there, so making a game which features top level swimming athletes might be a much bolder move than just launching new NFL or NHL games featuring all your favorite athletes. Let’s face it, if there is no swimming national hero, nobody would care about swimming at all, but since America has Michael Phelps which has marketed the hell out of swimming, more and more people start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and actually do watch or participate in swimming themselves. Which is of course great as everyone should know some basics of swimming.
Back to the reason why I am talking about the “Push the Limit” game here on the swimming blog. Depending on how good are the graphics and how well the authors captured Michael Phelps’ movements, it could be a great teaching tool for the folks that would like to improve in their swimming technique. For example, let’s say that you are doing your race against Michael in the game and you are at your turn, if you don’t put your arms in a tight streamline, you will loose a few precious seconds after the turn as Michael’s streamline is almost flawless and he cuts through the water with such ease that you will really need to perfect yours. Another example could be the swimming stroke itself. If you swim freestyle against Michael and you keep your head too high up, your legs will sink and you will swim slower. However, if you put your head down in the right position you will be faster.
(even though, I am not sure how you would actually see where you are going since you do not have any black T on the bottom of the pool to tell you to do a flip turn). But you get the point right? I guess we will have to wait and see whether the game authors did the swimming sport justice or if it is just one of those games where you flap your hands around your body as if you escaped from a looney bin and there is no hope of help for you. From having a quick glance at the video teaser for the game and the screenshots, I have to say that it does look quick cool, but the skeptic in me is still not convinced. The game “Push the Limit” with Michael Phelps is now on pre-order, so if you are really interested and would like yours as soon as it comes out, feel free to order it. If you are not one of the lucky ones who has the pleasure to have Kinect for Xbox 360, perhaps a birthday gift is the way to go.
See more swimming related articles at blog.swimator.com.
G’day Athesia,Breathing in freestyle is in…
G’day Athesia,
Breathing in freestyle is indeed by far the one skill that most students have the most difficulty with.
Don’t let yourself get discouraged! This skill will take some time and practice.
But not only that you have a lot of years of none swimming to overcome. Especially if your original reason for not swimming had to do with some kind of fear or frightening event.
You are doing a great job and the right thing by making use of an instructor. Let them help you.
I will be posting more on the subject of breathing in the next week or so with a drill that might help.
Mind you the drill may not be popular with your instructor. But as long as you are doing it as a drill it should be OK by them.
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Surfboard Shapes
There are many different shapes and sizes of boards, but most of which can be boiled down into three main categories. The type of board you choose will dictate how you’re going to catch a wave, and therefore should be chosen based on your experience level and the size of the waves you’ll be riding.
For beginners, usually the first stop is the longboard (7 to 12 feet). One of the longboards commonly used by beginners is a soft-foam construction, as opposed to fiberglass or epoxy. This increases buoyancy and helps the surfer catch his or her first waves. Longboards are generally good for smaller waves and their volume allows surfers to ride these waves much longer.
The next style is a fun shape, or often called a fun board or a fun stick (7 to 9 feet). This board combines the stability of a larger long board with the maneuverability of a smaller shape, and is often used by beginner to intermediate surfers on all types of waves.
Short boards (5 to 7 feet) are the most maneuverable of all board types, but are also the hardest to ride and therefore are usually reserved for intermediate to expert surfers. They’re faster, less stable and offer surfers more control over how they want to move in the wave.
