Anton after swimming session

Anton after training session. He has improved his result on 25m. It is 20.1s now.

Competitions postponed

Unfortunately, the competitions to which we should have travelled last Saturday have been postponed until spring due to adverse weather conditions in London area. This is sad, but we can't do anything about it. The good side of this is that until spring we will be able to achieve more and show better results.

Anton's new results:
25m : 20.2
50m : 48.0

so, he is improving!

Monofins shapes and stiffness

Today I have realized that my bigger softer monofin works better than slightly smaller "extra stiff" one. Does performance depend more on size than on stiffness? I should probably study this subject.

New Anton's results

25m : 21.2s
50m : 50.5s

Although he starts much better now, I think further training here will give some benefits.
Exercises for leg muscles will improve stroke strength, so focus on this.

Anton's progress

Latest Anton's results:

25m : 22s
50m : 56s

Things to improve for him:
* Start time. It takes quite long for him to start going. Once this is improved it can take 1-2s from his results.
* Arms position. When this is improved, it can take 1s per 25m from his result.
Good progress!

50m for less than 23s

Nothing else to say really. This is my best result since I've resumed training

Anton's 50m using monofin

Yesterday, I've asked my son to swim 50m using monofin for a time. He managed to make it in 58s. I guess this is a good time for 7yo child who just started using monofin and still can't do proper turns (we did this exercise in 25m pool).

25m apnea for less than 10 seconds

Yesterday my son wasn't able to attend the session, so I used it for myself. I made first achievement: 25 apnea for less then 10 seconds.


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Finswimming in the UK

Finswimming in Esporta and Anton's first finswimming session

I have signed up for membership with Esporta. This will allow me to train more often for less money. also the club is next door to my office, so I can enjoy lunchtime training sessions. Also, this gives me an opportunity to train my 7yo son into finswimming on the sessions which I've booked a lane for in the leisure centre. I've taken Anton for this session for the first time and I was really impressed with him. Apart of this I've done 50m in 23s

New results

New results from today's session:

200m 2:06s
50m 23s
25m apnea 10s

Result for 200m is quite weak. May be it was down to wrong effort distribution. I wasn't tired at the end of distance. But this is the first time I tried this distance since I've resumed my training. I guess there is a room for significant improvement

Further progress!...

Now I've managed to make 100m in 52s. This is further improvement over my previous result. Also, I made 50m in 23s.

The second 50m on 100 were much weaker, so focus for the further training sessions should be on training endurance. Also, it would be nice to reintroduce running exercises 3-5 minutes for a full speed.

New personal best!...

I've improved my last achievement on 100m by 2s. Now it is 54s :-) Slowly but surely I will get there! :-)

Another training session

Today I've tried my new homemade snorkel. It was much better than my other wobbly one. I was able to make turns and snorkel stayed where it supposed to stay.

Also I was able to check my time today. Thanks to water proof watch I bought recently.
Honestly time wasn't impressive:

100m 56s

I know, it is far away from my results of 44s 20 years back. But this is a start.

25m apnea was 11s. Which is probably not that bad bearing in mind that I made low start and was messing with watch buttons on the finish.

So, for the future sessions working on technique and making my feet used to the monofin.

My homemade snorkel

I was looking for the place to buy a snorkel for a finswimming. I even bought one which looked alright on a web site but was almost useless for swimming. Eventually I decided to go down the old style route. I decided to make it myself. I bought 2 metres of 25mm conduit in B&Q cut off the appropriate piece, stuffed it with sand, heated and bended in several places. This one more usable to me than my previous one.

Results from my last official competition

While I was on holidays I have recovered my results from the latest competitions dated 11-14th of April 1991.

Individual:
400m surface: 3:45.17
800m surface: 8:03.72
1500m surface: 15:20.80

As part of relay team:
4x100m surface: 3:08.50
4x200m surface: 7:08.60

Now compare these results to current British records ;)

Back after holidays...

I am back to my training sessions after being on holidays for 2 weeks. While I was away my monofin has arrived. I tried it today. What a speed! Although stiffness of my fin is medium, for my current fitness level it's going to be used for short sprints. I might need to order another one with bigger footpockets and soft.

Russian grades for finswimming

Positive moment..

Today I did my session on "one breath"... It is an improvement.
Still, one session a week is not enough.
Also, for the first time I felt that my arms are in correct place behind the head. I've got silicone cap which helped me with this. It prevents arms from sliding down. I use to swim with a fabric cap which doesn't do such trick...

Negative wave

There is a period in training which comes after initial excitement, when you begin expecting more from yourself but your body hasn't picked up the right form yet. Results may even go down comparing to what you had when you've just started. Such a negative wave that can massively reduce confidence and motivation. It is very important not to give up in such period. You need to plan in advance exercises for the training sessions and precisely follow them

First training sessions

It is not going easy...

First session I did some random exercises. Second one I was focused on technique, especially on arms position. After a long gap in training, the shoulders lost their flexibility. To regain it back and force arms into correct position I use kick board.
Exercise: 4x400m. First and third with board, second and forth without - for cementing positive effect.

Overall I managed to cover 2,5 km in one hour session, which is not too bad when using bi-fins

Swimming pool

I have started my sessions in Bradley Stoke leisure centre. It has 25m swimming pool. Lane reservation is £12.85 per hour. I've booked 4 sessions for a start. The pool is not quite suitable for real sport training:

• No starting box
• Shallow side is too shallow
• Pool borders are level with water, so it is not very convenient to make turns
• People swimming on other lanes complain that they haven't been forewarned that one of the lanes will be reserved for training. :-)

Also, I used to swim in 50m pool, it feels like 25m is too short. The nearest 50m pool is in Bath. I'll probably drop them an email to find out what is the price for a lane. Until I find better place, I'll continue to use my local pool.

Equipment

For my first training session I bought a pair of fins and a snorkel. Fins are alright. What can be wrong with fins? But snorkel is a bit of a joke. I bought a one with a silicon bottom part and a valve. Two problems with it:

• soft bottom part makes it wobbly and unstable after turns. I haven't tried, but I can imagine where the snorkel going to end up after jumping from a platform.
• the valve actually helps water to stay inside the snorkel. Unlike old fassion ones, where one powerfull exhail can remove water completely, in this one it was taking me three or four exhails to do the same.

So new technologies didn't quite work for me.

In the beginning...

I am standing on a starting platform trying to catch buzzer to start my swimming race. It's again lane of water in front of me... and others waiting for their start. I am a bit nervous playing the race in my head. In a second, after a signal, nervousness will be gone. Seconds or minutes of hard work will take its place. Hard work I was trained for during previous months... I am standing on a platform waiting for a buzzer... just like 20 years ago...

That was a night dream. The one after which you decide that you need to change something in your life.

I was obsessed with the idea to come back into finswimming already about a year. Once I have decided to find a swimming club for my son, normal swimming. I was browsing internet looking at sites of different clubs and accidentally came across wikipedia page with British records in finswimming. To my surprise the results there were weaker than ones I had 20 years back. This has fired a flame... I have contacted people from BFA, but they told me that there is no club in Bristol. Sadly the flame was extinguished... until I had my dream about a year later.

Now I decided to act. It is better to fail in doing something than miss an opportunity. I bought some equipment: fins and snorkel, booked a lane in Bradley Stoke leisure centre and went to my finswimming session. First in nearly 20 years :-)