Is that Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis or are you just stupid?

I've always thought the ponds and lakes of the deep south looked inviting. Factor out the snakes and gators and you've got a year round natural open-water swimming. Then I read about PAM (see title) last year.

PAM is a brain eating amoeba. Yes, you read that right, campers. It sounds horrible and it can kill.

I thought I'd link to this since I'm guessing some of my readers are open-water afficienados (sp?). PAM is found in warm waters of a number of southern and some east coast states. It can live in ill-maintained pools and is also found in ponds and lakes (not sure about running water such as streams and rivers).

Among the recommendations of ways to avoid PAM are to avoid getting water in your orifaces. Apparently when you jump into the water and it goes up your nose, you can get the bug. Then it's just a short jump to the brain. One of the work arounds goes against my principals (nose plugs - ewww!). I guess this is one case of me thinking a nice clean pool is better than a natural.

Could Olympics Double Amputee Decision Impact Swimming One Day?

In my mind, the Olympics has done a grave injustice to itself this week by granting, upon appeal, the right for a double amputee to compete. Am I being heartless? If this were just a few years back, I might agree that I was. But I don't feel that way today. With the rapid advance in technology, we really will have accident victims performing like Steve Austin - The Six Million Dollar Man. This runner will have spring in his step that is technically superior to the life-long developed tendons in an able-bodied person. What's next? Would a sickly person be able to take steroids to "fix" their condition and thus compete? I exaggerate, but seriously, look at swimmers. In a recent post I asked the question about whether a new dolphin prosthetic could be used by a double amputee. I really think that's doable. Now take that a step further. Why couldn't that prosthetic make one swim fast - think butterfly. It certainly could. Just look at all the world records that have fallen with the new swim suits developed this year. If you don't think a trained athlete could make webbed prosthetic work in their favor, think again. I think this was the wrong decision. Feel free to agree, or disagree, but this decision is huge.

Zero-Entry Pools - How to Make Your Kid into a Coward

The first swim club I belonged to (as a kid) was a pond with a sandy beach, a pier, tall slides and high diving boards. No, you couldn't see the bottom. That made it more fun! To this day, I love lake swimming. I have acquaintances who enjoy pools but won't go near a pond or lake because you can't see the bottom. We never thought our swimming area was risky - but given today's litigious society swim clubs like this aren't even considered any more by developers. Why? Insurance premiums.

Now they've gone a step further. New pools are now being promoted to the public as "zero-entry". As I understand it, that means the entire pool has no sides, just a gradual slope. What's wrong with sides? Sure, one can fall in. Duh! But life has some risks. What's Johnny going to do when he slips into a pond? Will it be the first time he's ever fallen into water? If it is, Mom shouldn't be surprised if Johnny doesn't come out.

I think developments like "zero-entry" can only make water more dangerous for people.

Dolphin Posthetic - Can It Work for Man Too?

I first reported about a dolphin with a prosthetic fin about a year ago. Since then I've been wondering whether such a device could be made for those folks who have lost limbs, or have limited or even no leg motion.

Seems to me that the human back's muscles could propel a fin much like Winter here does. If I were an injured vet wanting to get back in shape, this might just be the ticket. Any thoughts?

Glossopharyngeal Insufflation i.e. Lung Packing

The above has to be one of the stranger blog titles you'll see today. In lay-lay (sic) persons terms, glossopharyngeal insufflation refers to the practice of learning to hold one's breath for a very, very long time.

This has been a subject that has been of interest to me ever since I heard that to qualify as a Navy Seal, one must swim underwater for 50 meters (that's been a goal of mine for some time, but to now, I've never gotten much past 35 meters).

In a post dated, May 1, 2008, Time.com has published an article about how David Blaine, the performance artist, held his breath on the Oprah Show (those names are two more firsts for this blog) for seventeen minutes! I figured it was all just a fake stunt, but I may have been mistaken. The article discusses how the body processes and prioritizes the use of oxygen and how the brain can help or hinder the body's natural abilities. Some interesting stuff. I suggest the read.

How to Build Speed and Finish Fast

It's common to see swimmers who start out fast for a lap or two and then plod along for the rest of their workout. It's no small wonder a lot of people give up swimming. What's fun about doing something that just gets worse as you spend more time doing it? What amazes me are the regulars in the pool who do this. I think they should know better.

I figured out a long time ago, that I enjoyed swimming laps more if I built my speed over the time of the workout. This has been reinforced as I've aged, as going fast right from the start isn't as easy as it once was. Now I can ease into the workout and if everything is going well, I'll be able to cruise along at a good, fast pace in the last half of the workout.

I explain my approach below using a mile swim to demonstrate.

