On Monday’s and Wednesday’s I go to master’s swim practice for an hour. It’s where I get some of my best thinking time in, it’s where I was when I decided to start this blog actually. I missed swimming last Wednesday because of my cold and it felt so good to get back in the water last night.
Swimming is the one activity that I’ve been involved in ever since I was small. I played on the school baseball and volleyball teams, and I started playing hockey when I was 13 but as far back as I can remember I’ve always swam. In the house I grew up in, we had an outdoor pool in our backyard!
Anyways, since I had a pool in my backyard on those rare, warm summer days that usually hit around the middle of July, I spent all my time in the pool. I started learning to swim when I was two-years old and apparently I took to the water quite well. As far back as I can remember I’ve always loved the water and I’ve never feared it. I was put in swimming lessons when I was quite young and began working my way through the levels. I wanted to be a lifeguard.
Well I am a certified lifeguard and swimming instructor and have been since I was 16. I’ve spent the last four summers working at the pool. It’s a great summer job, and it pays awesome, but it’s not something I could imagine myself doing forever. Teaching swimming lessons is the same as any job where you work with kids, it can be very, very rewarding but it can also make you want to pull your hair out and hold them under water. I’ve never been much of a kid person, so my temperament is usually leaning towards the latter.
Note: As a lifeguard, I recommend you get your kids swimming young. The younger they start in the pool the better they’ll take to the water. It’s not fun trying to teach a 12-year-old kid who weighs almost as much as you how to put his face in the water, trust me.
When I moved to Kamloops in the fall and saw they had a master’s swim program at the pool on campus I immediately joined. I’m the youngest person there and I still get my butt kicked most days. But I love it. When I spent eight hours a day at the pool in the summertime, five of those hours in the water teaching kids, there was no way you could get me back in that pool for exercise. Now, I look forward to my swim practices more than any other workout. I also credit swimming to how far I’ve come fitness-wise in the last six months. I’ve talked about how I lost 20 pounds in the last year on this blog before, and exercise had a lot to do with it, but I never could get the running part down. I wanted to run, I tried to run, but I just couldn’t keep a program up. After swimming for three months my lung capacity must have improved or something because running feels so much easier to me now than it ever did before.
I’m starting to love running, but swimming is still my number one favourite workout. My favourite stroke is breaststroke, the master’s are all about freestyle, but I love breaststroke. I think it’s a beautiful stroke. Lots of people don’t like it because very few people have been taught the proper form, and if you don’t know how to do the kick properly it can hurt your knee’s and you won’t get very far. It’s also important to gliiddeeee. I see so many people going kick, pull, kick, pull and getting frustrated because they’re not going very fast. The most important part of breaststroke is the glide! OK, that’s your swimming lesson for today, free of charge. 
Do you add swimming into your training schedule? What’s your favourite stroke?
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I also LOVE swimming, and actually really want to get back into it…Only problem is that I don’t have a “neighborhood” pool so it’s hard to get the motivation to get up and drive somewhere, when I have my mini home gym right here! THe ironic thing is that I actually have my swimming bag ready to go…I just have to figure out WHEN I’ll go!
I love the water and can swim, but not compared to Steve or you….lol I wanted to look into taking lessons! It sounds funny since I’m 26 and want swimming lessons, but I do. I want to learn the proper way. I was never in lessons as a kid, I wish I had been. We have a pool at the house right now and Steve has tried to teach me some things but he’s not a teacher, he’s more a do-er…lol He’s a total fish too, he runs, swims and bikes….lol I can’t even think about keeping up with him right now!! I wish you lived here then you could be my teacher
Have you thought about doing any triathlons? I think you would kill it!!
Katrina
i do love the water. my parents house has a backyard pool, mine does not. i started swimming at age 4, but never got into lifeguarding or teaching. my kids are already learning to swim, though. and i love the masters program.
i love the way swimming makes me feel! i try to do a swim workout twice a week. its a nice break on my joints from running
i normally just swim free style because the main reason i swim is to train for triathlons, but i actually was way too frightened to put my head under the water when i did my first open water swim in a triathlon and i ended up doing backstroke the whole way!
i also love breast stroke…feels great for cool downs
I love to swim and would like to incorporate that into my work outs. When I finish grad school, I’d like to enroll in the Masters swimming program at the Y I go to. Right now it just doesn’t work with my schedule.
Since you love swimming, do you think you’d ever do a Triathlon? That is something I would like to do someday.
swimming is like my body’s treat after some of my LONG runs on a sat or sunday (13-20 miles). I’ll just rinse off after my long run and head to the gym for a 20-30 min pool session to work out the kinks. i’d love to feel like i really do the breaststroke well, but i don’t so i usually stick with freestyle. taking “learning to lap swim” in college was one of the best things i did so i don’t feel like a total fool in the pool.
I’ve always wanted to add swimming to my routine, but I’ve only ever made a couple half-hearted attempts. As much as I loved it growing up, I actually don’t even know how to swim very well anymore.
You get that love of water from your mother. Who else would pay to heat a pool where the summer temps often didn’t get much over +20 during the day and +5 at night. I remember we would start getting the pool ready in May and the heater never turned off till Oct 15 when we finally got it ready for winter.
I loved swimming when I was young and was really good at it too. But after not swimming much for 9+ years, I really stink at it now. Should probably get back into it some day, I know it would be a great way to strengthen my back and I still remember how great it feels to gliiide through the water like you’re weightless.
~Amanda
http://onehappypanda.blogspot.com
I love being in pools but I really don’t know HOW to swim…I CAN swim, I just randomly do stuff!!!
I do love learning more and more about you!
I want to swim more but I can’t do breaststroke to save my life. Seriously, I ALMOST failed every level because I couldn’t do the damn breaststroke kick.
I can do it fine on my back in elementary back stroke, but not on my front. Maybe you need to be my teacher?
I can’t WAIT until it gets warm here…and I can start swimming!!!
I like to swim but I’m more of a laze-around in the pool kind of a girl. I know it’s the best workout for you so I should probably hop to and get back in the water.
When I do swim, I love the backstroke. Love to see the sky whiz by me as I move through the water.
I’m a better runner than swimmer though
Okay, we have even more in common than I thought! I too have been teaching swimming lessons and lifeguarding for the past 4 summers of my life.
Even in the winter, I still have a huge X across my back from my bathing suit tan line. I love my job, but you are right..it’s so difficult teaching older people how to swim. I hate parents who don’t teach their kids young…it’s such a life skill that everyone should know. It’s frustrating having a class of 4 year olds and then having a random 12 year old in the class (yeah happened to me this summer) I basically had to treat her like a baby since all the other kids were babies!
Oh man, I have so many good lifeguarding stories.
I have to say that I hate pools, they’re kind of gross to me. I love open water though and could spend hours swimming in it though. Swimming laps isn’t my favorite though, I get bored too easily.
Swim lessons were something I did like though when I was younger. I was considering doing my bronze medallion and all, but then we moved and I never got back into it.
Wow, there are a lot of “thoughs” in there. I typed it up super fast…that bugs the writer in me…ha.