Exercise Week Ending July 25

I still only made it to the gym twice this week. My bad.

Wednesday, July 21

On Wednesday I had a thorougly unremarkable workout. Did the usual sets, yada yada. So I thought I might describe some of these swimming strokes for you instead of just repeating the standard routine.

“Easy breastroke” that I do during my warmup set means I don’t push myself very hard. After all, it’s a warmup, right? I do a standard breaststroke with a frog kick, but keep my head above water the whole time.

The “easy backstroke” during my warmup is actually a technique I learned back in middle school when I was on a synchronized swim team one summer. Your legs are doing a standard straight-legged kick, and you’re making a sculling motion with your arms.

The backstroke during my second set is the inverted breaststroke style. Legs do a frog kick, and arms push straight above shoulders, then out and down. With this style of backstroke, your arms do not lift out of the water.

The “hard breaststroke” I do during my third set is more like what you see in races, with my head going underwater and then coming up for air.

During set four I do an overhand backstroke with a flutter kick.

My last set is (mostly) a standard crawl. However, because I’m still re-learning my swimming skills, sometimes I’ll substitute a frog kick instead of the flutter kick to go with the stroke that lifts my head out of the water for a breath. The frog kick gets my head out farther and faster, giving me more time to suck in that much-needed air.

So, there you have it.

I followed my standard laps with:

5 minutes in the hot tub
12 minutes in the sauna

Total time in gym: 45 minutes

Saturday, July 24

I think I accidentally skipped a set. . . oops. . .

Warmup: 1 lap easy breaststroke, 2 laps easy backstroke, rest 1 minute

Set 1: 2 laps sidestroke, rest 1-1/2 minutes

Set 2: 2 laps backstroke, rest 1-1/2 minutes.

Set 3: 2 laps hard breaststroke, rest 1-1/2 minutes

Set 4: I can’t remember — did I actually do this set? I’m afraid I might have skipped it, but I honestly can’t remember. If I did it, it was 2 laps overhand backstroke, rest 2 minutes

Set 5: 1 lap hard crawl, rest 2 minutes

5 minutes in the hot tub
12 minutes in the sauna

Total time in gym: 45 minutes