I start out with some easy strokes for 400 meters - breathing every other stroke, stretching to my fullest length, making sure I keep a straight line nose to toes. For the next 400 meters I add some time between breaths. I breathe every fifth stroke, alternating sides. Throughout this 1/4 mile my body is building its strength up, my muscles are getting warm and I can feel it. There is a natural tendency to speed up because, in all honestly, I want to breathe by the time I get to the five count. The muscles are working up to strength too with this added pace. The last half mile I maintain the pace but breathe every third stroke, alternating sides. This additional oxygen helps me to crank up my speed further. I can generally shave an extra five seconds off a lap with this added oxygen.

I encourage you to try this speed building approach. You might find the need to breathe more often than I. That's ok. Do what works for you but spend enough time in the pool to let your endorphins kick in. Just don't blow it all out in the first few laps. Just take it slow and ease into your workout. You'll finish faster. And because you are finishing on a high, I can almost promise you'll feel better about coming back the next time.

10K Swim to be an Olympic Event

So you think you're tough because you swim a mile or two in the lap pool while everyone else hangs on the wall after a couple laps? Check out Friday's Wall Street Journal article about the Olympic's newest swimming event (to be held this year for the first time), the 10K swim - that's about six and half miles for you 'mercans. The event is going to be held in flat, fresh water in the rowing venue.

It sure would be cool if they built a canal into the Olympic Stadium where the swimmers finish in front of the world! I can always dream.

Finally, a Computer that Heats a Pool

Ever notice how pool personnel seem to find it impossible to keep a pool heated properly? Ever wonder why they don't incorporate computer technology to do the job? Here's a pool facility which finally took the job on - unfortunately, this is NOT what I meant. Go to this link to see what I mean. Considering the aforementioned possibilities, I was somewhat appalled. How about you?

New Yorker Features Article about Swimming!!!

I suppose this post is a bit premature, but I'm excited. I just got the mail in and got my New Yorker subscription. I haven't read it yet, but the April 21, 2008 issue has a feature by my favorite cold water swimmer/author, Lynn Cox, entitled "A Dip in the Cold - Swimming in the Northwest Passage". Lynn wrote the book "Grayson", which is about a time in her youth when a baby whale decided she (Lynn) was its mother and she decided to help it find its real mother. She also is the same woman who was featured in a television documentary where she jumped into frigid Antarctic waters and swam to to shore - about a mile. She wrote about that too. See Lynn Cox in Amazon.com for more. This woman is nuts. I can't wait to read this New Yorker article!

Swimming and your Heart Rate

It's fairly common knowledge that swimming makes for a good cardio workout. Doing sprints is one way to keep the heart running faster. Pushing the distance can do it too as long as it's at some speed. Sounds analogous to the sport of running, right? Well, maybe not so fast.

Buried deep in an article in today's New York Times there is a mention about how one's heart works differently for swimmers than it does for runners. Runners' hearts, the article says, must fight gravity. It must pump the blood vertically up to the head. That's not the case for swimmers. The gravitational fight is not as much of an issue. You are already horizontal in the pool. I'm no medical type, but I'm having no trouble imagining that there's something to that.

OK, so what does this all mean? Does the heart rate for a swimmer working equivalently to the heart rate of a runner mean that the swimmer can put more energy into propulsion, while the runner is putting it just into surviving? I'll have to think on this some more. Thoughts from my readers are welcome.

OMG! Can You Float this Well?

How to Swim Well - The Most Important Thing to Learn

I was planning this post before today anyhow, but when I ran into an old acquaintance who without solicitation offered me his opinion on the most important skill to have in order to swim well, I knew I had something - not that our opinions matched.

Anyhow, my friend said that he had learned from a "world class swimmer" (and his boss ... so he really HAD to listen to him) that the most important thing to know how to do well was to relax in the water. If you can relax, you aren't going to tire yourself out with every stroke and every attempt to breathe.

Now the above is not quite what I was going to write originally in this post, but I'm including it here because of the cred (the credibility).

My contention is (and if you've ever read more than a half dozen posts of mine, it should come as no surprise), that the most important thing to know how to do well in order to learn to swim well was to learn to keep a straight line. Your body should be linear from tip of your stretched out fingers at the end of your stretched out arms, all the way down to your stretched out tippy toes at the end of your stretched out legs - so you can streamline through the water. Once this position is learned, it must be applied during the stroke. If one breaks from the linear, the streamlining is lost and you encounter resistance from the water your are swimming through.

Do these two suggestions conflict with one another? I don't think so. If you can do the first you can learn to do the second. And if you can do the second, you can begin to do the first (to relax) since you won't have to fight the water so much.

Dogs in Heaven

Another title to this post might be "Why Pools Sometimes Smell Like Dog". Enjoy.

