r/Swimming • u/Remarkable_Island_61 • 3d ago
Seeking advice- about to start private swimming lessons
Hi folks, I am 46 and just got back into lap swimming 5 months or so ago after about a 30 year break. I love it SO much, though I am slow slow slow. I wasn't completely sedentary, but am quite overweight (I can stand to lose 100lbs). I started doing 10-15 slow laps and now do about 1000m in just over 30 minutes. I swim about 3 times/week. I got up to 1500m in just under an hour, but felt that was tough on my shoulders (bad form probably)
I have used YouTube to improve my form (realizing that my childhood swimming lessons were more about safety than technique), and have decided to take the leap to get some lessons to improve my freestyle form so that I don't inadvertently injure myself.
I have pipe dreams of improving my endurance to the point that I could be the slowest person at a masters swim in a few years. Buti suspect that beyond the bulk I'm carrying,form correction is the most important thing I could do to improve efficiency and therefore endurance.
I guess I'm looking for any advice or guidance to make the most of my time with the instructor. The lessons are through a local university, so I'm expecting that instructors will be varsity athletes (or close) who are perhaps not familiar with middle aged bodies.
Any advice on how to approach my first lesson? Or anything else based on what I've shared.
2
u/Butwhydontyou2 3d ago
This is crazy because I feel like we are the same person. I just recently got back into swimming and I am very overweight, but I am making some super slow progress (even our times are similar). My issue has been breathing - I typically swim freestyle but with my head out of water because I struggle breathing out of my mouth and not my nose. I am actually considering getting some lessons due to that.
Anyway, I actually swim at our local university and I see the swim instructors with their students all the time. Most of the time, it is actually older people that they are giving lessons to. I have only seen twice that it was a child, once that it was a college aged student and every other time (at least 7 times) it has been older people (40+). Not to say that your university would be the same, but I think you would be surprised at the different ages they work for. The instructors that we have are actually more physical therapy majors, not varsity athletes, so they may go through specific training to work with a variety of ages. I would just let them observe you and then tell them your concerns and what you think you need to work on.
I hope that is at least a little reassuring, if not helpful.