Swim Suit Technology Setting World Records

Speedo has a new swim suit technology that is helping a few fortunate test subjects set world records at an unprecedented pace. The technology is so good in fact, there may be some question about fairness. At least three world records have been set and eight more according to this article in NewScience.com. The suit (and this other article quotes) reportedly creates a stabelizer on the body's core which promotes five percent less drag and five percent less O2 consumption at an unspecified (but apparently, key) speed. In case you haven't figured it out yet, that's HUGE!!!

I find all of this simply amazing. As for this technology's fairness, that's best left to the sports boards. I for one, want one now! Then again, I should probably get a suit with little flippers embedded in the skin first. :)

Pools on my vacation are disappointing

Swimming pools need to be designed by swimmers! It's clear that pools more often are not being designed for swimming. This pool is just plain crazy. All one can do is jump in or hang on the side. Maybe a little bit of slow trekking across the middle might work. A simple straight line between the two ends might be an improvement. Any pool that is more for bathing than swimming ought not be called a swimming pool.

Secrets to Swimming Like an Aquatic Creature

I've always marveled at how some aquatic creatures can swim. Particularly fascinating to me are otters, seals and alligators who all seem to have some unfathomable ability to slip through the water at high speed. Here's an article that describes the results of a study funded by the National Science Foundation and University of Utah showing some of that and what has been discovered that may lead to this skill set. I've posted a key paragraph here from the U or Utah, but visit the article to get more.

"The discovery in American alligators suggests "special muscles that manipulate the position of the lungs - and thus the center of buoyancy - may be an underappreciated but important means for other aquatic animals to maneuver in water without actively swimming," says C.G. Farmer, an assistant professor of biology."

Can some of this be applied to human swimming? Perhaps. It seems to me that air in the lungs can be shifted to the upper or lower abdomen - that may be a crock (bad pun), but it feels that way. Try it by floating on your back and holding the air near your neck, then closer to your belly.

When its OK to Touch a Dolphin

Here's a news story that will make you feel good all day. The story is about a group of people in New Zealand who were trying in vain to help a whale that kept beaching itself and the dolphin that came to the rescue. The last line of the story is a tear jerker and the answer to the headline of this post. Enjoy. :)

How to do Multiple Laps with Flip Turns without Tiring

I am known at my pool as a guy who swims for a long time without stopping to rest. I guess that's supposed to be a complement (I think I'd rather be known as a guy who swims fast, but I'll take what I can get). When I swim my laps, I typically will do 1600 to 2400 meters at a time without stopping. All my turns are flip turns, and I don't rest at all until I stop for a half-minute or so before I switch over to the kickboard. Why am I not tired? Why can I go from lap to lap without stopping to catch my breath? What do I do different from the guy next to me who stops every one or two laps to rest and catch his breath?

This post will share how I got where I am. I didn't start this way. I WAS the guy in the next lane stopping every one or two lengths to hang and catch my breath. My conversion came slowly, with patience. Let me explain.

When I first started swimming regularly, I was very jealous of the guys who could swim non-stop. I even had a nick-name for them - the "human lungs". I was amazed they could go on and on and on. What was the trick? I'd try what they were doing and fail miserably. I'd figured out the flip turn, but so what? I was still tired and ready to plant my feet down and stand up right after the turn (if even I had that in me).

I decided that a good approach would be to go slow and trim, and it worked. By swimming as trim (torpedo/pencil swimming) as I could to minimize effort, and by taking it easy, I found that I would use less energy and oxygen. Thus I had enough to get through the flip and start the next length. When I started feeling tired, I'd drop it another notch, until I'd recovered and then resumed speed again. Over time (over a couple weeks of practicing this), I found I could maintain a decent pace without having to do the slow down. Over a longer period (a few months), I even found I could crank up the speed and hold it for a while before scaling back. Today, I can do a full 2000 meters at my top speed (as long as the water is cool enough).

Bottom line, just take it easy, find your easy speed that doesn't tire you out and cruise through. You'll improve your speed and ability by default. Just don't put your feet down!

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Man Swims to Shore to Save Mates

As a fan of WWII movies, I always wondered about those guys I heard of who drowned within view of the shore when their ships were sunk. As a swimmer, I figured it would be a cinch to take care of things as long as the water was warm and calm and no one was hanging on. In my fantasy, I'd swim to shore, contact help and be the hero. Fortunately I've never gotten the opportunity to do that ... but here's a guy who's trying. Mitchell Williams, a deckhand on a fishing vessel off the coast of Australia swam 12-hours through shark-infested waters to shore to contact authorities after the ship on which he was working hit a reef and sunk.

As I write this, rescuers are searching for his lost mates. Here's the article I plucked this info from. Let's pray for the crew's rescue.